System of a Down’s Shavo Odadjian Praises the Kardashians and Taylor Swift, Says He “Used to Be Very Good Friends with Kanye West”

Kanye West by David Miller, via Wikipedia
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Though one might immediately assume that their ancestral homeland is Beverly Hills or simply ‘the mall,’ reality stars the Kardashians are in fact of Armenian descent (the evidence is subtle, but hear me out: their names are Kardashian).

For metalheads, this immediately creates a thread between the family and System of a Down, whose Armenian background has always informed their madcap agro-metal.

Now, in a recent interview, bassist Shavo Odadjian has said that he’s a fan of the Kardashians — and that he used to be good friends with rapper Kanye West.

When asked by Puraphy about whether or not he knew the Kardashians, Shavo responded, “Oh, I know the Kardashians quite well. I used to be very good friends with Kanyé [West, Kim Kardashian’s ex]. Though this was a few years ago now, I’ve been to their house a lot. They’re just like you’d imagine they’d be: very cool, personable people. In fact, when System Of A Down was asked to play in Armenia in 2015, come to find out that Kanyé had just played the same venue a week before we did. Yeah, I like the Kardashians a lot.”

This isn’t Shavo’s only seemingly non-metal taste expressed in the interview. Later on, he talks about how much he loves a wide variety of music, and that he’d be totally down to collaborate with an artist like Taylor Swift in the near future.

“To me, when it comes to music, I love a full-on blend,” says Shavo. “The only reason musical genres exist in the first place is to categorize artists in different lanes. If the art creation is good, I love it. Period. Great art is great art, brother…Taylor Swift is a real artist—they all are. And Gaga’s hard core. She’s a real artist, too.”

There you have it, folks — you can be in one of the most popular metal bands in the world and still appreciate pop music. Who knew.

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Words by Chris Krovatin