System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian remembered writing the band’s monumental 2001 single “Chop Suey!”, telling Loudwire during a recent interview:
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“I remember when I wrote ‘Chop Suey!’, we didn’t even have a tour bus yet. We were still in an RV and I was playing my acoustic guitar in back of the RV where there was a bed.
“I never write on the road. That’s one of the few, very few songs that I wrote while I was on the road, I remember writing the song when the RV was on the highway.
“I don’t know where we were, probably [driving] to the next gig, and it all came to me just hanging out in the back of the RV playing my acoustic guitar.
“I can always feel when I write something good and I can always tell when I write something that needs a little work. I thought it was really good, but did I think it was going to turn into this huge song that was gonna get on MTV and become a huge hit for System of a Down? No.
“I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that it was gonna be our first [hit] single. I didn’t think it was gonna be so huge, but at the time I thought it was good. I was a fan of it.
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“All of a sudden, I’m walking in the mall, and there are people who recognize me and know who the hell I am through the video asking for pictures, asking for autographs. So life kind of changed. [Laughs] On a flip of the coin there it just changed.
“People don’t realize that it’s a big life-changer whenever you get fame. I feel like it changed me, I became more of a private person, less outgoing. You always think you’re gonna like the attention.
“I’m not sure I was in love with the attention. I was a big famous rock star, yet I was still living with my parents.”