“B.Y.O.B.” (“Bring Your Own Bombs”) is a Grammy Award–winning song as well as the first single released from System Of A Down‘s fourth album Mezmerize. Like their earlier song “Boom!” it was written to protest the Iraq War. B.Y.O.B. means “Bring Your Own Bombs”, as opposed to the common interpretation “Bring Your Own Beer”, referring to the Iraq War as a party for the United States.
The video for “B.Y.O.B.” was directed by Jake Nava.
The music video shows an army of drone soldiers marching through the streets, wearing masks that show words such as “DIE”, “TRUTH”, “OBEY”, “BUY” and “GOD” like a television screen, with the members of System Of A Down playing in the middle of the venue. During the chorus, the band is shown playing inside a night club. Midway through the video, Daron 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 attack the night club and force everyone to put on the drone masks, except they depict various television shows and cartoons. At the end of the video, the members of System of a Down are wearing the drone masks, which seem to be playing static.
The music video was censored for air-play reasons.
