Quotes By Serj Tankian

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.

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.

You listen to Bob Dylan and you can't help but think of the 60s, it's very relational and if artists are true artists and not just mere musicians they need to be truthful because the music doesn't come from them it comes from the universe and it's to be shared. At best, we're skilled presenters, and I say that at best.

It's probably a combination of personal and non-personal matters that have led us to where we are musically.

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

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.

The percentage of Americans in the prison system, has doubled since 1985.

Capitalism unchecked is not a democratic system.

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

I think every artist should follow their vision, their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for.

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'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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Awareness in our society has flipped all types of injustice on its head.

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.