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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" Corporatization is the descendant of industrialization. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Sometimes a good love song can change the world and create positive energy more than any political song can. "

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

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

" '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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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 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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 think every artist should follow their vision; their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for. That said though, I think also artists have, continuously good artists, have been good for their times. "

" 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. "

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

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

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" You can say a lot more with a poem than you can with a song, but with a song you can really be more powerful with it. You can express it a lot more powerfully. "

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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. "