A Tribute Bands Dream As Peephole: Tribute to System of a Down Experiences A Guest Appearance At One Of Their Gigs That Will Forever Change Their Lives

Sep 02, 2025 admin_bitlc Features, Interviews, Music News, Reviews 0

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By James Currie

Local Chicago tribute band, Peephole, (named after a song off System of a Down’s self titled debut album from 1998) received a special guest and welcome from the band they built their music around this past weekend as a chance encounter changed their optimism and solidified their street cred as one of Chicago’s premiere tribute acts.

If you were walking around Wrigley Field Sunday evening you might have heard the heavy sounds of System of a Down coming from the open doors of The Cubby Bear. You might have twitched your head, threw up the irons and followed those nu-metal songs right in and found Peephole, A System of A Down Tribute destroying the stage as their audience prepped themselves for the real thing coming just 24-hours later as the real System of a Down were in town for 2 nights at Soldier Field. And, that’s exactly what happened to guitarist, Daron Malakian of System of a Down. As he was walking around The Friendly Confines taking pictures of the Wrigley Field sign at the corner of Clark and Addison, he perked his head up as he heard his music being played across the street in a local bar. He walked across the street and entered to see who was playing his songs.

Daron Malakian stated in a post on his socials the event as it unfolded, “Let me start by saying none of this was planned.” He was shocked but curious and entered the club and rushed to the stage with fist in the air, singing along.

Slight backstory here, I’ve known and worked with Jamie Dull of Peephole for many years. We’ve worked at the same companies together, he’s been a guest writer for In The Loop Magazine and we meet in the live music community all the time.

(video of the moment they met, from Daron of System of a Down)

Little did the band know, the man who co-writes and performs the songs they play each night out would be walking in on them. Not only that, but actually joined them on stage and played a song together.

I chatted with the singer of Peephole, Jamie Dull, about this. We talked about what his reaction was to Malakian’s entrance, joining them on stage, hearing his voice in his ear monitor and getting asked to go to System of a Downs show as VIP guests the following night.

ITLM James: So Jamie, congrats on this experience! I’m really excited for you. It’s truly a dream situation for a band, and fan.

Jamie Dull: Thank you, yeah, it was an almost out of body experience. (chuckles) One I’m honestly still trying to process and come down from it all.

ITLM: I can’t imagine how powerful that night must have been. Tell us a little about the night and the things that lead up to it. But also a quick background on how Peephole even came to be.

JD: Yeah so Peephole started about 8 years ago in 2017 as a side thing from my band, Electric Villain. There’s a club called, Beat Kitchen that was doing this annual Halloween tribute show and I wanted to be a part of it, so I asked my band members for my solo project if they wanted to do this System of a Down Tribute and they said yes. There wasn’t really anyone around doing a SOAD tribute and we thought it was something that was needed and fun to do. So we learned a set of their songs, and struggled through it because those songs are super hard. (ha) So we did the show and really liked doing it and the fans really liked it too so we thought, let’s give this a try so we did and just kind of riding the wave of it 8 years later with every show growing stronger.

ITLM: So who is in the band now?

JD: The bass player is Mike Morgan, the guitar player is Curran Allenstein and our drummer is Dave Vazzano. That’s the four of us, the core lineup anyway.

ITLM: I know you’ve all been around for a while and that other tribute bands in town love playing with you as I see your name on many tribute playbills. But having the band you are basing yourself off of give good praise, that’s a new level.

JD: It’s as great as you think it is. I mean, whatever is in your (anyone’s) head about seeing what we saw happen is just unreal. And as Daron said this wasn’t a publicity stunt. I mean, they already sold out the largest venue in town, for 2 nights, they didn’t need to make a scene to drum up ticket sales. (ha) It was just a complete random act of fate.

ITLM: Was there a plan on basing that Cubby Bear gig on the night you did?

JD: Basically, we booked this show because the idea was to reach the fans that were coming to town that weekend. And to play for people who liked SOAD but couldn’t make it to the show for whatever reason, we wanted to give them another experience as well or in lieu of going to their show. I mean, we were planning on going to the show at Soldier Field as a family or group because it was important to all of us. We just wanted to celebrate our favorite band with everybody.

ITLM: And when did you know or notice Daron was in the front row cheering you guys on?

JD: We were in the middle of the song, “Needles” and I had just done a big scream and kind of turned around to catch my breath and when I turned back I noticed Daron down there and I remember that moment when we kind of locked eyes and he’s giving me the kind of Hell Yeah look. The feeling of my heart dropping to the ground as I knew instantly who he was and I had no idea what to do about it.

ITLM: (laughs) Yeah I can’t imagine that feeling or what I would do in that situation.

JD: My favorite part about all this is that, my band, we’ve all been music teachers for years so we’re kind of used to being uncomfortable on stage and rolling with things as they happen. We have been playing so much for so long that, thankfully when this moment happened, we were ready for it.

ITLM: So tell me how that moment happened where he ended up on your stage and played a song with you?

JD: Yeah so shortly after completing “Needles” you hear me on the video saying something like, “I’m kind of freaking out right now.” I just looked him in the eyes and said, “Would you like to jam with us?” And he immediately said, “Yeah!” And then walked up the side of the stage and I got on the mic and said, “Ladies and gentleman please welcome, Daron of System of a Down.”

Then we kind of huddled real quick to go over what song to do and next up with “Aerials” but I knew that really wouldn’t work well for him because it didn’t feature him as much, so another song coming up was “Cigaro”. And it just clicked, that was the song. I leaned over to Daron and said, “We play this in the key of C not C# like you do on the record and he said, “Oh yeah, that’s what we do when we play it live.” Our drummer just launched into it and that was it. Nobody skipped a beat, we had that song in the pocket, were ready to play it anyway. Something I like to share about that moment that most people don’t really know or think about is we play with in-ear monitors and when I heard his voice in the mix with mine, it was something I never, ever thought I’d experience. It was something that I just can’t really describe, it was of a different world. It kind of validated everything I’ve ever done in my life, in that moment. Sharing that moment with Daron on stage was just, nothing better.

ITLM: Incredible. So, he finishes the song. What happens next?

JD: That was it. Just the one song. He gave us all a hug and walked off the stage. Took pictures with fans along the way and that was it. He was gone as quick as he entered. We proceeded to stand there and go, what do we do now? We just went right back into the setlist we had planned and honestly, the rest of the post Daron show was just crazy high energy all around. We gave them a night to remember for sure.

ITLM: How did you get invited to the show at Soldier Field?

JD: We already had tickets to the show. We had planned and bought those months ago when it was first announced. We were all going with our significant others to make this a big deal and family affair. They (someone from Daron’s camp) spoke with our bass player at the show and said they’d leave us VIP passes at the show. The next day, we picked up our passes and went in. We already knew we didn’t want to bother them at the show or anything, we just wanted to rock out. So we got down to the floor and right behind the circle pit and locked in. Two of us, the guitarist and bass player got in the mosh pit and they got, kinda beat up a bit with some cuts, scrapes or bruises. (ha) It was awesome.

ITLM: So did you end up meeting with him at the show? Did he say hi or welcome you in any way?

JD: No, we only got to spend those few minutes with him on stage the night before. And honestly, that was enough for us. The response we’ve got from fans and social media has been overwhelming. It’s been great on so many levels. We’re not even sure where this is all going to go.

ITLM: And that’s what I was going to ask. Where do you see Peephole going from here?

JD: Well we’ve kind of achieved what we wanted to do in these 8 years of being a band. One of the things we haven’t done is have a sell out show. So that would be nice, that’s what we’re shooting for. Continuing on with what we’ve been doing and seeing where it goes. We feel like we’ve got the seal of approval from System of a Down so we feel good about going on with it. Maybe get into some cities we haven’t played before. Share this with new fans. That’s what it’s about for us.

For more on Peephole: Tribute to System of a Down, click here

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• Chicago, Chicago Band, Cubby Bear, Daron Malakian, Interview, live, Peephole, Soldier Field, System of a Down, Tribute Band

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