Serj Tankian: a new EP from the System Of A Down frontman is out

Serj Tankianthe frontman of System of a Downwill publish “Foundations”, a new solo EP, in September and will contain a song written for the band but never released before.

Speaking to Metal Hammer while promoting his upcoming autobiography “Down With The System”out May 14, via Headline, the Armenian-born singer explained that the concept behind the record came from the deep dive he took into his musical journey while writing what he calls his “Accidentally Hatched Philosophical Memoir.”

“It's five songs,” he reveals. “We just shot five videos last week with members of the FCC, my solo backing band since 2007, which has been really fun and we're releasing it in September. We will begin to leak material as early as next month.”

“The reason I'm publishing this is that the archival research of writing a book had me looking at songs from different time periods. So one of the songs is from the early days of System, for example, which I never released, which I had never worked on with the band. A couple of songs date back to my solo recording period in early 2007, but they didn't fit on the record (“Elect The Dead,” released October 2007).

“It's an interesting retrospective of rock music in different times that I've never published and it's called “Foundations“Basically because it's the foundation of my musical life,” he continues. “They're very interesting songs, very different from each other: one is really heavy, the other is really progressive, there's just different elements in each of them . But I think they work together.”

THE System of a Down they were co-headliners of the second edition of the festival Sick New World in Las Vegas last night, April 27th. The band played a 27-song set, which included their first performances since 2015's “CUBERT” (from his 1998 debut album) and “Bubbles” (from 2002’s “Steal This Album!”). The band also co-headlined the festival in its debut year, 2023.

The quartet will play their second show of 2024 as co-headliners at a one-off event with Deftones at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California on August 17.