SYSTEM OF A DOWN Covers DIRE STRAITS' 'Sultans Of Swing' At NOVA ROCK; Video Available

June 16, 2011

Fan-filmed video footage of SYSTEM OF A DOWN performing a cover version of DIRE STRAITS' "Sultans Of Swing" at this year's edition of the Nova Rock festival on June 13, 2011 on the Pannonia Fields in Burgenland, the easternmost federal state of Austria (near Nickelsdorf and the Hungarian and Slovak borders) can be viewed below. Also available are a couple of other clips of the concert.

According to The Pulse Of Radio, SYSTEM OF A DOWN drummer John Dolmayan recently broke the silence around the band's reunion tour, which kicked off on May 10 in Edmonton, Canada. Speaking with Straight.com, Dolmayan said about the band's five-year hiatus, "I personally don't like breaks I like to continue playing. But it was nice to go off and be John Dolmayan, as opposed to John from SYSTEM, for a while. I think everybody had similar feelings."

The drummer explained that a desire to pull off the road for a while and reconnect with their lives is what led SYSTEM to take an extended vacation from each other, saying, "When you're on the road and in the studio all the time, it's kind of like traveling at light speed. When you come back, it's like 20 years have passed by, and you're only one or two hours older . . . You're living a nomadic life, and you lose touch with people because they have grown away from you. People get older, get married, die life is still going on."

Dolmayan admitted that he was lobbying to end the hiatus for the last three years, saying, "There's no real personality in the band that can be pushed to do anything that they don't want to. We are four very strong individuals."

But Dolmayan also said that the occasional clash of those four strong personalities led to the break as well, explaining, "We all have our idiosyncrasies and things that irritate the shit out of each other. Some of [singer] Serj's [Tankian] stuff irritates me, and I'm sure some of my stuff irritates the shit out of him. That's natural. You're in a relationship when you're in a band . . . But look at us we've been together longer than most marriages last."

"And a band is a marriage," Dolmayan continued, "except that you don't have one headache, you have three to four headaches, and, on top of that, everyone having other people that influence each member. It's almost like a congress, there are so many people involved. Ultimately, though, we make the decisions because we are the band. Our relationships are all intact, and we always have a great time together. The other day, it took us 20 minutes to start a rehearsal because we were all too busy laughing. I don't even remember what was so funny, but that's a sign that we don't take things too seriously. We like to just get up there and play."

SYSTEM's last two albums, "Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize", were released in 2005. The band has not indicated whether it will work on new studio material or not after this tour is completed.

Find more on
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).