November of 2005 saw the release of System Of A Down’s latest album, Hypnotize. Ever since then, fans have been wondering just when the group will be entering the studio to lay down tracks for a new record. Now, guitarist Daron Malakian has revealed that fans might be waiting a while, as the group reportedly aren’t planning to do anything together in the studio in the near future.

Last month, Daron Malakian revealed that the group “aren’t making albums right now”, and that his focus was more directed towards his Scars On Broadway project and its upcoming album, Dictator.

“I think the Scars stuff tends to take more of a rock direction, even though I would say there’s a lot of material on [the upcoming Scars On Broadway] album that I think has more of a System of a Down flavor in it than maybe the first Scars album did,” he explained in an interview with Kerrang! 

“As of right now, System’s not making albums, so this is the project through which I’m releasing my songs.”

Now, in an interview with Revolver, Malakian addressed the question of if the world will ever receive a new System Of A Down album, a relevant topic considering the band are set to make their live return in the US later this year.

“I couldn’t say ever, but as of right now, it’s not looking like we’re doing something together soon,” explained Daron Malakian. “I can’t close the book on it and say it’s done forever. We still play live. We’re all still friends. All my band members posted ‘Lives’ on their own Facebooks and Instagrams, so we’re all very supportive of each other.”

“It’s more a combination of where each person is at a different point in their life, and each person wants to do a different thing,” he continued. “There are some creative differences as well on what direction each one of us wants to take the next System album, if that ever happens. Which is fine. I’m not sitting here upset or anything. The only thing I’m a little frustrated with was waiting for that to maybe happen or not happen.”

“Too much time has passed by since I’ve released anything with Scars or System. But it’s never too late.”

Of course, the topic of a new System Of A Down album has been rather contentious for some time. Back in December, frontman Serj Tankian seemed to indicate that any of his future projects will be wholly instrumental, explaining that he’s “tired” of writing lyrics and that he “wrote so many lyrics that it stopped to be interesting.”

Tankian later confirmed that the band do indeed have new music, but they can’t seem to reach a consensus on how they should move forward as a group.

“We’ve discussed it and we’ve played each other songs, but we still haven’t come eye to eye on how things should be done for us to be able to move forward with it. That’s where it’s been,” he explained to Rolling Stone in December.

“When people don’t see a record, they assume the worst about your internal relationship. But the truth is we’re actually better friends—at least I’m better friends with everyone than I’ve ever been.”

At this stage, only time will tell if we’ll ever see a new System Of A Down album, but we can only hope.

Check out System Of A Down’s ‘Question!’

The article was originally published on Tone Deaf