VOICES CARRY: SERJ TANKIAN STEPS BEYOND SYSTEM OF A DOWN TO ‘ELECT THE DEAD’
By Steve Appleford
LA City Beat, CA
Nov 1 2007
Photo by Steve Appleford
~ Singer-elect: Tankian is about to scream ~
The howl catches me by surprise. It is a raw and terrifying sound,
a windy Darth Vader wheeze of horror, suggesting intense rage or
madness or worse, and it’s erupting right now from the smiling face
of Serj Tankian. He is sitting inches away from me, in a dark little
room upstairs at the House of Blues, and behind him stands a carving
of the elephant deity Ganesha, the Hindu patron of arts and sciences,
of intellect and wisdom. It is peaceful here. And our conversation
has been typically pleasant. Until I ask about his metallic howl,
and he quickly demonstrates, with no warning at all. And I’m actually
startled by it.
It’s a common vocal affectation in the metal world, very often
overused, obliterating any subtler shades of emotion and meaning as
a more direct route to some imagined inferno at hell’s seventh circle.
For Tankian, it’s just "a trick," he says, a small piece of a broader
repertoire that has made him perhaps the finest hard-rock singer of
his generation, and certainly one of the most powerful and compelling
voices in pop music. As the main voice for System of a Down, he
could be as wild and unpredictable as the music, shifting from
melodic croon to nattering diatribe, at times playful, passionate,
or intensely political.
Much of that range (sans the howl) can be heard on his new solo album,
Elect the Dead, the first project to emerge from System’s current,
open-ended hiatus. The sound is a familiar one from Tankian: loud,
melodic, epic, an anxious mix of Gypsy swing with brooding electronics
and big guitars, mostly played by Tankian himself. It begins with
"Empty Walls," as Tankian rails, "Don’t you see the bodies burning?" He
sings of "poets gone wild" amid swirling piano and orchestral waves
of guitar on the charged "Honking Antelope," which imagines a world
upside down, beginning with hunters strapped to the hoods of pickups
driven by big game.
A few of the songs date back a few years, but most were written
specifically for Elect the Dead, usually beginning as quieter tunes
on piano or acoustic guitar. Recording began by October 2006. "When
I started putting in more instruments, I said ‘Whoa! This sounds like
this is going to be a rock record. How weird!’"
You will find the album classified as "metal" on your iTunes chart,
a likely holdover from his SOAD identity, but it is a bit misleading.
Extremes can be difficult to classify. Most recently, Tankian has found
great inspiration in the work of the great female jazz singers – Nina
Simone, Billie Holiday, and others – for "singing that’s completely
relaxed, completely effortless." He hopes his next album will better
reflect his interests in jazz and classical composition, with horns,
strings, and the entire world beyond loud guitars. But his late
discovery of metal, sometime in his early 20s, was a key part of the
fuel that sent Tankian deep into a life of music, walking away from
a successful business career and plans to become a lawyer.
"I was always into revolutionary music," Tankian says now. "I was
always into music that talked about freedom and expression and fighting
hypocrisy. Metal and rock tended to have those aspects accentuated with
a lot of oomph. Not all metal and rock, but they had that character
to them even if the lyrics weren’t about those things.
It is a great form of expression."
Back in July, Tankian was still at work on Elect the Dead at his home
studio deep in the foothills just north of Los Angeles. The room was
cozy but crowded. Guitars and keyboards were stacked everywhere, the
floor scattered with cables and effects pedals, and a vintage Ronald
Reagan puppet slumped nearby with a detached head. As he played back
a few of the songs in progress, he said, "The excitement that I’ve
had making this was like the first System record. I woke up every
day and I couldn’t fucking wait to get in here. Every day."
His partners in SOAD are also busy: guitarist Daron Malakian and
drummer John Dolmayan are at work on their first album as Scars
on Broadway; and bassist Shavo Odadjian is busy directing videos
and recording an album with Wu Tang’s RZA. Ask Tankian about the
status and future of System of a Down, and he’s upbeat and vaguely
noncommittal. "We’re doing our own things right now," Tankian explains
with a smile. "The door’s open, we’re all friends. There’s no reason
to think that it won’t happen. There’s no reason to think that it
will happen. It’s all our choice."
As he has been with that band, and on his own, Tankian remains
politically engaged and on alert. His own activism began while a
business student at Cal State Northridge, where he was involved in
the campus Armenian students group, pushing for official recognition
of the Armenian genocide, when 1.5 million were killed by Turkish
forces between 1915 and 1923. More recently, he and Tom Morello
of Rage Against the Machine founded Axis of Justice, a political
activism resource focused on current affairs and the usual crimes
against humanity: war, poverty, injustice, etc.
"Everything in my life is inspiring, from the personal to the
macro," Tankian says of the ideas behind his new music. "I read
about what’s going on in the world on a daily basis almost like a
hobby. Anything that happens, I get bullet reports from all over
the world. But it’s not just that. It’s also a personal thing. I
think the world is sometimes reflective of our personal melancholy,
of our personal grievances, or our personal state of being lost or
unconsciousness. I do believe that everything is connected. I have
no choice but to believe that the micro is the macro is the micro is
the macro. I’m influenced by the small things on a daily life basis,
and I’m influenced by the grander things, whether it’s the war, the
unjust occupation, ecological disasters happening around the world,
the whole vibe of the times, the religious fervor, where are we going,
the Mayan calendar, apocalyptic visions, you fucking name it."
Back at the House of Blues on Halloween weekend, Tankian arrives
onstage with a band he’s calling the FCC (for "Flying Cunts of
Chaos," no doubt a taunting jab at the other FCC). He is a smiling
ringmaster in a white coat and top hat, presiding over an audience
of costumed characters: ghouls and escaped cons, kittens and sexy
devils, an Egyptian pharaoh and a guy in a red backwards baseball cap,
Fred Durst-style. (Is that a costume?) One fan up front seems to be
dressed up like Tankian himself, with a dark Zappa-esque mustache
and elegant threads.
The first song is "The Unthinking Majority," which explodes with
slabs of anxious guitar and playful piano melodies, as Tankian stands
wailing and crooning, eyes closed or bulging. He sometimes picks up a
guitar or sits at the upright piano tonight, but he’s mostly focused
on being a frontman, connecting with his audience.
When he arrives at a cover of the Dead Kennedys’ punk classic "Holiday
in Cambodia," Tankian adopts the original’s Jello Biafra warble,
and the mosh pit rips open. Durst guy and a rainbow-haired clown are
tumbling inside of it, pushing, shoving, going nuts.
The night is nearly done. But before Tankian and the band make their
exit, they sign off with the Beatles’ "Girl," a beloved mid-’60s pop
tune of bitter romance and regret. It’s sped-up but recognizable,
until the very end. Tankian closes the tune by suddenly howling the
final chorus of "Girl! Girl!" like a mad messenger for Beelzebub,
twisting the pop nugget into a horror show Lennon & McCartney never
predicted. It is a musical moment horrible and hilarious, over the
top and strangely on target. Fans are stunned. So much the better.
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