I've got my own studio, and I've got four- to five-hundred unreleased tracks. I've got stuff that's electronic, orchestral, jazz, I've got rock, I've got metal, you know, I don't have polka. Serj Tankian More Quotes by Serj Tankian More Quotes From Serj Tankian It's important for all people, and not just people in bands, to speak out on social justice issues. That means journalists or plumbers have just as much of a responsibility to do that as artists. Serj Tankian artist responsibility mean If you're using live bass versus orchestral bass, you've got to make sure that you're not stepping on the toes of the other elements, so you've got to balance it out. Serj Tankian bass elements balance As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way. Serj Tankian artist writing song As long as people are living their truth or their vision, whether they're activists or not, that's the important thing. Serj Tankian vision long people 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. Serj Tankian unique expression inspire I think anytime that you go to the extreme of any mode of economics, be it capitalism or communism, you have these feedback mechanisms that make the system turn in on itself. Serj Tankian economics communism thinking I think that the memory of Armenia's genocide opened my eyes at an early age to the existence of political cynicism. Serj Tankian eye memories thinking 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. Serj Tankian musician satisfaction want The next song I wrote in Paris years ago in a dream. So I didn't really write it, the universe wrote it. And that's what I believe about music, I believe it belongs to the universe, it comes from there and it's this beautiful energy that we share that transcends normal flash existence and that we inspire each other through. Serj Tankian dream song beautiful I think as consumers Europeans are a lot more artist loyal irrespective of the genre of music or the type of project or the collaborative effort, and Americans are more media-loyal, because they need to be fed that media to know what's going on, because we're so inundated with promotion and marketing and everything that's going on - advertising. Serj Tankian media artist thinking 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. Serj Tankian humanity civilization years Science has failed our mother Earth. Serj Tankian mother-earth earth mother 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. Serj Tankian giving people thinking 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. Serj Tankian here-and-there listening years I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan. Serj Tankian african-music huge fans I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician. Serj Tankian politician artist expression Capitalism unchecked is not a democratic system. Serj Tankian capitalism democratic 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. Serj Tankian rock-music rocks jazz A lot of pop music is based on trying to make people remember it so that they'll buy it. To me, it was not about that. Serj Tankian remember trying people I think the gift of music is it's intuitive capability. 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. Because it's intuitive, the truth has to be defined intuitively. It can't be preached, it can't be pushed. It's got to normally go across organically and make someone feel something, and that's the power of music. Serj Tankian powerful artist thinking
