System of a Down leader releases first solo album
TheRecord.com – arts – System of a Down leader releases first solo album
Los Angeles Times
October 27, 2007
HOLLYWOOD
Serj Tankian is a thoughtful, erudite man — especially for a wild-man
rock singer — but sometimes he’s overwhelmed by an impulse. His
decision to quit studying for law school and become a musician came so
suddenly that he literally hit the brakes on his Jeep Wrangler one
night in the early 1990s.
In 2005, he was accepting a European MTV Award with his band, System
of a Down, when something came over him.
"In my mind something just sprung up and went, ‘You have to say
this,"’ Tankian says. "And I’m like, ‘Thank you very much, but what I
really want to say is civilization is over.’
"I said, ‘Let’s find a way to work through this peacefully with each
other all together with love and understanding.’ And I’m going to my
seat and I go, ‘What . . . did I just say?’ It was what was
percolating out of me. And since then I’ve been thinking about that
and what it means."
Tankian’s engagement with the thesis that greed, nationalism and
indifference to the environment have taken civilization past the point
of no return sets the tone for much of his new solo album, Elect the
Dead. Released this week, the collection is the first work from a
System member since the acclaimed Los Angeles quartet formalized an
"indefinite hiatus" earlier this year.
"Nature-based beings will survive apocalyptic days of now . . . nature
will survive us human dogs after all," he sings in the song Honking
Antelope, his eccentric, twangy warble and jumpy cadences as
distinctive in his work as they are in System of a Down.
Tankian, 40, is taking the apocalypse well. Sitting in his living
room, he almost seems to look forward to the transition.
"We’re all addicted to civilization, myself included, because we can’t
imagine life without it," he says. "If we were able to imagine life
without it, like the 0.1 per cent of indigenous population on this
planet, it wouldn’t be scary at all, it would just be like, ‘Well,
it’s not going to be this way, it’ll be another way.’
"I have hope,” he adds. "I’m a very hopeful, optimistic person. I
smile every day, and I don’t go around going, ‘The sky is falling, the
sky is falling.’ If I do, I’ll probably be thinking, ‘The sky is
falling. I hope I can see it — that’ll be such a trip."’
On stage and on record, Tankian is a flamboyant figure with a fierce
glare and a unique voice that’s helped make System of a Down a rock
institution. Away from music, he’s a fervent social crusader with a
special interest in the Armenian genocide. He and Rage Against the
Machine’s Tom Morello founded the non-profit Axis of Justice to unite
musicians, fans and political organizations behind activist causes.
But entering his hillside home is more like stepping into a mountain
monastery than the lair of a rabble-rousing rocker.
The glass-walled main room is spotless and uncluttered, centred on a
hanging fireplace above a flat, square stone arrayed with candles.
It’s silent except for the clicking of claws on the wood floor as
Tankian’s dog, Bowie, walks by, and the clamour of a row of wind
chimes out on the deck.
Tankian’s homes haven’t always been so tranquil. He was born in Beirut
and came to the U.S. with his family at age seven, just as civil war
in Lebanon was heating up. He grew up in the Los Angeles area and
joined a relative’s jewelry business after graduating from California
State University, Northridge.
He started a software company with products geared to that
trade. After selling the company, he took classes to prepare for law
school.
But he had started tinkering with music in college, and then came that
moment of revelation.
"The realization came to me: Do I want to be a lawyer? . . . Hell no,
I want to do music. And that was it.”
Tankian teamed with guitarist Daron Malakian in a band called
Soil. After it broke up, the two formed System of a Down. They had
immediate support in the Armenian community, but soon their
experimental hard rock, most of it recorded with producer Rick Rubin,
caught on big. They’ve released five albums since 1998, and none has
sold fewer than one million copies in the U.S.
Tankian, who says the four musicians needed a break after a busy
decade-plus, understands the waves of concern on this "indefinite
hiatus,” but he’s not going out of his way to be reassuring as he
prepares for an extensive concert tour. Malakian and System drummer
John Dolmayan, meantime, are preparing to record under the name Scars
on Broadway.
Says Tankian: "We’re friends, we support each other, we talk to each
other.
I’m supportive of their projects and vice versa, and when we have
something to say together we’ll get together and say it. But not
because we have to release a record next year.”
As a label owner himself — his Reprise-affiliated Serjical Strike
Records has had some success with the Texas band Fair to Midland and
is also the home of Tankian’s solo album — he knows that System’s
label, Rubin’s American Recordings, will be wondering when that next
record is coming.
"We have to stop seeing things as branded items on the shelf,” he
says.
"We’re not Nabisco. We’re not a corporation that’s putting out cookies
every year so that next year’s cookies are going to be this and that.
"We’re a group of artists and we do art, we do music and that’s got to
be fresh, and when you want to speak together, that’s when it’s got to
be spoken," Tankian says.
"We’re not the type of band to just press it for the money every
year. System of a Down has never been that type of a band; we’ve never
taken corporate sponsorships. We’ve done it because it’s our passion."