Quotes from Serj Tankian


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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 think I might write a book. I like writing. People have asked me if I would get into politics, but I think I feel a lot more effective being a representative of truth through the arts.


It's the idea of a multi-sensory experience stemming from music that opened my interest into painting, to be honest.


It's probably a combination of personal and non-personal matters that have led us to where we are musically.


I've always tried to listen to a lot of different music from around the world.


Touring and putting out records is fun and cool, but I've been doing it for a long time.


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.


'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.


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.


People always ask me 'do you think there should be more bands doing political music?' and I say 'absolutely not.'


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.


I'm a huge Beatles fan, but I've only really gotten into them as an adult.


I write music when I'm free and for no particular project in mind.


I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.


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.


I'd rather let the music speak for itself.


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.


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.


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.


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.