System Of A Down’s Shavo Odadjian has shared the debut track from his new band, North Kingsley.

Alongside the bassist, songwriter and director, the group features producer Saro Paparian and lyricist and vocalist Ray Hawthorne.

North Kingsley released their first song, ‘Like That?’, earlier today (August 7). “Are you gonna die like that?” they ask on the chorus. “Fade away until you snap/Are you gonna die like that?” Watch a lyric video for the track below now.

The track will feature on the band’s first three-track collection, which is titled ‘Vol. 1’ and will be released next week (August 14) on Odadjian’s own 22 Red Media.

In a press release, Odadjian said: “We’re giving you songs you can marinade on, instead of 12 songs all at once. There’s going to be a clip for every song, something visually for you to vibe on. I directed videos for System, I do stage production visuals for the band so that’s important to me.

“Saro has an incredible eye for creating new things visually and I act almost how a producer would on that and we are going to drop merch with every release, so it’s more than just music.”

He continued to say that North Kingsley’s sound is “right in the middle” of metal and hip-hop. “The kick and the hi-hats and the snare sounds punk,” he added. “To me punk rock isn’t a style of music, it’s something you live. It’s a lifestyle and it means going against the grain and I heard that there, and we are putting it all together to create something exciting and new for today.”

Meanwhile, System Of A Down’s drummer John Dolmayan said in June that the band were “very unlikely to make new music”.

“There’s egos involved and, quite frankly, wisdom isn’t always something you achieve in older age – sometimes you achieve stubbornness, and we just can’t get out of our own way on that one,” he said. “But I would like to say that it is a band issue. I know that certain members of my band have been blamed in the past, but at the end of the day it takes four people to make the music we make and it takes four people not to make it.”

However, the band are planning to play live next year. This week, they were announced as one of the headliners for Download 2021 alongside Kiss and Biffy Clyro.

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Bob Vylan have shared a new video for their track ‘England’s Ending’ – scroll down the page to watch it now.

• Read more: Bob Vylan – ‘We Live Here’ review: anarchic London punks that the music industry deemed “too extreme”

The song appears on the duo’s EP ‘We Live Here’, which was released on June 5, 2020 and follows 2019’s ‘Dread’.

In a video on Instagram, frontman Bobby Vylan explained the song was about “the privatisation of the NHS and the inaccessibility of affordable housing”, among other topics.

View this post on Instagram

A few words on England’s Ending. – Link in bio Video directed by @dylanrhayes

A post shared by Bob Vylan (@bobbyvylan) on Aug 7, 2020 at 1:20am PDT

“It talks about the hustling mentality of people in this country, having to work multiple jobs just to survive, having to have side-hustles,” he explained. “Being trapped on this hamster wheel with this promise that ‘Everything’s sorted, don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine, you just stay on this hamster wheel and eventually you’ll get somewhere’ and then growing frustrated with that and being on that wheel and realising, ‘Fuck, I’m not getting anywhere’. I think so many people feel like that.”

He added: “It just seems like the country is ending. You wake up and you read the news and it just seems like, ‘Rah, England is ending’.”

“The country is in dire need of a fucking spanking, mate,” Bobby Vylan says at the start of the track. “A good overhaul – get the fucking dinosaurs out.” Watch the strobe-heavy video for ‘England’s Ending’ above now.

Earlier this year, Bob Vylan said they had been told by multiple music industry figures that ‘We Live Here’ was “too extreme”. Speaking to NME, frontman Vylan explained the opposition they had faced.

“If I was to meet this much resistance doing anything else and something that wasn’t so based around social commentary, then I don’t know if I would continue,” he said. “Because I’d start to think maybe that what I’m doing is wrong.”

He continued: “We were told by one PR agency that they wouldn’t work with the song because of the track ‘Pulled Pork’. In their opinion, it encouraged violence against the police, and whether it does or does not is up to the listener.

“But they were adamant that there were only a ‘few bad apples in the force’ – but that negates the fact that the whole system is built on racism and oppression. If there are only a few bad apples, where are the good apples? If they’re stood by watching, then they’re not good apples.”

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The CEO of Live Nation has said he expects a “robust outdoor summer season” for live music next year.

• Read more: The beat goes on: how the UK dance scene’s DJs, clubs and festivals are fighting for survival

The coronavirus pandemic has forced festivals around the world to cancel their 2020 editions, with fears over their futures if they can’t safely return in 2021.

Writing in a memo shared with the promotion company’s investors, Michael Rapino said there were positive signs for next year’s summer events already. “Importantly, we remain confident that fans will return to live events when it is safe to do so,” he wrote. “Our strongest indicator of demand is that fans are holding on to their tickets, even when given the option of a refund.”

The message stated that “86 percent” of fans were holding on to their tickets for shows that had been rescheduled, “demonstrating their continued desire to attend concerts in the future despite the current uncertainty”.

Rapino also pointed to the ticket sales for two UK festivals next year as further indicators of a strong 2021 festival run. “Our expectations for a robust outdoor summer season in 2021 are also reinforced by the two-thirds of fans keeping their tickets for canceled festivals so they can go to next year’s show, along with strong early ticket sales for festivals in the UK next summer,” he said. “For example, Download and Isle of Wight are pacing well ahead of last year.”

The Live Nation boss’ comments come after other industry figures have been more cautious about live music’s return. Last month (July 17), Lollapalooza co-founder Marc Geiger said he didn’t think gigs and festivals would return until 2022.

“It’s going to take that long before, what I call, the germaphobic economy is slowly killed off and replaced by the claustrophobia economy – that’s when people want to get out and go out to dinner and have their lives, go to festivals and shows,” he said.

Meanwhile, UK festivals welcomed the news last month (July 29) that the government would give the emergency funding to help weather the storm of the coronavirus pandemic.

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