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" 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. "
Serj Tankian
Bee
Listening
Freedom
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
Serj Tankian
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" Awareness in our society has flipped all types of injustice on its head. "
Serj Tankian
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" 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. "
Serj Tankian
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" 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. "
Serj Tankian
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" 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. "
Serj Tankian
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" '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. "
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" 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. "
Serj Tankian
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Want
Doing
" 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
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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. "
Serj Tankian
World
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" 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
Me
" 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. "
Serj Tankian
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Music
Trying
" 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. "
Serj Tankian
Society
Capitalism
Competition
" 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. "
Serj Tankian
Turn
You
Think
" 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. "
Serj Tankian
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Interaction
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" Capitalism unchecked is not a democratic system. "
Serj Tankian
System
Democratic
Capitalism
" It's the idea of a multi-sensory experience stemming from music that opened my interest into painting, to be honest. "
Serj Tankian
Music
Honest
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" 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
Like
Old
Forward
" 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. "
Serj Tankian
World
Think
People
" I think that the memory of Armenia's genocide opened my eyes at an early age to the existence of political cynicism. "
Serj Tankian
Age
Political
Memory
" 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. "
Serj Tankian
Reflect
Power
Jazz
" 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. "
Serj Tankian
Religion
Name
Communism
" Life is that perfect fine line between ironies. "
Serj Tankian
Fine
Line
Perfect
" I write music when I'm free and for no particular project in mind. "
Serj Tankian
Write
Music
Mind
" The percentage of Americans in the prison system, has doubled since 1985. "
Serj Tankian
Percentage
Prison
System
" I hate injustice, and I can't help but speak against it. But I don't want to get involved in politics. "
Serj Tankian
Speak
Help
Hate
" 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. "
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" I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician. "
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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
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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. "
Serj Tankian
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