It’s rather amazing to think that 2018 marks 13 years since System Of A Down released their last album. While the band did undergo a hiatus in that time, they’ve been reformed for a number of years now, leading fans to wonder when that new record might be coming. However, according to a new interview with drummer John Dolmayan, the answer appears to be so complicated that even he isn’t sure if a new record will ever be released.

Speaking to Ted Stryker of US radio station KROQ recently, John Dolmayan briefly touched on a number of shows that System Of A Down have in the pipeline before he was asked what he thinks the reason for such a long gap between studio albums for the band is.

“It’s a complex question,” Dolmayan explained. “You know I’m ready to go any time, and certain members of my band haven’t been able to make it work for themselves.”

“And it’s one of these things where if you can’t get everybody to come together and do it, it just doesn’t happen.”

“I don’t know if it’s ever gonna happen at this point,” he continued sadly. “I don’t like saying that but you got to live in the realm of reality and anything we do outside of System is never gonna anywhere be close to System. System is the best thing that anybody in System will ever do. But we still do other things.”

This news of course comes just weeks after statements made by guitarist Daron Malakian in which he noted that the band “aren’t making albums right now”, and that the band don’t really have any solid plans together apart from their already scheduled shows.

“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.”

This seemed to align with comments by frontman Serj Tankian who, back in December, 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.

“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, it seems like the whole System Of A Down situation is a huge mess, but we can definitely say with certainty that we complain if the group ever decide to release that elusive sixth record of theirs.

Check out System Of A Down’s ‘Needles’:

The article was originally published on Tone Deaf