Serj Tankian Quotes
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I like having songs that go from the personal to the kind of inter-relational, universal, because everything comes back to micro/macro and everything's tied in.
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Political statements are usually more direct, and it works with the upbeat music as well, for some reason, the directness of your statements.
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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.
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I'm not comfortable with just entertaining. Although I like entertaining, I also like bringing forward the truth of our times as minstrels used to in the old days.
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I am more interested in how people interpret the phrase 'Elect The Dead' than what I may or may not have intended. I named the album after the track, which is a spiritual song about love, life and death and is the heaviest song on the album without having any heavy instruments.
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Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive.
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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.
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I think every artist should follow their vision; their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for. That said though, I think also artists have, continuously good artists, have been good for their times.
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To deny a genocide because of convenience and expediency having to do with an illegal war or occupation in Iraq to me, is double hypocritical.
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It's probably a combination of personal and non-personal matters that have led us to where we are musically.
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I think that because of YouTube, because of MySpace, because of the digital domain that we have on the Internet, the younger generation is much more open to information. I think it's so much easier for them to gain information and trade information, and they have become more aware. In some cases, more aware than their own parents and adults, as to what's going on in the world. I find that really intriguing and interesting, and I think there is a brewing of a whole new generation of activists coming.
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In America, there's more of the question, should music be political or should it just be for entertainment purposes, whereas around the world that's not even an issue. I think people just assume that music should be everything.
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Awareness in our society has flipped all types of injustice on its head.
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I hate injustice, and I can't help but speak against it. But I don't want to get involved in politics.
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I think nobody wants to hear a sermon. Well, some people do, but maybe not through music or not with me. No one wants to hear me give a speech that way.
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I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.
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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.
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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.
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Civilization is a failure. We need to think what we can do together in love and peace.
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'Elect the Dead' is a rock record that takes you on a journey with different types of genres integrated, different lyrical themes digested, and many fun and colorful moments to enjoy.
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Capitalism unchecked is not a democratic system.
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You can say a lot more with a poem than you can with a song, but with a song you can really be more powerful with it. You can express it a lot more powerfully.
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My two interests are spirituality and politics. I would mesh them in some way; maybe try to figure out the politics of spirituality, or the spirituality of politics. Or maybe come up with this really crazy naive solution for the end of civilization.
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Life is that perfect fine line between ironies.