Serj Tankian Drops Rage Against The Machine Bombshell

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System of a Down are often talked about as heavy hitters from the nu metal genre of the late ’90s/early ’00s. It has been noted that many fans might take offense in including the beloved act’s music in the same bracket as the antics of Limp Bizkit, Crazy Town, or Coal Chamber, the truth is that System of a Down’s eclectic soundscapes and inescapable groove don’t feel too out of place either.

Serj Tankian names top bands of nu metal

Others could argue that the band sits more at home with the early nu metal bands like Korn and Deftones, which had a noticeably different style than the acts that emerged one decade later, and a grittier style.

There are also fans who will say that nu metal can only be used as a reference to an era in music, and not necessarily a genre, since all the bands under that umbrella have completely different sounds, and that’s the end of the discussion. Since discussing is fun, Revolver reached out to System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian to get his own definition of what nu metal means, to which the singer obliged:

“Nu metal would probably be… If I was to find a particular definition for it, it would be: low bass, low tempo, dark, metal music that came out of LA in [the late ’90s and early ’00s].”

When prompted to name some of the most important bands in the genre, Tankian noted:

“Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones – like that combination of bands, pretty much all from [the] Los Angeles area, were the heavy hitters of our peers coming up at that time…”

“Those are some of the bands that really changed the sound, the scene, and what was going on when we were coming up.”