System of a Down’s Shavo Talks Music and Cannabis

A huge edition of Everything Is Personal this week as Len and Jon welcome the team from 22Red, a Los Angeles-based lifestyle brand focused on cannabis, fashion and music, founded in 2018 by System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian and businessman and former hair metal musician Harry Kazazian. And while Kazazian is a handful of years older than Odadjian, the two shared a common bond in their Armenian immigrant heritage and a lengthy friendship over 25 years in which both men often wound up in the same musical circles before Harry moved on to focus on business. Kazazian later served as an early "seed investor" in the 22Red proposal, raising more than $1 million from friends and family to launch the company. Music fans themselves, Len and Jon have plenty of fun with the duo's varied musical background, particularly as Harry talks about the travails of a young musician, and Shavo shares stories about the early years of System of a Down when the band was bonding and some of the band members had to serve as the "glue" to keep things together while other band members held down jobs, until a fateful meeting with legendary producer Rick Rubin. Len also shares some of his favorite source songs for samples, so expect some surprise finds, and get ready for a Have you Heard selection that reintroduces plenty of familiar voices in one stellar new track.

Everything is Personal