Legendary producer Rick Rubin has revealed that he laughed the entire time when he first saw System Of A Down onstage.
Rubin, who co-produced every System album from 1998 to 2005, makes the admission in a new interview with Rick Beato.
Explaining what first drew him to the band, who hadn’t even released a debut album at the time, Rubin says, “I like weird things. I like being surprised, I like hearing something I haven’t heard before, I like being challenged by music. When something can do that and I like it – instead of just being annoyed or [hating] it, which can happen when something isn’t for you – I wanted to nurture it.”
He continues: “With System Of A Down, I don’t think I thought, ‘This is gonna be popular.’ With none of the artists I work with do I think, ‘This is gonna be popular.’ It wouldn’t be realistic.”
Rubin then zeroes in on the first time he caught System live, saying that the genre mixture the band brought to the table, playing metal with nods towards Armenian folk music, was so out there it cracked him up.
“If you saw System Of A Down when I saw System Of A Down, playing at [Hollywood nightclub] The Viper Room with 200 people going crazy, and them doing these Armenian folk dances and playing heavy metal… I laughed the whole show,” the producer says. “It was ridiculous! But I loved it. But any thoughts of, ‘This could be big,’ you can’t have that thought. It would be insane.”
Rubin also explains the reactions others had to System Of A Down upon hearing their songs. He says that, upon playing the band’s signature track Chop Suey! to Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello, the guitarist responded, “That’s crazy person’s music!”
The producer adds that major L.A. radio station KROQ initially refused to play System’s songs, until listeners forced their hand. “I remember when we put out the first System Of A Down album, the programme director at KROQ, which was the premiere station that would play that kind of music in the world, said, ‘We will never play this band on our station. Never.’ A year later, [System were] the number-one requested group on the station.”
System Of A Down released their last albums, Mezmerize and Hypnotize, in 2005. The band are still active but haven’t put out a new record since then and haven’t toured since 2021. Singer Serj Tankian recently released his memoir, Down With The System.
