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. Serj Tankian More Quotes by Serj Tankian More Quotes From Serj Tankian To deny a genocide because of convenience and expediency having to do with an illegal war or occupation in Iraq to me, is double hypocritical. Serj Tankian occupationiraqwar I've always worked on all different types of music, some with specific project goals and deadlines and some not. Sometimes I would write a piece of music that is almost like a film score or weird electro pieces, wherever the muse took me, and I still do that. Serj Tankian differentgoalwriting What does civilization mean to you, and what would its ending bring to the world? Serj Tankian doecivilizationmean I'd rather let the music speak for itself. Serj Tankian music-speaksspeak People always ask me 'do you think there should be more bands doing political music?' and I say 'absolutely not.' Serj Tankian politicalpeoplethinking We are the cause of a world that's gone wrong. Nature will survive us, we've been wrong after all. We are the cause of a world that's gone wrong. Wouldn't it be great to heal the world with only a song? Serj Tankian goneskysong With most of the songs and music that I've composed, irrespective of the myriad videos made, I was always careful not to overly define the experience, leaving room for people to internalize things for themselves, making their experience more integral. Serj Tankian leavingsongpeople 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. Serj Tankian powerfulsong We [americans] self-regulate ourselves, we self-censor ourselves a lot in this country instead of having someone else censor us so we can blame them. That's not good, either. Serj Tankian blameselfcountry 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 rockstrackfour 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. Serj Tankian oppositespeoplethinking Day is just a collection of hours. Serj Tankian hourscollections In terms of political things, I think it's important to be more direct in terms of political statements. I think in terms of philosophical and things that you plant things and see them grow lyrically or musically, it's okay to be subtle. Serj Tankian philosophicalpoliticalthinking Harout Pamboukjian is one of the biggest Armenian folk singers in the world. In the '70s, he was making these records that were really Zeppelin-influenced. Serj Tankian zeppelinsrecordsworld Making two possibilities a reality. Predicting the future of things we all know. Fighting off the diseased programming Of centuries, centuries, centuries, centuries. Science fails to recognise the single most Potent element of human existence. Letting the reigns go to the unfoldings faith, Science has failed our world. Science has failed our mother earth. Serj Tankian fightingmotherreality People get so attached to a position which they identify themselves with that they just spurt it out, but they can't really give you a viable reason why they feel that way. Serj Tankian givingpeopleway 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. Serj Tankian crazycivilizationtwo Political statements are usually more direct, and it works with the upbeat music as well, for some reason, the directness of your statements. Serj Tankian upbeatpoliticalreason I hate injustice, and I can't help but speak against it. But I don't want to get involved in politics. Serj Tankian hatewanthelping With 'Elect the Dead,' I learned how to make a rock record without a rock band and make the rock record I've always wanted to make. Serj Tankian recordsrocksband
