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System of a down is to awesome to describe so let me describe it lol.

System of a Down will infect you. The four band members who live in Los Angeles developed their melodious but also hard rock music style since the beginning of the nineties. System of a Down has international roots and is influenced by manifold types of music. They are affected by Armenian folklore and tribal rhythms, hip hop and gothic. Parole punk cannot describe the whole spectrum which likewise includes emotional harmony-laden melodies. So you can call System of a Down a crossover band that ventures and discovers new ways of making fabulous music. Nevertheless they know how to entertain their numerous fans around the world.

System of a Down results from an accidental event. In 1993 vocalist Serj Tankian meets guitarist Daron Malakian in a studio during recording sessions of their different bands. They realize that they have similar musical ideas and get along very well. As a result they found the band Soil. In Hollywood Tankian and Malakian visit an armenian private school. Shavo Odadjian, a schoolfellow who spends a lot of time hanging around with Soil, is asked to become the manager of the band. As he decides to play bass full time, he becomes a proper band member. John Dolmayan is chosen as drummer just before their breakthrough - enabled by Rick Rubin - took place. A friend of producer Rubin, named Oseary from Maverick Records, took him along to the Viper Room club in Hollywood where Soil perform. Rick Rubin, who produced groups like Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Danzig, Johnny Cash and the Beastie Boys, is so enthusiastic about the music that he gets them a record contract at American Recordings and produces the first album.

After three years touring as supporters of headliner Slayer and participating in the OzzFest tour, they release the second album "Toxicity" in August 2001. This opus will arrest the attention they deserve across the world and throughout all music genres.

Not long ago, accepted sonic belief held that rock music, certainly hard rock music, had been stretched, manipulated and tinkered with to its logical end. With no new forms looming, the genre would slip into malaise and the kids would look elsewhere for an outlet. Enter Los Angeles quartet System of a Down, who, over seven years and two albums have revived and revitalized heavy music with their manic brand of post-everything hardcore. Millions of records on, they charge into the new century as living proof that for those brave enough to snub convention, greatness follows.

“I think we're ahead of the game,” says guitarist/songwriter Daron Malakian. “I just feel like this band will be more respected ten years from now when people finally figure out what we’re really doing.”

Malakian, singer Serj Tankian, bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan, bonded quickly as friends but also shared Armenian ancestry and mutual disdain for perceived limitations. Their disparate tastes – Jaco Pastorious, Slayer, The Beatles, Faith No More, traditional Armenian folk music – assured from the onset that this would be a band less ordinary.

Malakian says,“We started this band to show people, ‘Look, not everything has been done before.’”

Tankian says, “Humans have been on the earth for millions of years, yet we don’t believe man began thinking until he started building walls. And what good have these walls ever done us?”

System’s 1998 self-titled debut, produced by bearded board whiz Rick Rubin (Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Public Enemy), was an achievement in pastiche overdrive, a dark carnival of moods punctuated by breakneck tempo shifts and progressive structures. That year, radios rung to the visceral fury of “Sugar” and the spooky tension of “Spiders,” each a fiery baptism for listeners weaned on predictability and rote rhyme schemes.

Serj favors abstract, existential poetry, peppered with politics and personal religion. He says, “No one ultimately knows what they’re saying anyway. Are we really making art? Art doesn’t belong to us. It doesn’t belong to people, it belongs to the universe. It comes FROM the universe. It comes THROUGH us. When I write something, I think I know what I’m saying, but I never pretend to know the full meaning of the words.”

The singer’s quaking wails were the perfect compliment to Daron’s schizoid noodling, Shavo’s inventive lines and John’s potent jazz-c**-thrash rumble. Their first salvo found an instant cult and was heralded as a revolutionary diamond in the homogenous crush of Nü Metal…a label that clearly didn’t (and still doesn’t) fit this foursome.

John says, “I don’t think we sound like anybody else. I consider us System of a Down.”

Shavo says, “You can compare us to whoever you want. I don’t care. Comparisons and labels have no effect on this band. Fact is fact: We are who we are and they are who they are.”

Two years of hard touring followed (OzzFest et al) before the band re-immersed themselves in the studio in late 2000. With Rubin again at the helm, they set about crafting a sprawling blitzkrieg of sounds, one that invited an even wider array of influence and experimentation to the table. Melodies expanded. Riffage went mad. Structure and timing were eviscerated. Deeper lyrical levels were mined and the resulting gems were strewn onto thrashing anthems and careening frenzies of fuzz.

Rubin says, “They really set out to reinvent themselves, to be bigger and better than they were last time. I think they're very proud of their first album and all the touring they did. They wanted to grow from those experiences and expand. They really wanted to write lots and lots of songs and reach in all different directions.”

In August of 2001, System of a Down emerged with their second album, “Toxicity.” As critics scoured their thesauri for ample superlatives, radio and MTV heavily rotated the first single, a harmony-drenched slab of whiplash rock called “Chop Suey.” With the cult of System exploding nationwide, the foursome took to the road where manic throngs of Systemites old and new awaited.

In May of 2002, with the title track from Toxicity in heavy rotation and a third single, “Aerials” fast gaining steam, System accepted the coveted headlining slot on the annual OzzFest circus. The thinking man’s metal troupe aim to give Ozzy’s mobile headbangathon an intellectual facelift.

Shavo says, “It’s time for the bands these kids are listening to to deliver something deeper than just ‘let’s party.’”

Toxicity has now sold 4 million albums worldwide (it's certified 2 x Platinum in Australia). In November 2002, System of a Down released an album of previously unreleased tracks. Steal This Album was a collection of original tracks from the System vaults, going back as far as the band's inception, and as recent as the 2001 Toxicity sessions. Steal This Album went on to sell nearly 2 millions albums (including Platinum sales in Australia).

Three years after the initial triumph of Toxicity, System of a Down find themselves in an elite class of rock acts who've managed commercial hugeness with dignity in spades and nary a compromise on their resume. They've engendered a sound transcending trends or labels, a propulsive hybrid destined to flourish in any radio climate from here to forever. What sonic twists await us only they know, but we can rest assured knowing that System's next offering, like those that have proceeded, will be born from a primal need to evade classification while emoting loudly.

System of a Down are currently in the studio working on their new album.

System of a down are a very good band with their quite random songs like kill rock and roll which is suppositly about a rabbit Darrren ran over and he called it rock and roll and some of their songs have hidden meanings like holy mountains.

Oh, funny band. Hehe, at my friend's last party, we blasted up some of their songs.
Love that Chop Suey.

I dont think many people like it because of the suicidal content in it becaus emy friend(who is a big fan of the band) hates the song for that reason.

They suck live

They rock! Chop Suey is my fave song!!!!!

I must disagree. They are amazing live. Yes, in technical aspects, they don't play the songs exactly as they are heard on the albums, but I hate bands who do that. Why pay 50 bucks to go to a concert to hear what you have on your CDs at home? They have great Audience involvement, They always put on a great show. I've seen them live a few times myself, Including at Ozzfest this year. Sweetness ^^