Shavarsh "Shavo" Odadjian (; born April 22, 1974) is an
Armenian American songwriter, multi-instrumentalist,
music video director/editor, music producer, and artist/painter. He is best known as the bassist, backing vocalist and occasional songwriter of the
Grammy Award-winning rock band
System of a Down. During the band's hiatus from 2006 to 2010, Odadjian collaborated with
Wu-Tang Clan founder
RZA on a project called
AcHoZeN, which contributed a number of songs to the motion picture
Babylon A.D. A compilation album was released in 2015. Odadjian is also credited with the musical scoring of the film, alongside The Rza and Hans Zimmer. He regularly uses a
Gibson Thunderbird bass, a
Fender Jazz Bass, and an Ibanez BTB bass guitar. He used a
Music Man StingRay when he started to play with the band.