Serj Tankian drawing by Tracy Lang

Listen to the start of the Serj Interview

Serj Tankian is a founding member and lead singer of the rock band System Of A Down. He delivers thoughtful, political lyrics with a passionate and powerful voice, a voice that has become increasingly active in calling attention to injustice, and promoting sociopolitical change in America and abroad. Tankian's new solo album, Elect the Dead, builds on the foundation he created with SOAD, and smashes it at the same time. Elect the Dead is wide ranging and powerful: part guitar driven rock, part piano infused melody, with lyrics that swim on the surface, condemning the status quo, and providing direction for change.

Tankian has been involved in many other projects ranging from his book of poetry, Cool Gardens, to the activist group Axis of Justice. Tankian, who was born in Lebanon, and is of Armenian descent, is also active in the pursuit of recognition for the Armenian genocide that occurred in 1915, an event that has been ignored by world leaders for over 90 years. System Of A Down recently leant its music to Screamers, a documentary film which looks at genocide in history and in modern times.

When the Elect the Dead tour stopped in Seattle, KNOCK met with Tankian to discuss his music, his activism, and to get his opinions on some of the issues facing America as we near the end of civilization.

Tyler Ingram - Elect the Dead is often pessimistic and nihilistic, yet you continue to promote positive change through your activism, such as the 5 ideas on the Elect the Dead website. How did you reconcile the tone of the album with the hope that informs your activist endeavors?

Serj - I don't necessarily think that Elect the Dead is nihilistic in the least bit. I think that it forewarns of a lot of change that is scientifically expected, and tries to offer a note of positivity and hope in terms of the humor, and the kind of light-heartedness, and also the kind of embracing message of love in some ways in a lot of the songs. There is that aspect of it, but it's kind of like reading a book on climate change and what we can do about it, they both have some negatives and positives.

TI - Who are the dead in the title of the album? People like Bobby Kennedy, or Martin Luther King? Or are you saying we just keep making the same mistake of electing Ronald Reagan?

Serj - They're both viable answers I leave the title of the record, along with the names of the songs titles and the lyrics themselves, open to interpretation. In terms of art, I've always felt that when people approach things with their own cumulative experiences and internalize the experience, it's a much more valid kind of association than what a particular songwriter feels or thinks about something. I've heard a lot of great interpretations of what Elect the Dead might mean, two of which you just mentioned. Another might be that the victims of the epitome of civilization should elect our next leaders to have a more just and viable system. Elect The Dead definitely deals with going beyond the material, beyond history itself, to find the knowledge and the wisdom to be able to lead ourselves.

TI - With the fingerprints of corporations and government all over the national media, where do you go to find your news?

Serj - Good question. I have a number of news resources, some online, some printed. I use an organization called stratfor.com. It caters mostly to American businesses, and corporations, to get them the news unfiltered about what's going on. Predictions. Once in a while they'll have a tilt, but generally they don't, and they work with ex-CIA agents, current intelligence agents, and government officials. It's not news for the public. It's a heavy fee-based news service, and daily you get emails about what's happening around the world: every bomb that goes off, every maneuver that's made, every major deal or treaty that's done, and its implications, and where it comes from, and what the possibilities are. That's one. I love The Nation, I read that. The Economist is a good print source for me as far as political stuff. Sometimes just regular online news services, for basic stuff, or CNN on TV once in awhile.

TI - Are there any important stories that you're aware of that are being blown off by mainstream media?

Serj - There are a lot (laughs). It depends…

Bryan Tomasovich - Today?

Serj - Yeah, today (laughs). In Seattle today. God, I don't know. One thing that was really interesting for me was when we had the election in 2000, and there was the electoral reversal of the majority vote. It's really, really interesting how the news media handled that situation. Instead of questioning the validity of the Electoral College, and the reversing of a majority vote, which is the most important thing in the word democracy. Right? Instead of questioning the validity of the Electoral College, they just kept on talking about it like it was something that came down from God and had to be inspected and talked about and dealt with, rather than saying: why do we even have this? No one said that. And that to me is really, really interesting because we're so indoctrinated to see things the way that they are, that we can't question things without it, which brings me to the notion of living without the idea of civilization. We're so ingrained into thinking that civilization equals humanity- which it doesn't -that we cannot imagine life without civilization for humanity. So, it's our addiction to civilization, which is our real problem in relation to ecological events and things happening around the world, not the fact that humanity can't survive or anything like that.

Listen to Serj on the Electoral College

TI - What you said about the electoral college sounds like a lack of critical thinking, to a large part. What do you think of the government's push for standardized education? Things like No Child Left Behind.

Serj - The Bush administration has been great at coming up with slogans that represent the kind of… what was the Orwellian term?

TI - Newspeak.

Listen to Serj on Iran

Serj - Yeah, newspeak, they're really good at newspeak. So, No Child Left Behind sounds awesome, right, and what it really means is horrible. Instead of taking money away from the poor, it's this other great, grand phrase. That's what they've been really good at, they've been good at repackaging their bullshit, and that's what I think of it. I think that we really need to take a look at education in this country because you can't have a true democracy without a truly enlightened public in terms of education. You can take Iran as an example in terms of foreign policy and what's going on right now. The media is talking about the tension with Iran, and obviously there are meetings going on with Iran and all of that, but before that the Bush Administration was making this giant war rally talk here and there, and Americans are listening to this, and this is after a war where we were lied to, and yet we're still listening. I'm not saying we're going with it, but we're even listening, and the fact that the American public… I will bet hard currency right now that the majority of the American public is not aware that we- we, meaning America -helped overthrow the government of Iran in the 1950's led by Mossadegh, who was their Prime Minister, because he wanted to nationalize their oil industry, which was co-owned by BP, if I'm not mistaken, from Great Britain. And we overthrew a democratically elected government in that country fifty-something years ago. We brought in a king into a democracy. The king was brutal and they reacted by bringing in a religious mullah, and kidnapping the hostages they took in the late seventies. And we react to that like it's all their fucking fault, but the fact that most of us don't know that we overthrew their democratic government in the 1950's, and call ourselves a democracy, will allow us to be led into something like this. If you are educated in history than you'll know that. Then it won't even come to the level where they can even try and fool you again.

TI - How has the Reverb eco-tour been working? Vegetarians have the hardest time kicking bacon, so what's the hardest thing about being a rock star and going green? Is it Organic whiskey, or nothing?

Serj - Well, I don't want to take full credit for the whole green thing because we just started working with Reverb. Before this whole touring cycle we started looking into different eco-friendly organizations that deal with touring, and the specific work that we do, and again, it's a new relationship. There's the carbon offsetting aspect of it, there's the backstage recycling aspect, and stuff for the bus. We're not using bio-fuels. We're not that green yet, to be honest. It's something that we're learning more about and we're trying to integrate into what we do. Years ago with System Of A Down we made sure that the paper we printed was not just recycled paper, but post-consumer recycled that also has flax and hemp in it.

... Read the rest of the interview with Serj in KNOCK #9 ...

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