Spitak is the brilliant proof of what collective, progressive beautiful things humanity can do – Serj Tankian

18:59,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS.  U.S.-Armenian rock singer, soloist of “System of a Down” group Serj Tankian gave an interview to “Rolling Stone” magazine. ARMENPRESS reports to the question of the journalist if he is somehow connected with the 1988 earthquake of Spitak, the singer answered that his wife is a survival of the earthquake.

“My wife actually lived through the earthquake. She was in school when it happened, and luckily their building didn’t collapse. They were pretty close to the epicenter.

The years after the earthquake were the darkest days that Armenia had seen for a long time, because they were without power through heavy, cold winters. She’s told me stories of how they lit fires at school just to stay warm. Right after the earthquake, there were a lot of robberies, so crime went up. She has all these horrific stories of living without water or using only one hour of water a day. People would go, “Oh, shit, we just found out we’re going to have water in 20 minutes. Everyone run home.” You had to learn how to connect batteries so you could watch something on TV, ’cause there’s no power. My wife’s generation is unique. They know how to do everything”, Tankian said.

According to him, he was in the USA at that time and remembers going around door-to-door trying to fund-raise to send money to Armenia.

“If you go to Armenia now and go to Spitak, the city where the epicenter of the earthquake in ’88 was, you’ll see it’s such a unique city because each block, each street has completely different architecture, because one is built by the U.S., one by the Swedes, one by the Italians and another by the Germans. It is such a beautiful scene in that way. It’s really, really very emotional seeing that because it shows you what collective, progressive beautiful things humanity can do”, Tankian said.

Speaking about his future plans the rock singer said that he has some pieces intended for films.

“We have a few other soundtracks we’re going to release for films that we did a while back but never put out soundtracks for, such as The Last Inhabitant and Midnight Star, which is a video game. But I am working on a number of things right now, including Kavat Coffee, and I’m executive-producing two documentaries.

One is a film, I Am Not Alone, about the Armenian revolution. I met with the prime minister now and said, “We have to make a film about this. No one is going to believe that in 40 days, a post-oligarchic, monopolistic, corrupt regime has been replaced by a modern, progressive, democratic, true society without one person dying. No one’s going to believe that.” I’m going to compose for it as well.

I also have a music documentary I’m doing that’s tentatively called Truth to Power, looking through my eyes at how message becomes reality through the arts. Instead of focusing on me as an artist, it asks, how does one’s message come to fruition? Can music change the world? We’re shopping that and looking for co-production partners. We’re hoping it will be done by next year as well”, he said.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan