Serj Tankian
Serj Tankian
Serj Tankianis a Lebanese-born Armenian-American singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, poet, and political activist. He is best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, keyboardist, and occasional live rhythm guitarist of the rock band System of a Down, formed in 1994 by four Armenian-American friends...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMetal Singer
Date of Birth21 August 1967
CityBeirut, Lebanon
CountryUnited States of America
Corporatization is the descendant of industrialization.
The percentage of Americans in the prison system, has doubled since 1985.
With rock music, the amount of power that you can generate, the intensity behind the intentions of your lyrics that you can really reflect through rock music - you can't do that in jazz. You can't do that with classical.
I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.
I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan.
In the last few years I've been listening to jazz more than anything else. I listen to a lot of world music and experimental here and there.
It's probably a combination of personal and non-personal matters that have led us to where we are musically.
I really feel like civilisation's already over. It's not ending but it's already done. We're all addicted to the concept that humanity equals civilisation and that's not the case. We need a global conversation to be able to decipher how we can live from this point forward. We have to redefine our relationship with our environment.
Science has failed our mother Earth.
I think nobody wants to hear a sermon. Well, some people do, but maybe not through music or not with me. No one wants to hear me give a speech that way.
Composing is what I love most from what I do. Each genre has a unique expression that you cannot supplant with another. All the records co-inspire each other though they are not tied conceptually in any way to another.
We're addicted to this concept of civilization - we can't imagine living outside of it because we've had it for 10,000 years, all of what we call history. But according to archaeologists, humanity has been on this planet for millions of years in indigenous form.
Day is just a collection of hours.
I'm not comfortable with just entertaining. Although I like entertaining, I also like bringing forward the truth of our times as minstrels used to in the old days.