How it all started...
Los Angles, 1993. Serj Tankian, who's running his own successful software business. Serj meets a young guitarist in the rehearsal studio named Daron Malakian. Serj and Daron were currently in separate bands, but soon noticed they had things in common, such as an Armenian background. Eventually the two form a band together, calling themselves 'Soil'. They start chumming around with an old school acquaintance of theirs, Shavo Odadjian. Shavo's a huge Kiss fan who is working doing wire transfers at a bank and playing guitar and bass in another local band. Shavo falls in love with Soil and is eventually asked to manage, the band. He happily accepts. Andranik "Andy" Khatchadurian was the drummer at the time. By 1995, Soil makes some line up changes, taking Shavo off the management stint and adding him to the band as a permanent bassist, some creative differences between the unit arose, and John Dolmayan replaced Andy on drums. Soil was now known as 'System Of A Down', and in 3 years literally took the L.A. club scene by storm.

What's in a name…
The most-asked question. "It came from a poem our guitarist, Daron, had written, called 'Victims of a Down,'" explains Serj. "He brought it to us, and 'System' was chosen as a better, stronger word, and it makes it into a 'whole,' instead of the people in particular, it's the society." Ultimately, Serj advises people to "Take your own meaning out of our name. It means different things to different people. That's the beauty of it. It's like putting art up on a wall, and going, 'what do you think of it?' It's many different things, on a personal, a political level. We leave it open to interpretation."

Daron also adds, "Plus, now our album will be under the 'S' section, next to Slayer!"

Getting signed...
Shavo remembers, "Our first show was at the Roxy in Hollywood. The promoter gave us a bunch of pre-sale tickets and we ended up selling double the amount. Then, we opened for bands like Manhole, Human Waste Project and Engines Of Aggression and started to get a lot of local write-ups and that's how the buzz started."
System of a Down played a slew of live performances, never failing to captivate an audience. Word spread about this unsigned band like wild fire, with many magazines writing stories.
"We had a show at the Viper Room (in Hollywood) and Guy Oseary (from Maverick Records) brought his friend, (producer/American Recordings head) Rick Rubin. "I saw him from the stage," says Shavo, "and he seemed pretty much into it. Later, he told us he was blown away, which blew US away, being '80s kids who loved all the rap stuff he came out with. My 'License To Ill' record from the Beastie Boys....I wore it out... and Public Enemy… everything Rick's done is really incredible." There were several labels at that show who had been checking us out for a while but never really made us an offer; but as soon as Rick came into the picture, all the labels started coming to us with offers. The thing about Rick, even when we had doubts about signing with American, he still came to our shows as a fan; in fact, he even came to our show in NY (at the CMJ convention) when we were falsely labeled as Universal/Cherry recording artists. Rick really believed in us and seemed to have a special interest in our music." Obviously, Rubin signed the band to his label and produced the band's self titled debut album himself, enlisting a little help from Silvia Massey(Tool) in 1997 through American Recordings.