System Of A Down’s Bassist Talks About The Inspiration Behind His New Cannabis Brand

You’ve probably heard of the Armenian-American hard-rocking band System of a Down, whose popular tunes like “Chop Suey!” and “B.Y.O.B.” have taken the charts by storm. 

In a recent interview, L.A. Taco journalist Hadley Tomicki spoke with the band’s bassist, Shavo Odadjian, who gave us the inside scoop on his inspiration to launch a cannabis company, 22Red, and where it all began. 

“I have been a connoisseur and an advocate of cannabis since the first time I smoked it,” he explained, “when we started System, our guitar player, Darren, he smoked a lot. We hung out a lot because we wrote music together. We had the vision together.”

In fact, before System of a Down was a band, the musicians had pooled their money for a studio where they would “sit around and talk about how the band’s gonna be [while] smoking weed.”

Odadjian attests that the band “manifested the whole thing under the influence a little bit.” Besides that, the SOAD bassist expressed that although he’s an avid smoker, cannabis never gave him those heavy couch-locked effects. He explains that sitting around and doing nothing is the opposite of what cannabis does for him…”it inspires me.”

After traveling to Amsterdam and purchasing basically everything on the menu from the Green House Seed Company, Odadjian was invited to the harvest tasting during that year’s High Times Cannabis Cup. 

“After that, I was a connoisseur and everywhere I go, I try to taste what they have.”

It wasn’t until 2017 that he and some mates started thinking of launching a cannabis company after meeting his friend and cannabis grower Sean in Los Angeles. “Once I saw his situation and grow, I said, ‘now we can do this, now I believe in this.’ 

For Odadjian, he took notice of the many celebrity-backed cannabis brands but never wanted to “be compared to someone that just puts their name on something and doesn’t know what that something is.”

For this reason, he establishes a personal relationship with each strain before it meets the market. He’s proud to know “every strain…every taste and smell.” 

Odadjian believes that being at the “right place at the right time with the right people” helped 22Red come to life, which started with three stores in California three years ago. 

“Now it’s in three states and hoping to grow, but I’m not looking for a quick grow. There hasn’t been one bad review yet in any states. And I’m proud of that.”