System of a Down headlines their own festival, Sick New World, on April 27 at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, giving fans a rare opportunity to see a band that shies away from regular touring these days. Bassist Shavo Odadjian doesn't sit still between shows, staying busy with his side band Seven Hours After Violet and cannabis company 22Red, which now has products in Las Vegas dispensaries.
Is cannabis the new tequila? A lot of celebrities are attaching their names to marijuana brands and products now.
I started six years ago, way before all these celebrities started coming in. I don't think that celebrities belong in the cannabis industry — unless you're an avid smoker and you know what you're doing. I back my stuff 100 percent. I smoke my stuff … I make sure every jar, every batch comes to me first and I test it. I know it's a little tedious, a little rough. Now that we're scaling up to different states, it's a little too much, but I'm still doing it. I have personal testers as well that I value and trust who have similar tastes.
Smokers have a culture. I think they respect what I'm doing and don't respect when celebrities just try to come into an industry and make money off of it. A lot of these celebrities, and I'm not mentioning any names, just put their name on it. They don't even know what's in the jar. They don't even know what they're selling.
Why is Las Vegas the right place for Sick New World?
It's a music town … Wu-Tang Clan, U2, they're having residencies. They're out there doing what they do because there's new people constantly coming in. You can't do a residency in Ohio because you don't have the tourism that Vegas has.
We all love Vegas. I go to Vegas once a month. I enjoy it. I have friends there, I have family that live there … I like to stay at my favorite hotel and gamble. I like to eat at all the nice restaurants. I'm a food connoisseur. I love Casa Playa. That's one of the greatest restaurants at the moment.
Will Sick New World return for a third time in Vegas next year?
I would love that. I enjoy playing, bro … But we're not keeping it in Vegas … We're just building it in Vegas. We have plans on bringing Sick New World to other cities as well. We just don't know which ones just yet.
We started the Sick New World festival last year. It's based around us … a huge one-day festival with all the bands that came up with us and are inspired by us. We didn't put our name on it. We want it to be bigger than us … The goal is for other bands to headline at some point, but for now we are keeping it limited, keeping it special.
