John Dolmayan

John Dolmayan (born July 15, 1973 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a musician, best known as the drummer for the Armenian-American alternative metal band System of a Down, and current drummer for the band Scars on Broadway. John currently lives in Los Angeles, California. He was first interested in drums at the age of 2. His father was a saxophone player. When his mother would take him to watch his father play, he would mimic his father's drummer. When he was four he asked his parents for a drum kit. He asked for one every year for his birthday or Christmas until he finally got one at age 15.

System of a Down

So far, he has recorded five albums with System of a Down: System of a Down (1998), Toxicity (2001), Steal This Album! (2002), and, most recently, Mezmerize (2005), and Hypnotize (2005). His style of drumming has influenced an emerging generation of drummers, and this has attracted a significant portion of SOAD's audience.

John's facial expressions are famous for being constantly foreboding and angry-looking. Lead singer Serj Tankian was quoted in Kerrang magazine as always trying to make John crack a smile on stage, to which John replied that he had to make an extreme effort to keep a straight face and not get put off beat. Although, on very rare occasions he would try to entertain the fans in unique ways during performances.

Dolmayan won "DRUM!" Magazine's 2006 Drummer of the year. In addition to winning this award, Dolmayan was the feature story in the September edition of "DRUM!" magazine.

Personal projects

In Summer 2006, right before Ozzfest tour, John told the press in several interviews his intention to make an online comic company, "I've got over 5 and a half million comics right now, and I'll probably have about 20 million comics in a year's time. But it's not really a collection. The reason I'm accumulating all these books is I'm starting an Internet-based comic-book company called 'Torpedocomics'. That'll be up in November 2007, probably." Dolmayan said. In an online auction in March 2009 he purchased a very rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman for $317,200. John recently sent Howard Stern and Robin Quivers rare Spider Man comics. Recently John has been playing live shows with a newly designed drum kit, featuring drawings from many famous comic book artists.

Dolmayan also said he may at some point write a movie script and might be involved in drum work regardless of SOAD's status. John has played alongside Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Wayne Kramer for the song Bombs Over Paris., on the Serj Tankian solo debut, Elect the Dead, and joined Tool on stage for a few shows.

In April 2009, smashingpumpkins.com revealed that Dolmayan had auditioned for the reformed Smashing Pumpkins' vacant drummer job along with thousands of other applicants.