SYSTEM OF A DOWN TIME
By Kelli Skye Fadroski

Orange County Register, CA
Oct 23 2007

How the band frontman spent his band hiatus: making a solo album
that’s total Serj.

With genre-blending heavy rock band System of a Down on hiatus since
August 2006, frontman Serj Tankian was in need of another creative
outlet. He scratched that itch by writing and recording his first
solo album, "Elect the Dead," which comes out on Tuesday, Oct. 23.

Layered with heavy guitars, live and electronic drums and classical
piano, "Elect the Dead," is a rock record. But "Elect the Dead"
is 100 percent Tankian, from writing the lyrics and music, to the
production and engineering of the album at his in-home studio. The
record is even being released on his label, Serjical Strike Records.

"It’s the most me on record than anything else I’ve ever done,"
Tankian, 40, said. "They way it’s different (than System of a Down
records) was that I made a rock record, without a rock band."

Tankian enlisted the musical talents of System of a Down drummer John
Dolmayan, friend and drummer Brian Mantia and bassist/guitarist Dan
Monti to bring a richer rock, less electronic sound to the album. The
record includes a mix of classical piano, some string instrumentation,
and Tankian’s signature vocals, from soothing and ballad-like to an
all-out manic musical assault.

The album covers a lot of musical ground. The first track, "Empty
Walls," has an intro that sounds a lot like a manic version of the
theme song from the ’60s TV show "The Munsters." The manic theme
continues in "The Unthinking Majority" in which a pleasant little
intro turns into a frightening barrage of guitars and drums.

LYRICAL FREEDOM

A few ballad-like tracks, like "Saving Us," has Tankian’s voice broken
down and almost pleading over a soft acoustic guitar. The title track,
"Elect the Dead," is the most somber on the album. The simple ballad
opens with Tankian on the piano, sounding extremely vulnerable –
clearly demonstrating he’s more than a screaming rock front man with
giant hair.

"I’ve been asking a lot of friends, and journalists, what they think
the title ‘Elect the Dead’ means and what they thought of when they
heard the statement," Tankian said. "I’ve been getting a lot of
interesting stuff – mostly political."

But the song encompasses more than politics, said Tankian. "It talks
about love, life and death. It’s the only stripped-down song without
a rock sound and it’s more in the direction I am going musically."

He is known for being a politically charged musician and activist,
even co-leading the grassroots activist organization, Axis of Justice,
with fellow musician Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.

For this solo album, Tankian said he used a stream-of-consciousness
style of writing, jotting down ideas stemming from music, media,
books, theories or politics.

PERSONAL JOURNEY

Tankian was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1967 to Armenian parents. The
Tankians emigrated to Los Angeles in 1975. Following graduation from
Cal State University, Los Angeles, with a degree in marketing and
business, Tankian was running his own business developing software
when he co-founded System of a Down in 1995 with three friends.

Tankian is a self-taught musician; he first learned to play piano,
and guitar soon followed. He’s never had formal vocal training;
he’s used vocal exercises that a friend taught him to keep him from
blowing out his voice on tour.

Now, Tankian has his own recipe for tuning up his voice: "Right before
we go on, I have a cigarette. I call that my vocal warm-ups.

"I don’t drink teas and that stuff, but the best way to warm up is
to laugh, and so I crack jokes with the guys and just start laughing
and then I yawn – yawning is also good, and the cigarette."

Tankian, and his six-piece touring band, is gearing up to go on an
European tour with the Foo Fighters in November.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress