[5] Vartan is a painter, dancer, and choreographer from Mosul, Iraq, and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career.

Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne.

[6] He also cites other British Invasion bands such as the Kinks[7] and the Who[6][7] as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop.

[6] Malakian went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended.

They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino.

[6] The word "victims" was changed to "system" because Odadjian believed that it would appeal to a much wider audience and also because the group wanted their records to be alphabetically shelved closer to their musical heroes, Slayer.

However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway.

After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007–2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members).

Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008.

On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan.

In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but stated that band members were all busy with their other projects (such as Malakian's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).

[12] On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking".

On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".

In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion".

[13] On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington.