Serj Tankian

Notable Quotes



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.

From Serj Tankian

The best way to do that is to pick up a new instrument or an instrument that you don't typically write on and see where it takes you. Whether it's using an acoustic guitar, or piano, or electronics as tools, all of these lead to creating different types of songs and I used all of these methods for this record.

From Serj Tankian

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.

From Serj Tankian

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.

From Serj Tankian

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.

From Serj Tankian

Sometimes it's better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest.

From Serj Tankian

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.

From Serj Tankian

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.

From Serj Tankian

Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive.

From Serj Tankian

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.

From Serj Tankian

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