SYSTEM OF A DOWN bassist Shavo Odadjian has become a director, handling the shooting of the band's latest promo video.
The LA oddballs shot a clip for the song 'Toxicity' in late December at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach, Calefornia. Concentrating on stark black and white colours, Shavo desribes the video as "quite abstract".
On the video set, where he had been working 16-hour days, he told Kerrang!: "I actually want to put a little disclaimer before the video starts that says, 'It's time to smoke your bowl now,' to get people in the right frame of mind! We're using some techniques that will look really interesting and go well with the song."
One such technique is the projection of images onto the band as they perform.
"I looked through 100 images and choose eight," says Shavo. "One is just fire, burning intensely on me and Daron (Malakian, guitarist). There's also a scene of a skid row from some stock footage that we had. I spent nights looking through the rolls, but hey, you're supposed to put the work in. I want to see the result and be proud of it."
The bassist denies that his director status means tha he will himself be featuring more in the new video than the other System members. "Hell no!" he laughs. "Actually, it's good that I'm doing this because alot of directors tend to focus on one or two members of a group. Our band is a four-member band. Serj (Tankian, singer) feels the same way as does the rest of us about that."
System are set to spend this month touring Australia and New Zeland. February will see them touring America with Clutch, before heading to the UK to play their rescheduled tour dates, which will kick off at Birmingham Academy on March 19.
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