Online Exclusive: Tour Talk

Daron Malakian of System of a Down

Touring with: Ozzfest 2006
Tour starts: June 29th in Auburn, WA

When you first heard about that opportunity, to headline and do it without Ozzy ? how did that sound? was that intimidating? Or exciting? Or what?

Well, it was very intimidating. But we've always had a good time on that tour. I feel like it's the most well-organized. The bands all get on on-time. Sharon really runs a tight shift and I like that because everything's smooth. It's not like everytime we're going on at a different time. And that's also cool for a lot of the younger bands. I've seen certain situations in other tours where second stage bands have no idea when they're playing. It kinda works out for everybody. When we were just starting out it was just a really fun tour for us to be on from the get-go, and it's also been a big part of helping our band to get to where it is. So when they asked us it was kinda like (1) excitement, and (2) kinda return them the favor by doing the tour for them, you know?

I wonder how you're gong to set it all back and start doing a set list, or if there's stuff you're going to focus on? Have you thought about that yet?

We kinda like to mix it up. We don't like to completely alienate our old songs. So we'll always bring in some of those old songs but we like to play some of the stuff off the new record, too. We're gonna mix it up. It's not gonna be strictly stuff off Mezmerize and Hypnotize. I think it's gonna be pretty broad, through all our records. We'll probably play a few songs off each record.

It's cool. You meet new people, some guys from new bands. It's like a long summer-camp. I've always called it that. I'm sure other people have, too, because it really feels like a summer camp type of thing.

Next Tour Talk: David Crosby of CSNY