No Need to Steal This One.
System Of A Down's latest is released Nov. 26th.

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For System Of A Down, the Internet has not been user-friendly.  As poor quality, unmastered copies of demos were deposited all over the 'Net, the band grew restless, then angry, and were basically forced to release Steal This Album! on November 26th, 2002.

It would seem that artistic integrity, which may be in short supply elsewhere, runs high with the quartet.  Unhappy that these poor quality versions were being taken as complete, final versions of the tracks, System worked quickly to get the record completed and show fans what the finished songs sound like.

As an incentive to die-hard fans, the band has released four 'special' covers, with each band member creating the artwork, in addition to the 'standard' cover, which is really no cover at all.  These special edition CDs are only available in 50,000-unit runs.

>> Drummer John Dolmayan. >>

To celebrate the release of Steal This Album!, System Of A Down had one very special in-store at the Tower Records location in Glendale, CA.   With no additional in-stores planned and no upcoming tour dates set as of yet, this event was very exclusive.

Just after the band arrived, and prior to the guys taking the time to sign autographs, we had a few moments with guitarist Daron Malakian and drummer John Dolmayan.  Here's what they had to say:

VOX: Many versions of these songs appeared on-line over the past few months. What made you decide to release them as a proper album and call it, “Steal This Album?”
Daron Malakian: The Internet.  I’ve said it before: we probably would have held off if the Internet didn’t exist.  We didn’t want these songs to be perceived as “old songs” if we put them out later, so we did it while they were still fresh.  We sort of thought it was the right time right now.

>> Singer Serj Tankian greets the press. >>

John Dolmayan: Also, we felt misrepresented by what was out there…

Daron Malakian: It sounded like crap.

John Dolmayan: [Laughs] Yeah, to break it down.

VOX: You guys each did special, individual covers for this record. Was this a way to deal with some of the [record] industry’s problems with sales and profits?  Especially in terms of adding value for the consumer?

John Dolmayan: We didn’t really do that to appropriate more sales.  We did it just because we wanted to have some artistic expression from us.   As you see, the cover is very basic, and it’s sort of a play on words…a joke, in a way.  As to like, people stealing the album anyway…

Daron Malakian: Yeah.  It’s like, “Here, steal this album.”  Because we were like, if you were to buy the album from the Internet, this is probably what it would looked like anyway.

>> Serj and bassist Shavo Odadjian. >>

VOX: Is "Fuck the System," meant, jokingly, to be taken two ways? Meaning literally, fuck our system of government and also fuck System of a Down, as a joke?

Daron Malakian: It’s really fuck any sort of system that has any sort of ‘rules’ based on it, you know what I mean?  Anything.  It’s not really pointed at us, really, it’s more any kind of system you can say, whether it’s us, too.  Fuck us, too! [Laughs]

VOX: Toxicity is still doing well - why release this record so soon after the last one?

Daron Malakian: The Internet.  The Internet.

>> System Of A Down greet the media at their only scheduled event to commemorate the release of Steal This Album! >>

VOX: Because the stuff was already out there…

Daron Malakian: Yeah.

VOX: Rumor is that there will be a proper, full-blown SOAD record coming soon. Any truth to that?

John Dolmayan: [Laughs.  To Daron:] How many records do we have?  We’re not Tupac...

Daron Malakian: Maybe people have heard that I’ve written songs for the new record, but we definitely don’t have anything else ready.  Nothing else has been recorded.