Shavo Odadjian can easily recall the early days of System of a Down, hanging with his bandmates in garages and letting their creative juices flow with the help of cannabis.
He began smoking marijuana as a 21-year-old who was still afraid of disappointing his traditional parents, but now claims cannabis helped him become who he is today: a Grammy Award-winning bassist for one of the most well-known and respected heavy metal bands in music history.
Founded in 2018, 22Red is a lifestyle brand that merges premium cannabis, music, fashion, skate and design. It has a presence in California, Nevada and now Arizona, with plans for East Coast expansion.
Odadjian recently sat down with Card Player to discuss his cannabis endeavor, his thoughts on consumption lounges in Las Vegas casinos, System of a Down’s future plans, the bandmates’ renewed harmony and more in an exclusive Q&A with Card Player.
Introduction Into Cannabis
Q: What was your first experience with cannabis?
A: I’ve always been a supporter of cannabis. I started smoking in my early 20s. I wasn’t a smoker as a kid. My parents come from the old country so their view of cannabis was, like, it’s heroin and cocaine. So I always kind of viewed it as that. I had friends that smoked around me. I was always into metal rock and I just always avoided it. And then it all happened. I was at a Guns N’ Roses Metallica concert. It was a crazy show and there were people smoking around me. I just kind of felt like saying, ‘Bro, pass that.’ All my friends that were sober were around me, and it was like, ‘Whoa, dude, Shavo’s about to smoke.’ And then the dude actually passed it.
“I took a hit. Nothing happened. I was like, ‘Oh, ok, this ain’t that as bad as I thought it was going to be.’ After that I experimented. I smoked then we started System. Daron (Malakian) was an avid smoker so we just started smoking. So we’d go snag weed and take it to our rehearsal space and talk about how we’re going to make System of a Down what it is today.
Q: Was there a feeling of rebellion smoking for the first time?
A: I was straight up nervous. It was that moment of truth thing where it was just like, ‘It’s happening, I’m about to smoke.’ And when I smoked, it wasn’t what I thought. I thought I was gonna hallucinate. Yeah, no, I had no idea what I was gonna feel. There were nerves, but it wasn’t anxiety or anything like that. I was ready. It was time.
Creating 22Red
Q: How did 22Red become a reality?
A: Once weed became legal in California, everyone was asking me, ‘Why don’t you get into the business?’ And I was just like, ‘Man, I’m a smoker, I don’t want to get into the industry.’ I didn’t want to be one of those celebrity brand guys that just slapped their name on any weed and said, ‘Hey, this is me,’ and then sold it. I didn’t want to do that. And then I met one of my partners, (Sean Oganesyan) and he took me to his grow.
Originally 22Red was a concept lifestyle brand with me and my best friend Mike, who I grew up with. So we decided to do this. He comes from textiles and manufacturing clothing. But when we brought the third partner in, and I noticed how bad ass his grow is, I just knew this was maybe my calling. And I said, ‘You know what? I could rep this.’ This is something I could smoke every day, and I can be proud to say this is mine. And so we partnered him in and 22Red was born.
Shavo with the big bags 💰#shavo #soad #22red #cannabisculture pic.twitter.com/bltDENhkFw
— 22RED (@22redla) January 13, 2024
The Future For 22Red
Q: How ambitious are your growth plans for 22Red?
A: Very ambitious, but still staying righteous to my word and not over-scaling ourselves so we don’t lose control of what we’re selling. We scaled to different states. We’re about to open up in Maine and Massachusetts. But our model is not vertical at the moment because when you go vertical, you need a lot of funds. Since we’ve been around for six, seven years, we could license our name. We find a grower who has a distribution license who needs a brand, we do all the marketing. We give them our genetics, we give them our packaging and if they’re not capable of growing the way we need them to grow, we bring Sean in and he guides the grower on how to do it.
So we walk in and give you our plan and make you a part of 22Red in that state. Once it’s federally legal, we can have our own specific grows.. But for now, since every state has their own rules and regulations, we need to do this model so we could scale.
Dealing With Products
Q: How do you ensure quality with your strains?
A: I have to taste it and or someone who I trust tastes it. I have a crew here that I pass around and say, ‘Is this 22 quality?’ And I ask myself the same thing. I don’t smoke as much as I used to, so I have a trusted group of testers. It’s not like we just allow anything the distributor puts in because they can. We’ve been screwed before. We learned quickly that’s not how it works.
Q: Is there a product that really stands out to you?
A: We have our OG. We call it the 22Red OG, which is the one I swear by. It’s always trusted, wonderful, grows really well, really thick, dense. I don’t like strains that floor you and you’re couch locked. I don’t like that. A lot of things do that. It’s an indica, but it’s a sativa as well. So it’s a nice hybrid that you can actually feel both ends of it.
We found that one of my favorite things to do in this industry is creation. I live to create. I’m an artist, so I love that. And in the cannabis industry, that’s the one part I really have a control of is how to create strains. It’s just a really wondrous thing. You can take two strains and have them make babies and kind of play God a little bit and create really cool genetics.
Expanding Business To Vegas Casinos?
Q: Since Vegas casinos are federally regulated, smoking weed inside is prohibited. But do you think there should be some sort of consumption lounge where it can be allowed in a designated area?
A: It’d be nice. There are bars so why not that? I’m not a drinker. I sit at a bar and I smoke cigars. It’d be nice to be able to take a hit of a joint in there. But it always changes, too. So it’s here one day and gone the other, or vice versa. So yeah, that would be nice.
Upcoming Stadium Shows
Q: You have some upcoming tours with System of a Down in August and September and you just returned from South America. What else is coming up? What are you looking forward to?
A: Well, we don’t have a lot happening. We’re playing three major cities and we’re doing two stadium shows in each. But I’m also looking forward to what I have with my new solo project, Seven Hours After Violet. We’ve been rocking that. The album came out in October. We just got back from Europe. We did all the festival runs and then we also supported Korn for their European run. It was wonderful. And we also did one Avenged Sevenfold show. Great bunch of guys. I’m just excited.
With System, we’re playing New York with Korn, two shows at MetLife. We’re playing two shows with Avenged Sevenfold in Chicago at Soldier Field, and then we’re doing a huge brand new stadium in Toronto with Deftones. So they’re going to be amazing, historic shows.
System Of A Down and the one and only Greg Watermann photographed during the South America stadium tour in May 2025!#SystemOfADown #SOAD #DaronMalakian #SerjTankian #ShavoOdadjian #JohnDolmayan pic.twitter.com/cgQLHMyaBj
— Victims Of A Down (@victimsofadown) July 1, 2025
Q: How special would it be to renew some fervor with System of a Down?
A: I think it has already. System is back playing shows. It’s gonna be a busy next few years and I’m looking forward to it. There was a long gap of me not doing that, which allowed me to raise a family and start 22Red, but now my passion is back in my life, and I’m very excited, very grateful and feeling very blessed.
Q: System hasn’t put out an album in 20 years. What is the possibility of a new one?
A: “I don’t know. That’s all. I can’t even comment on that because one comment will (make) click bait take off. We haven’t talked about it. If something happens, it happens. You’ll hear about it when it happens.”
Renewing Family Ties
Q: There was a recent Q&A where you said there was some strife among some of your bandmates. How nice has it been to have everyone back together?
A: It’s wonderful. We’ve been family for 30 years. Families go through ups and downs and nobody did anything harmful to another. And most things you read online were skewed. We just had some creative differences. We’re human, we’re all different. But things are working out. We’re going back to being a band that plays live. We didn’t start off as a band that recorded albums.
Q: Chop Suey has over 1.5 billion views on YouTube. What goes through your mind seeing that and is that something you guys expected when you made that song?
A: No clue. It was just our first single off Toxicity and it just exploded. Kids just really resonated with it. I don’t know if it was the music or lyrics or both. I’m grateful that our music has surpassed 30 freaking years.
