SYSTEM OF A DOWN KICKS OFF TOUR TO COMMEMORATE 1915 ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Al Jazeera America
April 6 2015

Rock band will play first-ever show in Armenian capital to mark 100th
anniversary of mass killing of Armenians

April 6, 2015 8:48AM ET

The American rock band System of a Down kicks off an international
tour on Monday in which it will perform its first concert in Armenia
to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the genocide there, according
to Rolling Stone magazine.

The band, whose four members are of Armenian descent, will perform
on April 23 at Republic Square in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan
as part of its Wake Up Souls tour, the magazine said.

“This is something that transcends the music,” said drummer John
Dolmayan during an April 1 conference call with reporters. “This is
more important than a next System of a Down album. This is something
that is far-reaching and even bigger than the Armenian genocide itself
… We want to help prevent what happened to the Armenians happening
to other people.”

The band said it hoped to raise awareness of the 1915 genocide in which
Ottoman Empire executed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, a minority
population living in the borders of what now constitutes Turkey.

April 24 is the day Armenians mark as the beginning of the genocide,
in which the Ottoman Empire arrested hundreds of Armenian intellectuals
and later executed them, according to the New York Times.

Turkey has rejected historians’ claims about the genocide, and System
of Down singer Serj Tankian told Rolling Stone that “the denial is
a spit in the face” of Armenians.

“It stays with you,” Dolmayan told Rolling Stone. “”It’s still with
me today, because of the stories that we did hear [from our families].”

Al Jazeera