"B.Y.O.B." ("Bring Your Own Bombs") is a song by Armenian-American alternative metal band System of a Down. It was released in March 2005 as the lead single from their fourth album Mezmerize. Like their earlier song "Boom!", it was written in protest against the Iraq War.[2] The song reached number 27 on the US BillboardHot 100, the band's highest peak to date on the chart.
Directed by Jake Nava, the music video for "B.Y.O.B." shows an army of soldiers marching through the streets, wearing paintball masks with television screens projecting words like "DIE", "TRUTH", "OBEY", "BUY" or "GOD", with the band members playing in the middle of the street. During the chorus, the band is shown playing inside a night club. Midway through the video, co-lead vocalist Daron Malakian is shown screaming the words "Blast off! It's party time! And we don't live in a fascist nation! Blast off! It's party time! And where the fuck are you?!", when the soldiers storm the night club and force everyone to put on the drone masks, during which the masks show images of television shows and war. At the end of the video, the band members are shown wearing the drone masks, which are playing static.
As of July 2021, the song has over 357 million views on YouTube.
Song writing legal case[]
Casey Chaos claimed to have helped write the song in 2002, and Malakian gifted him a 2% royalties credit. Casey Chaos then subsequently sold a 50% interest in the song to Maxwood Music Ltd. However, in 2010 a Manhattan court ruled Malakian and Tankian to be the sole writers of the song.[3]
