- published: 01 Jul 2014
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Shavarsh "Shavo" Odadjian (born April 22, 1974 in Yerevan, Armenian SSR) is an Armenian American songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music video director/editor, music producer, and artist/painter. He is best known as the bassist, backing vocalist and occasional songwriter of the Grammy Award-winning rock band System of a Down. During the band's hiatus from 2006 to 2010, Odadjian collaborated with Wu Tang Clan founder The RZA on a project called Achozen, which contributed a number of songs to the motion picture Babylon A.D. Odadjian is also credited with the musical scoring of the blockbuster film, alongside with The Rza and Hans Zimmer. He regularly uses a Gibson Thunderbird bass, a Fender Jazz Bass, and an Ibanez BTB bass guitar. He used a Music Man StingRay when he started to play with the band.
Shavo Odadjian was born in Yerevan, Armenia (then a part of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic). Odadjian moved to Los Angeles at a very young age. He attended the Alex Pilibos Elementary School in Los Angeles, an Armenian parochial school, along with future bandmates Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian, although they were not acquainted at the time due to a gap in their ages. During his youth, Shavo has stated that he spent most of his time skateboarding and listening to punk rock and heavy metal music. Among others, he credits Dead Kennedys, KISS, Slayer, The Beatles, and Black Sabbath as his favorite bands, and the most substantial influence on his musical development and career.
System of a Down, also known by the acronym SOAD and often shortened to System, is a rock band from Southern California, formed in 1994. It consists of Serj Tankian (lead vocals, keyboards, rhythm guitar), Daron Malakian (guitar, vocals), Shavo Odadjian (bass, background vocals) and John Dolmayan (drums).
The band achieved commercial success with the release of five studio albums; from which three debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. System of a Down has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, and won the award in 2006 for Best Hard Rock Performance for the song "B.Y.O.B.". The group went on hiatus in August 2006, but reunited in November 2010, embarking on a worldwide tour in 2011.
Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian, and Shavo Odadjian all attended Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School while children, although because of their eight-year age difference they did not meet until 1992 while working on separate projects at the same recording studio. They formed a band named Soil with Tankian on vocals and keyboards, Malakian on vocals and guitar, Dave Hakopyan (who later played in The Apex Theory/Mt. Helium) on bass and Domingo "Dingo" Laranio on drums. The band hired Shavo Odadjian (another Rose and Alex Pilibos alumnus) as manager, although he eventually joined Soil as rhythm guitarist. After three years, only one live show, and one jam session recording, Hakopyan and Laranio quit the band, feeling that it was not going anywhere.