DARON MALAKIAN Recalls Childhood Obsession With OZZY & The Night SYSTEM OF A DOWN Covered BLACK SABBATH In Front Of BLACK SABBATH

Daron Malakian, guitarist of Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway (our Artist Of The Month) and System of a Down, recently opened up about what Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne have meant to him throughout his life during a forthcoming interview with Metal Injection.

"First riff I ever learned was 'Iron Man' when I was a kid, and I was obsessed with Ozzy Osbourne when I was like six or seven years old, like just obsessed. Like, he'd appear in my dreams having dinner with my parents and me, like, when I was a kid. And he was this larger than life crazy guy. And in the 80s, you had the whole satanic panic kind of thing."

Malakian recalled a memorable night when System of a Down opened for Black Sabbath in their hometown of Birmingham — a performance that, at the time, was billed as Black Sabbath’s last. That show took place at the NEC Arena in Birmingham on December 22, 1999 and found Malakian in the uncomfortable spot of being asked to cover Black Sabbath in front of Black Sabbath.

"We got a chance to open up for Sabbath in Birmingham one time, which that was supposed to be their last show, was years back. And we used to do the Sabbath cover of 'Snowblind' and Shavo comes to me and he goes, 'hey, they want us to do the Sabbath cover.' And I go, 'we ain't doing a Sabbath cover before Sabbath.' I'm like, 'are you fucking crazy?' And I was like, 'no, man, we can't do that. We're going to get booed off the fucking stage. And it's not going to, it's not a good look. It's like arrogant.'

"And then Bill Ward comes to our dressing room and he goes, 'you guys got to do it. You got to do it, man.' And I'm looking at him and I'm like, it's fucking Bill Ward, man. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm more – I love Van Halen, but my favorite part of Van Halen is Alex. I love drummers. I always wanted to be a drummer. The guitar was by accident. But anyway, I was like, 'okay, if he's saying it and he's saying all the rest of the band wants us to do it, [we'll do it].' So we did it. You know, we played 'Snowblind' and our version is so fucking different. It was the System Of A Down version of 'Snowblind'. So there was that."

On Black Sabbath's legacy, Malakian added: "What could you say about Sabbath that hasn't been said a million times? Obviously they're the beginning of metal. You can bring in Deep Purple, you can bring in Led Zeppelin, you can bring other bands, but the darkness, the heaviness that's that originates from Sabbath. We weren't a part of the whole thing and I was like texting Shavo the other day. I was like, 'we should have been fucking a part of this, what the fuck?' But they mean a lot to me just like they do to a lot of other people."