[Musicians] Daron Malakian

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• Musician Name: Daron Malakian
• Birthday / Location: July 18, 1975 (age 46) United States Hollywood, California
• Main instrument: guitar, vocal, bass, keyboard
• Musician Picture:
• Musician Awards & Nominations:-
• Best Performance: -
• Other Information: Daron Vartan Malakian (Los Angeles, July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer, best known as a guitarist and backing vocalist for the band System of a Down as the lead singer for the band Scars on Broadway, where he is a multi-instrumentalist in the studio and a solo guitarist in live performances. Like the other members of System of a Down, he is of Armenian descent, but he is the only member to actually be born in the United States.
• He was named 30th on The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever list. Known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 14th on Loudwire's Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time list and 11th on MusicRadar's The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever poll. He is ranked 30th on Guitar World's list of The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time.
• California-born Malakian, only child of Armenians Vartan Malakian, Iraq-born Zepur Malakian, Iran-born. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who taught sculpture at college level early in her career.
• From a very early age, Malakian showed interest in heavy metal: at age 4 a distant cousin showed him a Kiss recording and he loved it. Malakian then began listening to Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead, Ozzy Osbourne, White Zombie, Def Leppard, Motörhead, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden.
• From an early age, Daron always wanted to play drums, but his parents gave him a guitar because "you can't turn off drums". Daron started playing guitar at age 11, in the early years he learned to play by ear, after a few years he gained a reputation as an instrumentalist in high school and at 16 or 17 he realized that it was a good instrument of composition and feeling.
• As a teenager, Malakian listened to thrash metal bands like Slayer, Venom, Metallica, Pantera and Sepultura. Then he started listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter, he also cites other British bands such as The Kinks and The Who, as well as folk-rock such as the trio Peter, Paul and Mary and the pioneer of the punk Iggy Pop
• Daron attended the Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School on the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, where he met future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer). System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended school as well, but he was many years ahead of Malakian and the others. Malakian later attended Glendale High School as a teenager. He is a longtime fan of the Edmonton Oilers ice hockey team, having a large collection of objects related to these.
• Daron met Serj Tankian in 1993 while the two were in the same rehearsal studio but playing in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboards for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another group. They formed a jam band called "Soil" with bassist Dave Hakopyan, drummer Domingo Laraino and rhythm guitarist Shavo Odadjian, who also became the band's manager. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band under the name "System of a Down", based on a poem Daron wrote entitled "Victims of a Down", due to Odadjian found that "System" was a stronger word than "Victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced in 1997 by John Dolmayan after a wrist injury.
• Malakian co-produced System of a Down albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a Serjical Strike Records band that had Serj Tankian as a member). In 2003, Malakian started his own record label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first band signed. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.