Quotes from Daron Malakian

I ain't got no beef with Obama.

I'm not very happy. I'm frustrated with human beings. I'm the guy who just wants to smack people in the face and say, 'Wake up!'

In the Middle East in the summertime, to keep cool, a lot of people sleep on the rooftops.

A lot of times, I don't feel responsible for the songs myself. But that's my job or my place in life: to keep my search and catch the ideas before they pass me by.

Other kids would take their parents to the toy store and I'd take my mom to the record store.

There's no rule that says you have to make records constantly, like clockwork, to continue being who you are.

I'll be honest with you: politically, I have no issue with people, but my beef sometimes is with religion at the end of the day.

In Glendale, where I live, there's a street called Broadway. The bottoms of the light posts have swastikas on them.

I don't think when I'm doing music. Things just happen. I've even taken my clothes off while performing. But then I'm so shy that I can't even take my clothes off in the dressing room, even though it's just the other guys in the band in here with me. It's really weird.

Whatever I write has to evolve around my taste in music at that moment, because that always changes.

A lot of MTV's programming is hip-hop based, and the messages are usually all about bling bling. A lot of hip-hop artists sing about stuff that's more important, but they seldom get heard. The ones who get heard are the ones saying, 'Think about yourself. Make your money. It's all you. Everybody have a good time and party.'

I don't understand some of the music I hear on MTV or the radio, because they don't mention the times we live in. They have nothing to do with nothing.

I don't get it when people complain that baseball games are too long.

You can't just release double albums and expect people to sit there and devote their time to it.

But love is just as important as politics to me. They both exist in the world, you know? And if you dont reflect the entire world around you, then youre leaving something out.

I would never cancel a tour unless I had real reasons and personal things that require my undivided attention.

As a musician, I don't think I'm the greatest guitar player. I'm a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm.

If I was money-motivated, I wouldn't have joined a rock band with three other Armenian guys.

I was always searching for something bigger, faster and better, and Slayer came up with that.

I am depressed sometimes, but it's not what keeps me at home or focused on work.

I guess you'd say I'm a gearhead. It's not just guitars; I have five or six drum sets, a bunch of keyboards... It's like Guitar Center exploded, and all the cool stuff dropped in my backyard. I'm a really lucky guy, I have to admit.

In 'Kill Rock n' Roll,' the choruses came about at the moment I was listening to a lot of the Supremes, and if you listen to that part, you can hear a melody and a harmony there that's not too far away from what the Supremes would probably be doing, but there's heavy guitars in the back.

I'll always be a member of System of a Down. That will never change.

Back in the day, when the emperor or the king or whatever waged war, they went to war, too. But that's been lost in time.