Serj Tankian Quotes

Corporatization is the descendant of industrialization.

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.

My personal relationship with music is an imperfect harmony because I never studied music, but here I am not just writing for bands but full orchestral sections and doing all this composition, and I never learned the right way of doing things so I have a lot of dissonant sounds and things that are brought to my attention, and generally I leave them that way because I like those imperfections.

I don't find most people to be as politically engaged as I am. I do find people that appreciate eye-opening events and words, and who want to learn more about what's going on. I do find people with a lot of opinions. And I get a lot of people who come up to me and give us props for what we do.

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.

Political statements are usually more direct, and it works with the upbeat music as well, for some reason, the directness of your statements.

Science has failed our mother Earth.

Spirit moves through all things.

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.

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.

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

'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.

What does civilization mean to you, and what would its ending bring to the world?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I think music has the ability to inspire people and to change hearts, and the heart has the power to change the mind, and the mind has the power to change the world.

Day is just a collection of hours.

Civilization is a failure. We need to think what we can do together in love and peace.

In America, there's more of the question, should music be political or should it just be for entertainment purposes, whereas around the world that's not even an issue. I think people just assume that music should be everything.

The diversity of sounds rule my ever presence with their highs and blows, encompassing the totality of sensual experience. I'm a child of the sirens of knowledge, a warrior for the truth in a world of washed perspectives and harsh realities. My voice cries the initial cry of the unborn into the perplexing illusion. I long for the realization of the human drama, the defeat of the dogs war, and the unity of existence. The beloved Gods of virtue have been undersold for the bleeding bread of empathy. I now awaist the triumphant roar of destiny, dressed in the inviting hand of a mother, perplexed by discovering, aroused by spirit. The door is open, the road transformed. The exit code to civilization is hacked beyond dispair, chased but the moon toward the freeing sun, on our journey to light. This is an open plea to the beautiful insanity of your hearts. It is time to consummate the kiss of oblivion into the obsidian of love!

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

The living ideas of the dead are more powerful and effective than the dead ideas of the living.

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.

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.

As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.

Anti-depressan ts
Controlling tools of your system
Making life more tolerable
Making life more tolerable

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.

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.

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.

We have the power to change our lives, and the world around us.

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.

Nations are like people. Once you understand the interactions between nations, it's easy to understand why things are done, in terms of foreign policy, in a certain way. But nations are not like people in the sense that we are cumulatively represented by others - and their interpretations of what our interests are may not be the same as what they really are. And that's what's dangerous, even in a democracy.

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.

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.

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? (Sky is Over)

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.

Life is that perfect fine line between ironies.

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.

I like having songs that go from the personal to the kind of inter-relational, universal, because everything comes back to micro/macro and everything's tied in.

I really feel like civilisation's already over. It's not ending but it's already done. We're all addicted to the concept that humanity equals civilisation and that's not the case. We need a global conversation to be able to decipher how we can live from this point forward. We have to redefine our relationship with our environment.

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.

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.

Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive.

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.

As long as people are living their truth or their vision, whether they're activists or not, that's the important thing.

I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan.

Freedom is only available through Death!

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

I think that the memory of Armenia's genocide opened my eyes at an early age to the existence of political cynicism.