It's an amazing day here on the Rock Feed Podcast. We have a guest here that all of you are going to know and love. We've got Shavo from System of a Down and his new band, Seven Hours After Violet. The new song is out now. I've got it linked in the description and you're going to want to hear this. Just sign to Samarion, Paradise is the name of the track. You've got some heavy hitters on this. But first of all, Shavo, thank you for being here and just tell me what you want the fans to know.
About this brand new music. Well, thanks for having me, bro. I appreciate you. I've been listening to you. Cool head man. Always been supportive. Man, this record, like I said, it started a year and a half ago. The band doesn't write a lot. System of a Down together. I've just been holding a lot in. I met Morgoth at a party and at a 22 red party, actually, by my brand.
Yeah. We decided to make music together. We got in the studio. First song was done and it was cool. We didn't have singers or nothing. We got back together like a week later. We did another song. He had the idea. He was like, why don't we do a Shavo record? I had never thought of that doing a heavy Shavo record.
Because until now, I've always any kind of solo stuff I've done or anything on the side I've done, I've tried to go against the grain and not do anything heavy. Heavy, but not heavy, heavy the way this out. But then I said to myself, I said, why am I not going with what I'm known for and what I'm good at? This is coming out of me like water. I'm not trying. It's just happening.
So we just kept doing it, bro, and it became this crazy thing. And that's how it became a band. So this is like a passion thing for me. You know, this is kind of like me finally making heavy music again. This shit. I love the most. Shit that comes out of me the best. And here it is. And then I got really cool people involved. Morgoth and I were in a studio for about a year. Everything was written in the studio.
So I had like, okay, I have about a hundred riffs plus riffs in my phone that I've written throughout the last couple of years for a system. Whenever we do get together and do that, you know, it's ready. And I thought I'd be using those riffs, but I just created new shit. It just like it just happened in the studio. Like everything on the record, nothing is from before. It's all brand new right then and there. It's just made right then and there. So it's off the cuff.
The writing sessions were really fun because it was like an artistic creative release where nothing. There was no like rules. I didn't have to impress anyone. I just kind of had to impress myself. You rick said something to me. Long time ago with Ruben that stuck to me. And it's I think it stuck to all of us. He said, you got to write for yourself. Never look at the audience. Never care what the audience might think.
Because if you love it, then release it. That's success for you. So I kind of did that. I wasn't thinking about if people will like it or not. I just kind of if I loved it or if more about love that we both he's a great producer by the way. The kid is so fucking talented. It was here's awesome. You know what I mean? And he like he, him and I getting together kind of did this. You know what I mean? I how would you meet him? How did you and more gov connect?
Well, I had a party on 2222 for 22 ready. It was like two day, you know. And I did interview that day on K-Rock with Kevin Keeney. And I invited him to the party. And he asked me if I can bring a friend. I said sure. I brought a friend and then he brought more. And that day we exchanged numbers. Like, twos are my lucky number. But I'm telling you twos of always. They followed me everywhere. So the day of the two is where it's like February 22, 2022. I meet more gov.
And then he's like, let's make music together. I'm like, let's do it bro. I fucking haven't done this for a while. Especially heavy shit. And I went to his house and we played me a couple of beats and I rift over him. And then we took the riffs and kind of arranged the track. I was like, fuck this is really cool. I forgot that how fun this was, you know. And we just kept on doing it bro. And then at some point when he said,
let's do a record, I moved him to my studio in North Hollywood. And we just went there every three, four times a week and just kind of worked together. Just him and I. And we documented the whole thing. We have a lot of it on video of like, each song being made is kind of, you know, track that's happened. You know, like, we have a video. I was loved to see that. Are you going to release that? One of his roommates, he's amazing. He just came through and filmed everything. He's a video I go for.
Zach, you know, he's done a lot of cool shit. He's done stuff for left to suffer and a bunch of other bands. He's awesome. So yeah, man, a great team was formed. And then like I said, we needed one. So the original idea was going to be that we were going to make all this music instrumental. And then we were going to have guest vocalists on each track, kind of like a DJ calendar of metal, you know.
Hell yeah, dude. I love the analogy. Right. Yeah. But that's what it was going to be like, you know, with search vocals in here, you know, that shit. Where are the Corey vocals? What does he think about this? I'm doing the Corey Taylor meme on rock feet. I got to love it, baby. I think one right anyways. I love like everybody's one of my. Yeah. What is it? Corey rolls. Great guy. Well, they're good people. Anyways, bro. So once we had like five, six tracks, I was like,
fuck, this is great on tour. You know, why would we not take this on on the road? This should be a band because if all these guest vocalists, you won't be able to take them on the road. And it's kind of like a project that if you get another singer to do their parts, it'd be cool, but it wouldn't be it, you know. So that's when we said, let's make it a band. Let's make it a band. And then we did about 16 tracks. And we started looking around.
We got Josh Johnson, fucking guy rips from Winds of Plague. Amazing guy. Amazing drummer. And then we're looking for the singer. You know, we try to few people out. People weren't good. There's a lot of good fucking vocalists out there, but no one fit the mold, you know, because there's so many diverse things going on in this in the in the music. It's like a roller coaster of music, you know, you'll hear. It goes from the heaviest to the most melodic shit and like, like a split second, you know.
So we needed someone that could be heavy and be able to sing. And then I guess Morgoth was working with left to suffer doing their new record. That's about to drop. And he's like, bro, I found a guy that can fucking rip this. And I'm like, please bring him to me. So we gave him a track. And he sent these vocals that tripped me out. I was like, wow, dude, that was singing in falsetto. And then that's core shit. Isn't that a crazy, so dynamic. That's core. You know what I mean?
I really like that shit. People think I'm like system system only said, no, but I like I like music, but I like all genres of shit, you know, especially heavy music. So I listen to all the new shit, you know. And with Morgoth, I got to learn about more new heavy shit. You know, so I started really like grinding down bands and listening to the new guys, you know, the young and fucking some good bands out there, you know. And who are some of those up and coming bands when you hear them?
You're like, oh, that's sick. You did mention slaughter to prevail a little bit. Yeah, I love fucking, I like horror with the nines. Have you heard those guys? Those are, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a lot of bands, but I don't want to mention everybody right now. But I do love left to stuff for because they just fucking rip it. There's a lot of new bands, but I don't want to miss anyone. I love all the spirit boxes and all that. I mean, they do what they do really well.
You know what I mean? A Lorna Shores fucking ripping. Anyways, without giving everybody fucking credit. We decided, so I sent him that track and he sent me some vocals back and it was fucking crazy. And you know, he went from Roars to fucking Angelic singing. And so we started having conversations. You know, he lives in Atlanta and he's got left to suffer. So we had to kind of work that out so he can spend time with us too. And you know, he
does chore a lot, but he was going to take a break. So it's a perfect, let's go. And I kind of go on my gut for the whole, all the decisions we made on this record and this band has gone with my gut and I felt good about him and, you know, and I thought it was the way to go. You know, and then Alejandro came through. So I wanted to lead guitar player because, you know, a more of a this playing the rhythm. And I wanted someone to have a thicker sound on stage.
And again, Morgan said, you'd have to work with this kid. I'm like, who bro? Who else are you going to bring my way, right? Won't. So you told me about American Idol. I was kind of like American Idol, you know, on my thing right now, you know, but once I met him, I was like, fuck, this kid is amazing. Like, he's a virtue also. Virtue also. And you know, he's been playing for like eight, nine years only.
He's like, he's just like, he's just like, he just picked up and never had lessons and just went crazy. And the guy plays like he's been playing for 30 years. I'm not joking. He's not even 30 years old. So see, that's one of those things where I'm like, maybe there was a past life because when I see people who can pick up things and just catch up so fast, it's like muscle memory for them. I'm like,
how did you get that good? Because if you've seen him and I strongly recommend y'all at home, check him out. He's like, you watch him and then you go, well, there's no need for me to learn because, and the fact that he did it in such a short amount of time is ridiculous. You know, and he's just getting better and better, but his vocals too. He saw like an angel. And so, yeah, he played and so we did this little three week session at Morigal's House of Vocals. And I flew in Taylor.
And then I brought Alejandro in and that's when we got to know each other. And we just three weeks, two and a half weeks of just constant music and it felt really good at first. I had a lot of vocal ideas like, because I know I wrote most of it and retracted and all that stuff and riff wise, you know, and arrangement. And then when they came in, I didn't know how it was going to work, but they just fucking molded it into it. And they came up with top lines and hooks and I was just
like, okay, I'm going to lay back. This is becoming a bad and I love that because I've always been a collaborator. I'm not like an ego guy where it's like me, my project, me, shovel. They actually wanted to call it a shovel. And I was like, I can't be like in this band. And you know, what if we wanted to have a backdrop in the backdrops going to say, shovel bro, like that's not that's not what I want, you know, and I can see both sides of that though. I get, I get both sides because
you're a brand in and of yourself as well. I am, but at it, I wanted your style, not my style, not my style. I wanted to be bigger than me. I kind of want to, I like the collaboration aspect. Totally. And seven after an hour after Violet is a great name too. I would immediately, you remember it, you know, it's a cool name. It's mysterious and it like kills two birds with one stone because the acronym is sharp, you know, yeah. So it works very smart. You know, I was like,
let's do it that way. You know, let's have a name, a cool name, and it's a mysterious name. And it has a lot of definitions, you know, which I really like because no one knows who violates or what violates. It could be a color. It could be a girl. It could be a thing. You know what I mean? And so I have a lot of cool future ideas of things to do with that name too. So this isn't just a
band, you know, I feel like we just started a new brand and it's going to be pretty cool. There's a lot of cool things that will come in the future that are interesting and fun to watch and fun to listen to it. So fun to read. So yeah, we got a lot ideas, bro. We got a lot of cool things coming up and I feel like it's we're going to add a lot to the world. All right. And hearing this song
as well, which is out everywhere now, strongly recommend y'all check this out. It blew me away in terms of just how heavy it was because I actually thought I, I, you know, stereotyped in my own mind. I'm like, I could see it's going to be maybe similar. I knew it was going to be great because I knew the musicians you have on board. I sincerely knew that. But I'm like, well, I think it's going to be
more rock oriented and I'm sure it is at parts and there's a lot of singing as well. But the brutality on this, I think you're going to be very surprised and also, Shaba, I want to say, what can you share you recently signed a record deal as well for this? I'm sure there are a lot of people that we're trying to attract you, you know, talk about that and kind of the live show as well because you confirmed so far mayhem fest. Yeah, that would be crazy. We're doing a few things. So
label wise, bro, I kind of did everything on my own from from day one. Yeah, I just did everything made the record on my own and but I wanted, I wanted a partnership. So I started my own label, 1336 records and then I signed a partnership with Sumerian. I met Ash, I mean, I met a bunch of people but I met Ash and he seemed really into the record, you know, and it's like I can tell if
someone was just saying that because I've been doing this for 30 fucking years. So it's like, I've had people blow smoke up my ass and I've read and I can see passion and I could see reality and, you know, transparency. He seemed really into it, man, because he was so into it, I was like, I'm going to partner with this guy because he seems really into it. And you want someone to be
just as into it as you are. That's the number one thing. It's not about how much money they give you, it's not about the, it's about how involved they are in their in their tastes that if it works, it's a partnership. Remember that, you know, it's not just like, well, do what you say. It's not going to be like that. That's why I had to do an imprint. He trusted me. I trusted him. And so we made a deal. Whatever work I didn't want too much. I don't need too much. I just want
support period. You got a good track record too. I mean, he does. He's in the world that I want to be. That I'm in. You know, he's in the younger world, which is perfect because there's nothing old about this record. Very modern sound. Modern, very today. More gods production as well. I mean, you're writing and more gods productions. He's like one of the best producers in the game. And I mean, that's sincerely agree. Agreed. Agreed. He really is. Like, and, you know, when I met
him, he was doing a lot of hip-hop stuff. He's moved a lot. Of course, he's not a lot of rock stuff, and now he's just like really falling into his space. I mean, the guy with music machine, bro, like he's got a factory, a music factory. Like, we were done with the record. And now I have to push this record. And he hits me up every other day. He's like, let's get in and make more music. I'm like, bro, let me. He's just because we can, bro. The second we get in, we're like writing,
you know, because like I said, he plays a beat and I start riffing and it just happening. It just, he opens those doors for me. I think I opened those doors for him. We really worked well together. I feel like I met not only a good friend, but a really good musical partner, songwriting partner, you know, which is something that I needed. You know, I needed in my life, someone that I could release music with and release artistic shit with, you know, because I can't
sit still, bro. I need to always make music. I have to create, you know, totally. And I got to say, I know I'm familiar with your live show with System. Just saw you at Sick New World. And how insane was that? Bro, when you go like extended periods of time not being on stage, do you get a little anxious before you jump up? Because you were, dude, you were so in the zone up there. You were having a blast. That was just an amazing show. One of my favorite shows I've ever been to.
Thank you, brother. Thank you. Yeah, bro. I mean, I live on stage. I love it. It's a shame we don't do more, but I, you know, it takes forward to rock, you know? So instead of, you know, pushing each other around and wanting more of this, just I said, let's do what we can and what we all are comfortable with. Yes. To answer your question, I'm not anxious, but I'm very excited. Anxious maybe, you know, good way. No, like you're knowing. One of that, no, like, oh,
no, you know, bad things might happen. It's just like, I can't wait to get out. Yes. It's one of those things. And then once I'm out there, it's like the world disappears of anything else besides what I'm doing at the moment. And it's just like, it's feel it's better than any drug I've done. It's better than any other shit. It's like that hour and a half thought that two hours were up there is its own thing. And I can't really describe it. But, you know, I've done a lot of shit in my
life. And this is better than anything else. You know what I mean? It's like pure energy and pure love. And I love it every time we do it. And I never take it for granted. I'm very grateful to be in this position of being able to do it again. You know, so I feel like I want to take that energy and move it to seven hours as well. I still systems my fucking, that's my ban. I love system. I love the guys where we're still together. We still love each other. Everyone says,
oh, these guys hate each other. No, we don't hate each other. There has been issues. We've had issues. We've been together for 30 years. You try to be with someone for 30 years and not have any issues. Okay. And you're not human if you don't. Okay. But we're still together after all those years. You can hate us. You can love us. It doesn't matter to us because we're still going
to do it. So that's always going to be you know what I'm saying? But in order to do it more, more often and make music again, this I stumbled upon this project and it just it works for me at the moment, you know, and I'm with really cool people and you know, it's good. But that live show, you know, you guys are coming to you're confirmed. I know there's going to be more. I'm
know there's going to be a lot more. But so far, you're confirmed for Mayhem Fest. Bro, I've just already know this, but I just, but for those who don't know at home, it's not that you guys are just talented writers. It's dude, those Taylor Barber vocals, man. That guy is a machine. And so talk about what fans can expect when they come out to a seven hours after Violet show. It's going to be brutal, bro. It's it's it's going to be fun, brutal. We're going to have a
good time on stage. We're going to fucking kill it. That's all I could say. It hasn't happened yet. So I don't want to say anything. Well, once it happened, we'll all know together because I still don't know like we played one. I still don't know how how it's going to be. So I can't tell you, we'll discover it together. I don't know if that's going to be our first first show. I think we're going to book some smaller gigs around states. You know, around the states before it just to get
warmed up and then do that. And then we got some outside of America shit going on too that we're going to jump on that you'll hear about. Because you can go worldwide, bro. That's the thing about you is that you're known worldwide. So you can just pull up. Yeah. We're going to pull up. We're going to pull up everywhere. We're going to do that. That's amazing. I don't want to do too much.
Like we're not going to be doing like five, six months of touring at a time. We're going to be doing little blurbs of like fun, ask good, worthwhile, you know, and then come back chill, make more music. Like we're going to make more music. We have at least five songs already recorded for the next record. So it's already like going, you know, and next record, I will have some features on there. I've already talked to a bunch of my friends and some new people and it's going to have
you see the plan was to have features like I said in the beginning. Then we decided to have some features. But then I thought, why don't we just stand on our own fucking, where is it? 10 feet and and you know, and do it all ourselves without any features. So we're not, you know, we don't need anyone to do what we're doing. But then on the second record, we can bring in our friends and have them do a verse of chorus. Have some fun. You know, that way we yeah. So I feel like the
second record is a better place for that, you know, totally. And and for this first record, is there anything you can share right now? I don't know if there's any announcements. Do you have any idea on when it's coming out? Anything like that that you can share? I do, but I don't know if I can share it because it's don't I know by late summer, it should be drop a bro because I don't want to wait. Yeah, it should be like late summer drop. I know we're going to we have another single coming out
in July. And then I think another one with the album and then I got the dude, I feel so the record I didn't make any I have no fillers on there personally. Yeah, dude. And so I feel like we can drop any song off the record. We just close our eyes and point and you say that's the one going next, you know, I feel strongly about them all, you know, I personally I love them all. So I'm really curious to see what you guys think and what the world thinks of it. I know that'll be
haters and I know there'll be people amped on it. So I'm just curious on who's going to be on with side, you know, another thing Rick told me he said, you don't got haters, you're doing something wrong. Exactly. See how many haters we got out. I know there's where it was filled with them. I know there's a lot of bullshit people that are just like, can't wait to talk shit. You know, yeah, and then you're going to hurt it. That's after the video. I've already read some comments.
We don't need it somewhere. We don't need it. Okay, don't need it. Don't fuck it. Yeah. I suspect a lot of people will and you know, the other thing is too, when you're when you're releasing these songs and you're, you know, putting them out there into the world, the thing about you is that you have a lot of credibility and people associate you with quality. And I've
already heard the music. And so I know that's true as well. But then you've got more goff. But I want you know a lot of people, Shavo, I have to imagine that when you write this, you're stoked on it. I'm stoked on it. You're sending this to a lot of your friends. What has been their response when they're here in this stuff and they're giving it the car test and all of that? I mean, I haven't had any negative reactions yet. Everyone's been,
does that mean there are any people that would be like, bro, change this? Do you have people that are like brutally honest? Yeah, that hasn't happened yet. But brutally us, one person said one of the songs could be faster. But I think that was our like slowest song on the record that we, I purposely did it that way. You could have that. The album has dynamics, man. It's just like, but one after another, there's no time to breathe really. It's like one of those like many listens,
you need to hear it a few times. You know, like with Paradise, it kind of gives you a range of what we got, but the record goes crazier. There's the record has moments on there that I didn't even know I can do. You know, I didn't know that shit was going to come out of me. So I'm looking forward for you guys here. I wish I'm dropping the record. I wish this was a record and we can talk about the full record, not just the song, but it takes time. You know, so let's go. And
I'm sure we'll talk again once the record is out. You know, we should 100% 100%. I would love that. And I just want to say too, let me get your your view on this as a veteran in rock and metal. Does it seem like business is starting to pick up in rock and metal right now? It seems like we're entering into a positive space. Maybe not as big as it was in the late 90s, early 2000s, but it seems like something good is happening right now with a lot of these younger bands and new bands like yours
as well. For sure is. I think heavy music is making a huge comeback. I mean, dude, there's like people like squirrels. You know, death core. I'm missing the death core. We're going to death core concerts. And I'm saying that's like the extreme. You know, I had like speed metal back in the day. You know, when I was a kid, I had like death metal. I'd listened to like a bituary and I'd listen to cannibal chorus. You know, now that there's a fool of him. You know, you could just like close
your eyes and just pit. So I love that. I love it. Not everyone's the best, but at least everyone's doing it. To me, it's to each zone. Just because I don't find something the best doesn't mean someone else is not ecstatic over it. So like I said, bro, enjoy. Everyone's got an opinion. Enjoy your opinion. Don't give a fuck with anybody things. Just do it. And people are doing that. And I love that because that's where we should be. We come from punk rock. So punk rock is an attitude. It's not a
fucking music genre. Yes, it's become one, but it's really an attitude to be punkist to not get a fuck and just do what you got to do because you love it. So do it. And I think this record is that. I'm doing what I want to do. We're doing what I'm going to do. I put some really good people together. We're going to do it if you love it or not. So here we are. You know, I'm saying the industry wise, there is a pickup. Even systems got bigger. You know, and all we're doing is. Dude, you sold 50,000
tickets or something in like an hour, bro. Wow, right? That's wild. You would never have thought 10 years ago, I wouldn't have thought that this was going to happen. So let's go, man. I'll I'll swim with the salmon. You know, like against the crane for a while, but now we're going down the fucking stream. You know, so like I said, life comes in at you, bro. You know, it comes in at you in different times and different ways when you least expected. Who thought we were going to
close the world down four years ago? Did you ever think that was going to happen? You know, no, dude. I didn't like that very much. No, no. Yeah. It was bullshit. We're finding out a lot of it was bullshit now, you know? Yeah. I don't know, bro. It is what it is. Live every day for let, like it's the last and that's what we're doing. Life's a garden. Dig it, baby. Shavo, one of my favorite people to talk to. It is such an honor to have you here, brother.
Seven hours after violet. Right now, you've got to go check this new music out. Add it to your favorite streaming services. Follow the band. It's all at the link in the description. Seven hours after violet. It's the real deal. It was an honor to have you, brother. Thank you, brother. Thanks for having me.