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Serj Tankian, singer for System of a Down
Travis Shinn/Hachette Books
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Travis Shinn/Hachette Books
Serj Tankian, singer for System of a Down
Travis Shinn/Hachette Books
The sound of protest music was the mild plucking of Bob Dylan’s guitar or the sleek grooves of Marvin Gaye. However on the finish of the Nineteen Nineties, there was a extra insistent voice, screaming via a wall of amplifiers.
System of a Down turned the preferred steel band of its period, scoring three No. 1 albums within the early a part of the 2000s. Live performance venues bought out. Eardrums had been pummeled. Then, at its peak, the Los Angeles-based band stopped releasing music and hasn’t supplied a brand new album since 2005.
Singer Serj Tankian describes the band in a brand new memoir, Down with the System, as:
“Armenian-Individuals enjoying a virtually unclassifiable conflict of wildly aggressive steel riffs, unconventional tempo-twisting rhythms, and Armenian people melodies, with me alternately growling, screaming, and crooning lyrics that might pivot from avant-garde silliness to raging socio-political rants within the house of a single line. I would be the primary to confess it: It isn’t straightforward listening.”
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A part of the band’s mission was to coach a brand new era about one thing that occurred greater than a century in the past — the Armenian genocide. The Turkish authorities has by no means acknowledged it as a genocide, and a U.S. president did not formally acknowledge it as genocide till Joe Biden did in 2021.
Morning Version host A Martinez spoke with Serj Tankian about his memoir.
On his household fleeing the Lebanese Civil Struggle as a toddler:
I used to be seven; my brother was 4. And I keep in mind when the bombings first began and college was closed, we had been crouching in our bed room from the sounds, the constructing shaking from bombs falling close by. And it was simply worry. I keep in mind worry, you understand? The worry of the unknown as effectively as a result of as a toddler you are not cognizant of who’s combating for what motive. You simply really feel the worry of warfare, and it is a horrible feeling.
That undoubtedly made me anti-war at a really younger age, however as I grew up, it’s really the hypocrisy of the taboo nature of the popularity of the Armenian genocide in a well known democracy like the USA that in the end made me an activist.
On his household’s hyperlink to the Armenian Genocide:
My ancestors, my nice grandparents – perished within the genocide. My grandfather, Stepan Eytan, was born within the early 1900s in a small village referred to as Efkere within the Gesaria space of Turkey, which was historic Armenia. Turkey used to have not less than 3 million Armenians, if no more. We had been the biggest Christian minority within the nation. Throughout the First World Struggle in 1915, there was a scientific, organized genocide performed by the federal government of the Ottoman Empire on the time. And my grandfather is a survivor of that genocide. He instructed us his story of survival.
My grandfather lived to the age of 93, 94 (we’re not precisely certain of his age due to misplaced paperwork). We all know his story greater than our different grandparents, in order that was a present for us. I wished him to know that earlier than he [died], we had been combating for his reminiscence, the reminiscence of his household, his complete era, and what he had fought for throughout his life.
On dropping followers over his activism:
I am OK with that as a result of an artist is not speculated to please everybody. An artist is meant to principally attempt to obtain via the collective consciousness no matter truths that we’re making an attempt to stay by, the truths of our instances. If we won’t do this as artists, then we’re entertainers. From day one, it’s important to make that selection: Are you an entertainer solely or are you going to be an artist? In case you’re an entertainer, that is cool; there’s many entertainers I observe and love. But when you are going to be an artist, then the street will not be going to be straightforward. You are going to need to be sincere with your self and everybody else always, and individuals are going to love you and individuals are going to hate you, and that is OK.
I used to be extra of the activist within the band than anybody else. There was at all times this push and pull between the message and the music. The opposite guys, rightfully so, did not need the music to be victimized by the message always. I understood that as a result of I cherished the music as effectively, however when there was [a message] that wanted to be dispersed, I felt like that was simply as vital, if no more vital, than the music.
On why System of a Down hasn’t launched a brand new album since 2005:
I assume the brief reply to that’s: inventive variations. And making an attempt to imbue egalitarian means throughout the system, not solely via our message. A band is a singular dynamic of people, with targets and issues that they wish to specific. Not all of it really works collectively without delay.
Our authentic format was: Daron [Malakian], guitarist in System of a Down and my good friend, would write the music and I might write the lyrics. As he grew as a lyricist. I attempted to encourage him to sing as a lot as doable, as a result of these had been his lyrics. I wished his voice to come back out via his music. I imagine that when somebody writes a music – they usually have a extra full music, each lyrically and musically – they will encapsulate it higher with their voice.
I felt like I wasn’t getting the identical again on the time, by way of encouragement. I used to be writing extra music now, not simply lyrics, and I wished that badly throughout the band. I used to be additionally passive on the time, based mostly on every thing that was taking place in my life. I wasn’t as assertive. And I completely take the blame for that, which isn’t who I’m now. I am extra assertive now. So it is an attention-grabbing dynamic that brought on this block for us to have the ability to proceed musically in the end.
On many followers studying concerning the Armenian Genocide via System of a Down’s music:
I contemplate the attention having to do with the Armenian genocide one of many band’s largest non-musical legacies. In reality, in 2015 after we had been enjoying the one centesimal anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Yerevan, Armenia in Republic Sq., that feeling was palpable, like we had been nearly created for this second. That is the highest of the mountain for this band. I am extremely happy with that, that we have been capable of assist.
Cowl artwork for Serj Tankian’s “Down with the System: A Memoir (Of Kinds)”
Travis Shinn/Hachette Books
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Travis Shinn/Hachette Books
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