SERJ TANKIAN, ‘HARAKIRI’: SYSTEM OF A DOWN SINGER GOES SOLO, TALKS DEAD BIRDS, OCCUPY, AND HOW AN IPAD IS LIKE A GUITAR
Spinner
July 10 2012
Posted on Jul 10th 2012 10:30AM by Lonny Knapp
Back in 2011, when thousands of birds fell from the sky and millions
of fish washed up on shore in freak die-offs across North America, most
people were happy to accept the media’s flimsy scientific explanations.
Serj Tankian, the Lebanese-born Armenian-American solo artist and
frontman for Grammy-Award winning hard rock band System of a Down,
didn’t take these events lightly.
The ominous incidents moved him, so he did what songwriters do;
he wrote a song.
That track “Harakiri,” the Japanese word for ritual suicide, is the
title track from his third solo release out July 10 on Reprise Records.
Tankian is an interesting guy. While most hard rockers are content
to swill beer and flip devil horns, he spends his down time writing
books of poetry, meeting with the heads of state, and promoting social
justice via the Axis of Justice, the non-for profit organization he
co-founded with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello.
When Spinner got Tankian on the horn to chat about his new record,
he didn’t stick to a script. Rather, he waxed poetic about the
unexplained die-offs of animal species, the irony of using an iPad
to write songs condemning consumerism, the Occupy movement, and how
he just might be becoming a hard-rocking Bono.
You wrote the title cut from Harakiri after birds and fish started
dying by the millions. Why did those events move you?
It was such an ominous event. A million fish and birds decided to
leave the planet, but what was it that made them go? They are such
intuitive beings, and they are better connected with disturbances in
nature than we are, so there must have been something.
Remember, this is a month before a tsunami damaged that Japanese
nuclear reactor and now water across the globe is showing signs of
increased radioactivity. That might have something to do with it,
I don’t know, but it was definitely a powerful harbinger of times
to come.
Most people seemed happy to accept the scientific explanations,
but you’re not buying it. Why?
All the scientific explanations were pretty far fetched — fireworks
in one case, or not enough oxygen in the bay in another case. The
logical mind can’t comprehend the alternative. That’s what is so
haunting and powerful about it.
You wrote songs for Harakiri using readily available apps and your
iPad. Can you explain that process?
I took tracks from my previous records, made loops out of them, and
used these loops as construction material to design new songs. It was
musical recycling if you will. The iPad is such a great musical tool.
I was just messing around and came up with sketches for three of the
songs: “Reality TV,” “Ching Chime” and “Deafening Silence.”
Consumerism is a theme that pops up in many of your songs. Do you
see the irony in using an iPad — one of the most coveted electronic
devices ever created — as a production tool?
If you’re looking for irony, you can find it anywhere [laughs].
Utilizing an iPad to write a song is no different from using acoustic
guitar or piano. As a songwriter, you always want to change and
progress, and while I’m not endorsing the Apple corporation in any
way, it is a useful tool. Consumerism is part of our life; there’s
blind consumerism, and then there’s consumer awareness. They are very
different things.
In 2011, after an appearance in Yerevan, Armenia, you met with the
country’s heads of state. You often use your music and celebrity to
highlight and further social justice causes, but most rock musicians
don’t take time off from touring to visit political leaders. Do you see
yourself becoming more involved in politics, perhaps like U2’s Bono,
who is almost as active as a political figure as he is as a rock star?
I hate injustice, and I can’t help but to speak against it, but I
don’t want to get involved in politics, because I have a more direct
avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.
As an artist or an activist, I hope I always continue doing what my
heart tells me to do.
With the recent Occupy movements and student protests — like the
ongoing ones in Montreal — people are letting governments know
they’re fed up with the status quo. Do you think regular people have
the power to change a political system?
The Occupy movement is here to stay, and I’m proud that people have
stopped putting up with abusive capitalism and the injustice of the
economic and globalist systems.
All around the world, in North America, Europe, and South America
where students have been fighting for their rights for more than a
year and a half on the streets of Santiago, people are getting out on
the street and making themselves heard. At first the media tried to
demonize it, but it’s a truly democratic movement and I think there
has been an impact.
Over the last year you’ve played gigs across three continents with
System of a Down, but the band has yet to recorded new material. So,
what’s standing in the way of a full-scale reunion?
There is nothing standing in the way. When the time is right for us to
get back in the studio and do a record together we will. Until then,
we’ll continue doing what we do on our own. Truth is, these reunion
dates have been incredibly fun and we are performing better than we
ever had. It’s very positive.
http://www.spinner.com/2012/07/10/serj-tankian-harakiri-system-of-a-down-singer-talks-dead-bir/