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Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin

Daron Malakian - ON METAL (Part 1)

Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin

Arts, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.61.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2025

⏱️ 102 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Composer, guitarist, vocalist, and record producer Daron Malakian, a founding member of System of a Down, returns to Tetragrammaton to  reflect on his lifelong relationship with heavy metal. Using music as a guide to discuss how different styles, sounds, and eras shaped his identity as an artist, he talks through what he listens for in metal, including riffs, mood, aggression, and atmosphere, and how those elements influenced his own songwriting and creative direction. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Squarespace https://Squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://DrinkLMNT.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Athletic Nicotine https://www.AthleticNicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Tetragrammaton.

0:05.0

Tetrackermiton.

0:07.0

You've got to start with a power chord, right?

0:26.3

I don't know who invented the power chord,

0:28.3

but you could think of, you know,

0:29.7

you really got me from the kinks,

0:31.7

which was pretty heavy, I would think,

0:33.9

for its time.

0:34.9

Yeah, like, just that you could put into a heavy metal song

0:39.1

or change the notes a little bit and make it darker and that riff will become pretty

0:43.4

fucking heavy. You had the Who that were breaking guitars, blowing stuff on stage, and their

0:51.4

sound was massive. I always saw the Who as like a,

0:59.0

kind of like an example for Led Zeppelin

1:02.0

of what a band should, even just the way it was like a great drummer,

1:07.0

virtuoso, amazing bass player, guitar player that wrote the music, produced the records,

1:13.2

songwriter. The presence of the vocalists kind of had a similar vibe too. So yeah,

1:20.5

you know, you had the 60s bands. Dude, even you could say the Beatles in the song called I Want You, the end of that song where it gets all

1:31.3

doomy and...

1:32.3

It's like dirge.

1:33.3

It's metal.

1:35.3

It gives you the feeling of what Black Sabbath gives you without necessarily the same guitar tones or whatever, but the sound, the music, the darkness.

1:47.7

So there were things that were happening before Black Sabbath,

...

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