SYSTEM OF A DOWN BASSIST STARTS urSESSION

System Of A Down bassist Shavo Odadjian has joined with a childhood friend for a new community that actually helps the independent musician.

System Of A Down bassist Shavo Odadjian has teamed with a childhood friend and Power 106’s Sway And Tech to form a new online music community, urSession. The System bassist teamed with the urban DJs to seek out new talent through the site.

The site is scheduled for a tentative launch next week, and it will be a place where musicians can find potential bandmates and also earn revenue in the process via advertising. Odadjian explains the concept.

“We thought… We said, ‘How do we get this… How do we find artists? There’s great artists out there, amazing artists. Not everybody has the money to make a demo. And not everyone… no one knows anyone to get signed. You really have to know somebody nowadays. The record industry is dying. There are no labels. They’re just skeletons that used to be labels. So we thought of the internet, and then we thought, ‘How could we have people audition?,’ and then I thought of a webcam, uploads, either digital audio or digital video. So that makes demos obsolete. So artists don’t even have to have money these days to get into our platform. This is our platform, brand new. And then I thought, ‘How do we get Democratic on them without having a suit deciding or having a Paula Abdul deciding who is going to be big. So that’s where the whole urSession idea came from, having a community, an online art district.”

For Shavo this is his first venture into the business world and he talked about forming System and helping form urSession.

“Yeah it’s a totally different mindset. With System I was a kid. I was going to school, working, studying psychology man. But I always loved to play music. It didn’t matter if I was working or whatever. I always played music, and it just kind of… the idea of doing original stuff with friends turned into us having some songs, turned into me starting to manage and getting us gigs, turned into everyone being interested in us, turned into four years of wanting to be signed, turned into Rick Rubin coming around, which was a dream. Come on. Think about it. I grew up on Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Slayer, and all of the sudden that dude comes to us. Big deal, right!? [We] Get signed, releasing records, being on all these tours, my idols respecting me, to coming up with an idea a few years ago about, ‘How do we find artists out there?'”

Meanwhile, during System Of A Down’s hiatus, Shavo has been playing with Daron Malakian’s band and has formed a project with RZA from Wu-Tang Clan titled Achosen. Odadjian also contributes some bass work on the new Wu-Tang Clan album, Diagrams.