Serj Tankian of System Of A Down has recalled the hostility the band had been met with when touring with Slayer in 1998.

On the time, the band noticed the tour as an enormous alternative, as they had been but to launch their first album. Regardless of them now being vastly profitable and extensively beloved by heavy music followers, on the time, Slayer’s fan base didn’t recognize their presence on the gigs.

In his 2024 memoir, Down With The System, Tankian explains (through Steel Hammer): “That tour was like going to rock ’n’ roll boot camp. Slayer followers famously love Slayer and hate nearly the whole lot and everybody else. As their opening act, the group noticed us because the one factor standing between them and Slayer.

“This was a gaggle of followers for whom ‘selfmade’ knife-carved tattoos weren’t uncommon, so after we’d flip up – me in tribal make-up, Daron [Malakian, System guitarist] sporting pink hair and a glammy little outfit, they weren’t essentially predisposed to welcome us with open arms. In truth, after we’d take the stage, we’d usually be going through a wall of crossed arms and prolonged center fingers,” he says.

Although they went on to ultimately begin profitable crowds over, Tankian remembers {that a} small variety of followers remained cussed of their methods, and acted in some slightly disgusting methods: “A small subset of Slayer followers had a disturbing follow of displaying as much as gigs in full Nazi regalia,” he provides. “I distinctly recall watching a group of African-American bouncers at a membership in Detroit known as Harpos brawling with these Slayer followers outdoors the membership after we’d completed our set.

“Later that 12 months, whereas we had been touring with Slayer via Europe, we had been onstage in Poland being pelted with cash by followers who had been additionally elevating Nazi salutes in our path. At one level, I used to be hit within the face with a bagel and misplaced my shit. I advised our lighting man to level the lights into the viewers and goal the bagel-thrower. Then I launched into an offended tirade and threatened to start out kicking individuals’s asses. Once I completed, the venue went useless silent. You may actually hear a pin drop in that place. Then we walked off.”

Serj Tankian’s memoir, Down With The System is in the stores now.