System Of A Down guitarist/vocalist Daron Malakian made a plea for unity throughout his band’s headlining set on the 2026 ‘Sick New World‘ competition in Las Vegas, NV over the weekend. Malakian took to social media immediately, April twenty seventh, to share the beneath footage from that present. Taking a bonus of a lull within the set, Malakian identified that regardless of his personal group’s well-documented dichotomy of political views, they’re able to operate by placing friendship and brotherhood first.
Malakian‘s deal with to the viewers learn as follows [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“Let me let you know one thing. System Of A Down is just not a cult.
System Of A Down is a band, with 4 members. 4 members who’re good individuals, who’ve completely different beliefs about various things, completely different options about advanced issues.
Cease letting the media divide you.
Cease letting the federal government divide you.
If we could be on stage collectively and have completely different ideas and completely different beliefs, you could be collectively too. For these of you who disagree with me, pull the tapeworm out of your ass.”
As you’d count on from his closing assertion, the band then dove into “Needles” off of their 6x multi-platinum sophomore album “Toxicity“. In recent times, System Of A Down have discovered themselves repeatedly pulled into the continuing tradition wars due to the contradicting political views held by their members.
Vocalist Serj Tankian‘s long-championed activism for causes usually aligned with the left has influenced quite a few works from the group, as nicely his extracurricular actions. These controversial beliefs nonetheless have usually straight clashed with drummer John Dolmayan‘s divisive right-wing stances, together with publicly backing U.S. President Donald J. Trump.
Whereas the differing political views discovered throughout the band have created controversy amongst System Of A Down’s fanbase, up to now, these opposing colleges of thought even led to tensions between members of the band themselves.
In what was maybe a symptom of the elevated weaponization of politics in fashionable instances, Malakian himself even confronted vital on-line criticism within the wake of being seen as being too impartial along with his personal political messaging along with his Scars On Broadway mission final yr.
