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" 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. "

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" 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

You

Jazz

Rock

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

Serj Tankian

Politician

Artist

" 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. "

Serj Tankian

Film

Goals

" 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. "

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

" I think it's my interaction with journalists that has pegged me more as political than my actual records, although they have obviously political aspects to them as well. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Serj Tankian

Back

Personal

" Capitalism unchecked is not a democratic system. "

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

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

" 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

Music

People

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 hate injustice, and I can't help but speak against it. But I don't want to get involved in politics. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Life is that perfect fine line between ironies. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Serj Tankian

Old

Forward

" I don't want to spend all my time working as an activist. I don't get satisfaction out of it. I'd rather be doing something else. I'm a musician. "