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After Soil split up, Tankian and Malakian then formed a new band, System of a Down, based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down", but Serj Tankian thought that Victim would only appeal to a narrow audience and the word System would appeal to a larger, more general audience. They called on Shavo Odadjian whom they knew from when Soil shared a recording studio with Odadjian's previous band and when Shavo was their short-lived guitar player. Odadjian was originally the band's manager and promoter. Odadjian quickly accepted the offer to join the band as the permanent bassist. Since then managerial duties have been undertaken by highly successful Velvet Hammer Music and streetwise founder David "Beno" Beneviste. One of their first releases was "Sugar", which was found on the first demo tape, and they have played it at nearly every live performance since then. They found a drummer, Andy Khachaturian, who joined the band. They then quickly made an early Untitled 1995 Demo Tape which had very early recordings of "Mr. Jack" (called PIG), along with songs called Flake and Toast. There were also other tapes made, which contained early recordings of 36 (called .36), Roulette and X (called Multiply)[8]. After this they made Demo Tape 1, which had early versions of Sugar, Suite-Pee, and P.L.U.C.K., as well as the rare track Dam. Demo Tape 2 was released in 1996 and had a rough demo of the song Soil as well as the most known unreleased tracks known as Honey and Temper. At the beginning of 1997 they recorded the final demo tape, Demo Tape 3 which had rough work of Peephole, War?, and Know. In mid 1997, Andy Khachaturian left the band due to a hand injury. Soon after playing at the Whisky-A-Go-Go and Viper Room with new drummer John Dolmayan, producer Rick Rubin caught their attention and told them to keep in touch with him. Showing great interest, near the end of 1997, they made Demo Tape 4. This demo, however, was not released to the public. Rather it was made to be sent to record deals and it later leaked onto the internet. After Rick wanted them to be signed on to American/Columbia records, they began to record with his studio. Prior to 1998, their live shows were called, "The Dark Red Experience"[citation needed] and their logo was different from what it is now. In 1997 they won Best Signed band from the Rock City Awards. [9]
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