Zitat des Tages von Serj Tankian:
I write music when I'm free and for no particular project in mind.
The most important thing about music that I've learned after all this time is that to me, it's a way of reaching the truth.
I believe very firmly that indigenous populations had a really good, intuitive understanding of why we're here. And we're trying to gain that same understanding through psychology and intellect in modern civilization.
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.
You listen to Bob Dylan and you can't help but think of the 60s, it's very relational and if artists are true artists and not just mere musicians they need to be truthful because the music doesn't come from them it comes from the universe and it's to be shared. At best, we're skilled presenters, and I say that at best.
Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive.
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.
I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan.
People think our music's very aggressive or angry or whatever, and it's just the opposite, really... I like laughing. And I like being really calm before a show, and smiley.
We first fought... in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.
It's probably a combination of personal and non-personal matters that have led us to where we are musically.
We first fought the heathens in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.
You can say a lot more with a poem than you can with a song, but with a song you can really be more powerful with it. You can express it a lot more powerfully.
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.
If you allow for a purely capitalistic society, without any type of regulation at all, you will get one monopoly that will eat all of the smaller fish and own everything, and then you'll have zero capitalism, zero competition - it would just be one giant company.
The percentage of Americans in the prison system, has doubled since 1985.
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.
I've always tried to listen to a lot of different music from around the world.
I am more interested in how people interpret the phrase 'Elect The Dead' than what I may or may not have intended. I named the album after the track, which is a spiritual song about love, life and death and is the heaviest song on the album without having any heavy instruments.
When I was younger, I was listening to a lot of Armenian music, you know, revolutionary music about freedom and protest. In the 70s I was listening to soul and the Bee Gees and ABBA, and funk.
I think music is a powerful medium because it co-inspires. It inspires the artist who then inspires the listener, and it's a back-and-forth process.
'Elect the Dead' is a rock record that takes you on a journey with different types of genres integrated, different lyrical themes digested, and many fun and colorful moments to enjoy.
People always ask me 'do you think there should be more bands doing political music?' and I say 'absolutely not.'
My two interests are spirituality and politics. I would mesh them in some way; maybe try to figure out the politics of spirituality, or the spirituality of politics. Or maybe come up with this really crazy naive solution for the end of civilization.
I've worked with some great orchestras and amazing classical musicians, but I don't like the conceptualization of classical music as an elitist form of art.
I think every artist should follow their vision; their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for. That said though, I think also artists have, continuously good artists, have been good for their times.
I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.
I don't want to spend all my time working as an activist. I don't get satisfaction out of it. I'd rather be doing something else. I'm a musician.
Sometimes it's better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest.
