Shavo Odadjian has been waiting nearly 20 years to release an album. More specifically, he’s been waiting nearly 20 years to release a System Of A Down album. But, with his main band in a state of creative exile – although they still play shows on a semi-regular basis – Shavo finally decided enough was enough and assembled his own project: Seven Hours After Violet.
“It just felt so good to make heavy music again,” he admits, speaking to Hammer from his home in LA. “I like waking up every day and knowing I’ve got a place to create music again. People are like, ‘Why don’t you just get together with System?’ If I had it my way, I’d just get together with the guys. But the band isn’t working right now, so do you want me to just sit around on my own and just wait?”
The seeds for Seven Hours After Violet were sown in 2022, when Shavo met producer and guitarist Morgoth at a house party. Bonding over their love of music, they decided to meet up again and jam. The pair soon realised their songs were more than just a mere fuckaround.
“They got good,” Shavo admits with a grin. “We were actually gonna sell the songs to other artists at first, but that’s actually pretty difficult because it always ends up sounding like System – that’s just my vibe, you know?”
Sure enough, the songs on Seven Hours After Violet’s self-titled debut album bear the hallmarks of Shavo’s SOAD connection. From the bouncing riff of Alive to the soaring, Armenian-folk inflected melodies of Radiance, there’s a direct link to his past. But there’s also a force and heaviness to the likes of Paradise, Go! and Abandon that colours the band in decidedly contemporary hues. A big part of that comes down to vocalist Taylor Barber, recruited after Morgoth showed Taylor’s deathcore group, Left To Suffer, to Shavo.
“At first I was like, ‘Ah, this guy can only do heavy’, but it was like, ‘Nope!’ His range is incredible,” enthuses Shavo. “We flew him in from Atlanta, where he lived at the time, and then Morgoth brought in Alejandro [Aranda, guitarist/vocals]. I didn’t know him – I don’t watch American Idol [Alejandro was a runner-up on the show in 2019] – so I was expecting some preppy guy covering songs in the style of somebody else. Then he showed me who he was online and it was like, ‘I know this kid! I’ve seen him pop up a bunch of times.’ We’ve got two singers – I love that, I love the harmonies – and we got the whole thing recorded in two weeks.”
Although the album came together quickly, it evolved immensely as Shavo and Morgoth discussed ideas. An early plan to get different vocalists to sing on each track – “Maybe Serj [Tankian], maybe some other guys,” Shavo says nonchalantly – was quashed when the pair realised this was a project with legs that could tour.
In addition, Shavo says working with younger musicians has reinvigorated his interest in modern metal.
“Morgoth and I send playlists to each other and it’s like, ‘I don’t like this pop punk, but this deathcore is the shit!’” he laughs. “I like Lorna Shore – they are dope and do some crazy things. The first time I heard them, all those animal noises, it made me feel a bit uncomfortable, like, ‘What are they doing?’ Then I saw them at Sick New World and it was like, ‘I get it!’”
While Seven Hours After Violet is the heaviest thing Shavo has lent his skills to, there’s always been an element of extremity to his music. “My inspiration was Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Suffocation, Malevolent Creation…” he says. “Obituary was the one that really got me – Slowly We Rot and Cause Of Death… Oh man. You can kinda hear that in System too – it’s in those bouncy riffs.”
Shavo expects Seven Hours After Violet will spend much of 2025 touring, but his enthusiasm means a follow-up album might come sooner rather than later, particularly given some of the songs he and Morgoth worked on didn’t make it to the debut – including their first composition together, Thrash God.
“It’s the heaviest song we wrote!” he admits with a cackle. “We have six or seven songs that we’re saving for the second record. There’s another song called Breakdown, because it has an insane breakdown! Ha ha! I know a lot of kids love them now, but I’ve loved them since the days of thrash – that middle bit of Angel Of Death, Raining Blood, Dead Embryonic Cells… We need those little moments, y’know?”
Shavo adds that the idea of featured artists might return for their second outing, but he warns not to count chickens just yet. “The second album is a good place for them,” he muses. “We kinda know who we want to do what. When it was going to be all features, I was going to work with Jonathan Davis and told somebody that. Next thing I know, that news is everywhere and then the record changed so we never actually used it!
He did a verse on Paradise and it sounded fucking great. But it didn’t make sense [for this record]. So we wanted to make sure when we do use Jonathan, it’ll be the absolute fucking best.”
Seven Hours After Violet is out now via Sumerian. The band play Download Festival in June.
