WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1210 - Serj Tankian

Episode Date: March 18, 2021

Serj Tankian from System of a Down says he is dedicated to the truth in a very naive way. That basic need to tell the truth and be honest with himself comes through in his art, his activism and his personal life, all of which are depicted in the new documentary Truth to Power. Serj and Marc talk about how so much of Serj's life has been dedicated to telling the story of the Armenian genocide and how that mission informs his activism around the struggles in present day Armenia, as well as other human rights efforts around the world.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Are you self-employed? Don't think you need business insurance?

Think again. Business insurance from Zensurance is a no-brainer for every business owner because it provides peace of mind. A lot can go wrong. A fire, cyber attack, stolen equipment, or an unhappy customer suing you. That's why you need insurance. Don't let the, I'm too small for this mindset, hold you back from protecting yourself. Zensurance provides

customized business insurance policies starting at just $19 per month. Visit Zensurance today to get a free quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Lock the gate! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck brothers and sisters how's it going i'm mark maron this is my. I'm not winded. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm a little winded. Serge Tankian is on the show today. He is the lead singer of System of a Down. He also works with Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine, as well as on his own solo stuff.

He's an outspoken activist on human rights issues. And there's a new documentary about him called Truth to Power. rights issues and there's a new documentary about him called truth to power now i came like as many of you know me which many of you do i'm not a metal guy i appreciate the metal some of it the metal i be look i like all kinds of music but i hypnotized and mesmerized with those two records i remember listening to i don't remember which one came out first but i listened to the shit out of it i don't remember who turned me on to it or what year that was it seems like a while back but i was definitely aware of system of a down i knew they were intense i knew they meant fucking business and i also knew as time went on that they were armenian i knew about surge a bit but when I got the opportunity to watch his documentary, I was like, holy shit, this guy's got big balls, man. He walks the walk, this guy, on an activist level. I also realized, and as many of us do, about things, about stuff, about places other than our own place. I don't know much about it. I don't know anything about armenia really and i live amongst the armenians now

and uh i was curious i mean i could have read a book yeah i looked at a wiki page but yeah you know somebody like serge who has been doing activism around uh before a while back changing the political system of Armenia to a more democratic situation and then to get the recognition, to elevate the recognition of the Armenian genocide globally, especially in the United States. But Serge had a profound impact on the politics of modern day Armenia. And he's a metal dude, but he means business. Also, this is solo work, but I wanted to be schooled. I wanted to learn. I wanted to know about the Armenian experience in America

and in Armenia and what's happening. And I asked Serge, and he schooled me, and I appreciate it. In other news, I'm going to get a vaccine. I'm going to use my vulnerability to death, my vulnerability to death, to get a vaccine. Got a little bit of heart disease going on. Why not use those things for a positive? Hey, man, look, I got a lot of things slowly killing me. I'd rather not go out with the COVID. Can you hit me? Hit me. Hit me with that Fizey. Hit me with that Moderna. Give me that J&J. Hit me. Hit me.

Hit me with your rhythm stick. Hit me. Hit me. What is that? Where did that come from? I'm set up. It's going to happen. I'm going to get the Vaxxie.

Everyone should get the Vaxxie. I don't understand Vaxx resistance. I just don't get it. You know, there used to be polio and measles and stuff. Right. Y'all know that. Right. Look, I understand in a gut way, like you don't want to need militia groups that, you know, in order for somebody to be empathetic to the idea of the herd in a broad way, in a democratic way, you have to believe in it. Get your shot if you can. Get it however you can. So I got the new kitten. I got the new kitten coming. New kitten moving in tomorrow.

Sammy. Sammy the kitten. I got one of his first IG appearances. Not moving, just a still shot. Me and Sammy on the couch. Being our own things. Being our own beings. being our own individuals. Sammy's now five weeks and change old, about between five and six weeks old. We've been bringing him over here, kind of like letting Buster look at him, letting them each see each other.

But Sammy, at this stage, doesn't seem to give a fuck about Buster. at this stage, doesn't seem to give a fuck about Buster. Sammy's just trying to figure out how to get a sense of depth perception, how to jump off a chair, how to eat solid food, how to trot around, how to respond to things that are moving. Yeah. So, of course, Buster hisses and Sammy doesn't even acknowledge it. But I remember when Buster was a strange little kitten and he lived around my old cats for years.

Most of Buster's life he spent as the kitten among the old cats. And now he's the older cat with the kitten. But certainly Sammy doesn't seem to even notice Buster buster seems irritated but not hostile i think it's gonna work out and i was petting um sammy little sammy little red sammy sammy red on my chest and he began to uh shit so that i think that brought us together. He began to shit on my shirt and we got him off of me. But I see that as a bonding moment. I don't know if Sammy will remember it, but not unlike Monkey used to do when he shit on the rug, he was looking directly at me. Nothing better than a cat looking at you as he shits on your stuff, even on your being. Cats.

Don't you love cats? Do they like you? Probably not. Do you think they do? Sometimes. Do you love them? Yes. So Sammy the cat, Sammy the kitten, will be here tomorrow if all works well.

He seems healthy. He's got a couple of his shots already. I've got to get the rest of the shots tomorrow if all works well. He seems healthy. He's got a couple of his shots already. I got to get the rest of the shots, get him checked out. Make sure he's not a faulty tyke. But now, you know, I'm already attached. And now, like, if he's fucked up, I'm going to have to ride that out. I just, you know, it's tough with the pets. It's been a rough year for me with pets and people passing.

I certainly didn't expect one. But with the pets, you kind of know it. So now, like, there's part of me, it's like, oh, kitten, great. Now I get to watch him die if I'm lucky. If I live that long. Is that a bad way to look at it? It feels like it. Isn't it? It is, right?

Is that a bad way to look at it? It feels like it, isn't it? It is, right? I really, on a day-to-day basis, don't know whether we actually do survive as a democracy or as a country. And when things happen like what happened in Atlanta the day before yesterday, a racist massacre

by a radicalized mentally ill person who probably sees himself as a martyr and will be seen as somebody who inspires racial violence. And the fact that that is escalating is not going in the right direction. But hopefully in the next few years, we can really get a clear assessment of how much of that momentum is happening. God knows the last four years, we all know which members of our family are part of it and how big the voting bloc is for anti-democratic thinking

and shameless fascism. But this violence, the terrorist arm of the radicalization of mentally ill people and people filled with hate is uh definitely happening and it was interesting for me to talk to surge who you know i'm i don't know how active any of you are, how active we all are. You know, I guess most of us want to do our part. And, you know, some people would consider me not as progressive as I should be or not as active as I should be or not doing enough. But I do what I can.

I try to give voice to things. But, you know, when you're an American and you look at yourself in relation to that and what you can do and what you're willing to do with your life, there's big questions. And also, you know, what information are you reacting to? But Serge had a very specific action and a hereditary action and an action that goes back to where his family comes from. You know, he sought to fight for the recognition of the Armenian genocide by the world, by the United States government. He also fought to protect his homeland from an ongoing kind of oligarchical corrupt governmental structure and uh inspired a new generation of uh political radicalization through non-violent means mostly uh in armenia

and that was and he's an american armenian it was inspiring made me feel like i don't do enough and but it was certainly a trip talking to him he's in a there's a new documentary about his uh his life called truth to power it's available on demand and in virtual cinemas worldwide this is me talking to serge tank you can get anything you need with uber eats well almost almost anything so no you can't talking to Serge Tang. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Again. Oh my God. Hello? oh my god hello search yeah it sounded like you were just having sex i was just like wow this is exciting yeah it's a good way to start good start yeah i'm almost finished just just hang out a

minute oh good good yeah yeah yeah i'm just trying to get set up i'm glad you finished yeah why do you want to be rude and be doing that in the middle of everything? Why is everything tangled up? Hold on. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. Okay. Nice to meet you, man.

Nice to meet you, too, brother. Yeah. Oh, my God. How you been? I'm okay. Where are you? Which location? Which bunker are you in?

Los Angeles, in my studio. Oh, you're in the studio? Do you live here all the time? Part of the year, part of the year in New Zealand. See, like, what's that? When did you do that New Zealand thing? When did you do that? First time I went was in 2000 on the Big Day Out tour. Fell in love with the place and kept on going back. 2006, I got residency, got a place there, and have been going back and forth playing ping pong every year so we were there during lockdown uh which was a whole different experience than being

here in LA um way way different well what what uh what compelled you then was it the same sort of did you know at that time in 2006 because I know you've been on the pulse of the end of the world for a long time were you like uh like, we better get to it. We want to be in the place where the world ends last. Well, you know, there's a certain aspect of the political. New Zealand's a great place in many ways, obviously. Ecologically, it's not the perfect place, but the water is still clean as far as fishing. The air is clean. Everything's organic and all farming is done locally. There's a

wholesomeness to New Zealand in that sense, ecologically. Politically, it's quite smart and lenient. It's a real democracy. Yeah. I'll tell you that. They don't have K Street lobbying firms. They don't have the Electoral College. They don't have super PACs. They don't have PAC money. That helps, you know. And good, you know, they've had good leadership overall.

During the pandemic, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, she was very communicative. She was very on point. She told people not to panic. You know, when we had the toilet paper stuff going on in the US and everyone was freaking out grabbing too much toilet paper. Yeah. She got on television and she said, you know, we have a beautiful little toilet paper plant on the South Island. We're never going to run out. So please don't let's not embarrass ourselves as well. You know, that kind of thing. It was very, very charming, very funny. Don't freak out not embarrass ourselves as well. You know, that kind of thing. It was very, very charming, very funny. Don't freak out about the toilet paper thing.

Yeah, yeah. And people people responded. But there's also something else that I think explains New Zealand situation besides the non-porous borders. Obviously, it's an island. Everyone's like, it's an island douchebag. You know, like, that's why, you know, it's not just that. It's also because of personal responsibility there's still some type of collective responsibility and understanding by people saying that okay we have to do what's

best for the country if that means staying home then so be it we have to do what's best for the country so if that means putting on a mask then so be it so you mean there's grown-ups there there's grown-ups there's rational adults there who uh who aren't brain fucked at so easily well put so easily misunderstanding the uh the idea of liberty and freedom exactly but look man i mean i i'm glad to talk to you i i gotta be honest i like in terms of system like i jumped on i would say like the two big records when mesmerized hypnotized i was like i listened to the hell out of those records but i'm not a metal guy so i wasn't there at the beginning of of that's all right of you we'll take you anyway yeah but i am curious you know

and i watch the doc as well but i'm curious like i i think that you are not just, you know, I think you seem to be a real, a bona fide ambassador to Armenia in some respects. You're not just by proxy. The prime minister invited you there at the turn of the revolution. So I think that means you are an actual ambassador to Armenia. A cultural one. Yeah, a cultural ambassador. Yes. I live amongst your people. And I'm mad and upset at myself that I don't know more. Oh, okay. And it's one of those

things as an American, an entitled American, I guess, and also as a Jew on some level, that my histories are fairly specific. And it seems that, you know, lately in the last few months, there's been quite a crisis in Armenia that, again, I'm not educated about and even reading about it, I'm not entirely clear on, but I do know because of the neighborhood I'm in that there's some trouble. Right. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So last year, and a lot of people don't know this, so it's important to discuss. Last year in September, on September 27, the combined forces of Azerbaijan, Turkey, along with Syrian mercenaries that Turkey brought in for 2,500 years. Yeah. It was under Russian protection in the 1800s, early 1900s. It was given by Stalin in 1920 to Azerbaijan during the Soviet Union. But the people lived as an autonomous oblast, which means they ran their own affairs. They had their own government.

They lived there freely. There were Azeris living there as well and in surrounding areas.zeris azeris like from azerbaijan azerbaijanis yeah so in the 90s when the uh soviet soviet union collapsed um all these countries proclaimed independence azerbaijan armenia ukraine like all these former soviets, proclaimed independence. At that time, these Armenians living there also proclaimed independence. Now, 95% of the population there in that area was Armenian. So the resolution passed for independence. Because Azerbaijan controlled the territory, they reacted angrily and came down with oppressive measures against Armenians.

So there were these pogroms and killings and all this stuff, which led to an independence movement. In 1994, the Armenian Defense Forces took over Artsakh, along with security buffers in that area. So they've been running their own affairs for 27 years. And then, lo and behold, during the pandemic, Azerbaijan, with the help of Turkey, a major NATO army, and with the help of Turkey, a major NATO army, attacked that enclave with just everything they had. A lot of people died.

A lot of people were displaced. About 140,000 people were displaced from Artsakh. This is a couple of months ago. This is a couple of months ago. It started in September. In early November, a ceasefire was signed, and Russian peacekeeping troops entered the area, and they've been trying to keep the peace since. The ceasefire was basically predicated upon the Armenian leadership,

the Armenian prime minister. This is your guy, your buddy? This is, yeah, this is Nigel Pashinin who led the revolution and, yeah, a friend. These guys were a small defense force fighting, you know, a bigger nation and then backed up by even a bigger nation and 2000 Syrian jihadist mercenaries. There was no chance. Oh, my God. So this is this is this is a Turkish incentive again. Yeah. The Turks gave Erdogan gave whatever support that the president, the dictatorial president of Azerbaijan wanted. And so they had the backbone to actually do it. And they did it during a pandemic. They committed war crimes.

There were banned phosphorus, white phosphorus weapons dropped over people, over nature. You know, they were bombarding civilian territories the whole time, daily, day in and day out. It was horrific. territories the whole time, daily, day in and day out. It was horrific. So as Armenian Americans, we all galvanized in trying to raise funds for humanitarian support, in trying to get media support, because, you know, when Azerbaijan attacked, they didn't just attack with military weapons, they attacked with propaganda, disinformation, social media bots, as you would these days, apparently, you know, there was a false kind of equality narrative in the press saying that, oh, no, Armenia attacked us. And they were like, no, I mean, you came to us and attack like we were just there. And also here, you know,

nobody really knows. So, you know, it's a passing story. We're going through elections. We're going through elections, to be fair, and the pandemic. And so, look, they picked a time that they knew that the world was going to be distracted. So where is it at now? It's pretty horrible because Azerbaijan is still holding POWs, Armenian POWs, even though Armenia has released all Azeri POWs. They're using it as a tool of divisiveness and kind of creating chaos within the governing system of Armenia. So, you know, there's protests in Armenia. There's a lot of divisiveness, a lot of anger, a lot of grief. It's a shame because the 2018 peaceful Velvet Revolution was a unique thing that, again, most Americans don't really

know that really was incredibly special because not only not a single person died and an oligarchic corrupt system was replaced by a progressive democracy. But also it was the first time that decentralized civil disobedience was used as a tool of revolution. Yeah, let's come back around to that because you were sort of an intricate part about both an inspiration and action. So it seems to me that when you were were younger and you're still pretty intense but you're not as intense as i thought you would be immediately for some reason when i met you i thought like oh my god it's gonna be intense it's gonna be earnest and it's gonna be yeah yeah it's gonna be this is gonna be like i'm just gonna have to stay on my toes here i was thinking

the same about you oh come on so come on you you interviewed obama give me a break like i i have to be on my point oh yeah but he was very casual you know but um your parents are both armenian from armenia uh not from armenia my dad was born in syria my mom from from lebanon uh my grandparents were survivors of the genocide so they split they left and they they ended up in these different places that was 1915 is it correct yeah where were you born i was born in lebanon i was born in beirut uh seven years old we migrated to la when the lebanese lebanese civil war started grew up in los angeles where'd you live when you came in wilshire area that where was the original glenn the armenian enclave hollywood hollywood oh really

yeah little little armenia which is hollywood Hollywood, main Hollywood area. So that's where we first lived, then in the valley, mostly back and forth in different places in the valley. Never Glendale? I never lived in Glendale, no. A couple of my band members lived there, but not myself. Someone must have lived in Glendale. Some relative. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Someone must have lived there. And then they all, they're like, hey, come to Glendale. That became the thing. Yeah. And they're like, hey, come to Glendale. That became the thing. Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me not unlike the Jews who came over at different points in time. You start off in one place altogether. And then as you gain status or economic status, you move to the suburbs to a degree.

And I would have to think that's what Glendale was, an aspiration. Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. It started out in Little Hollywood, Little Armenia in Hollywood, and then moved out to Glendale. It became a more, you know, suburb kind of living and community. And there's still a lot of Armenians in the Valley as well, in North Hollywood and all over. Yeah, but they all, it seems like many came to Los Angeles area. Do you know why that is?

You know, originally the Armenian community was actually settled in Fresno because of agriculture and also on the East Coast in Boston. We had a lot of a lot of Armenians in Watertown. But later, the migrations after the 80s, you know, and when Armenia first became independent in 1991 from the Soviet Union, a lot of people came to Los Angeles area. Yeah. And when you got here, you spoke only Armenian? When I got here, I spoke mostly Armenian, a little English and a little Arabic because I was born in Lebanon. Yeah. And then you went to you went to an Armenian school. Yeah. I went to an Armenian private school from third grade till the end of high school. Then I went to Cal State Northridge, got my degree from Northridge. Now, my question is like, what were the expectations? Because talking to people that

come that, you know, first generation, you know, you know, wanting to make a go for themselves in America. What were the expectations out of, you know, from your parents in terms of what they wanted you to do or what you thought you should do? How did you develop the original chip on your shoulder, Serge? Oh, that's what you mean. Okay. I'll get to that. As far as my parents, I mean, they were in survival mode when they came, you know, they didn't come with much money at all. And they were just trying to make a living and trying to get by. They made sure that we got a good education, which was very important to them, and that we respected and retained our heritage as well, cultural heritage. So that was important to them.

As far as the chip on my shoulder, as you call it, I became an activist because of the kind of weird taboo position of the Armenian genocide within a well-known democracy like the U.S. within a well-known democracy like the US. But when did you become aware of that? Because it seems to me that you started with your education, but you were going a different direction. Oh, yeah. You didn't start with music. No, I didn't.

I didn't start with music. I started playing music while I was in university. Just got a little keyboard and played around as a way of relaxing. And then I started getting, you know, joined a band. It's still not very seriously. Graduated university with a bachelor's in marketing. Started working in the jewelry industry with my dad. I had worked, sorry, with my uncle.

I had worked with my dad in the shoe industry. I created a software company and ran a software company for years. I did many interesting things. I even ran a car wash while I was in university but at one point I realized that music is my calling it was a huge awakening an epiphany if you will how did that happen well I was I was working in downtown with my uncle in the jewelry industry and at nights I was taking these Kaplan classes in Long Beach so I can learn how to take the LSAT to be to be to get into

law school I thought look I know about. Yeah, you can see me as a lawyer. Yeah, I could. But you know, I'm a left brain, right brain person as you are like, you know, you can do your logical stuff and be creative at the same time. So so I thought, yeah, OK, I could do law school. I was dealing with a lot of attorneys at the time for for my parents affairs and stuff like that. And I hated it. I just going through these Kaplan classes and seeing all these people that were enthused about doing law. I've just fucking, I always say that I had to go to the outer ends of who I shouldn't be to admit to myself who I really am. And that's when I had an epiphany that music was my calling. But that's like,

but it just feels to me that the pressure, you know, on, you know, sort of first generation people to, to succeed in a way that is acceptable in the community, that know, on, you know, sort of first generation people to succeed in a way that is acceptable in the community, that is acceptable to your parents, that makes sense on paper to them and to you. It seems that a lot of people, you know, do what they think they have to do and they just suck it up. And it seems to me that to make that decision to follow this calling. And you talk in the documentary a lot about this Armenian song, the Stork song, that kind of hangs over the whole thing, which I think is sort of beautiful. But so you didn't really know. You weren't playing you know in a band i

mean you didn't have any indication that music would uh that go anywhere no i didn't i just knew that that was my calling so i dedicated myself wholeheartedly to it and just just you know learned and and and and played and i enjoyed it but who were you who were your guys i mean like what were you listening to i mean to end up where you did because i mean it turns out that like you know system of a down you're just by nature of the form i mean metal's one thing and you know and how it borders on on punk is another thing but but there's something lyrically uh exotic because of the armenian melodies that are intrinsic to all you guys. Bravo. Well put. Well put. Yeah.

There is that, you know, flavor that we have that, you know, whether we're going through a song that, you know, is a mishmash of punk and whatever it is, we've got our own kind of folky kind of addition to that from our heritage that is definitely a trademark. It's kind of wild because I think it to that from from our heritage that that is definitely a trademark it's kind of wild because i think it seems like it's just in there it doesn't see it seems like there's an it's effortless because like yeah you know we'll get back to the influences but i mean there's a weird beat a different beat like a lot of the metal guys you know try to get

away from blues based anything so you get into this other type of drive but there is a different rhythm to the music of the region that you come from genetically and I don't know what that rhythm is but I hear it, I used to hear it in

Queens too, it's in Greece as well I think it is Mediterranean right, right it's a rollingreece as well i think you like there it is yeah yeah and and mediterranean yeah right right and it it's it's a rolling rhythm that's a completely different than for what you know four four or anything that other metal bands were doing and that must be was that the rhythm you grew up with uh you know i we we all grew up with different types of music besides you know rock and and modern music at the time you You know, so, yeah, I mean, I grew up with Armenian beats and melodies, Arabic beats and melodies and European beats and melodies.

I mean, I was exposed to a lot of stuff before we even, you know, as a kid, before we even moved to L.A. And then in L.A. in the 70s, it was, you know, Bee Gees and, you know, disco and so many things. And 80s was a different type of music. I kind of became a music connoisseur as to what i was listening to my brother was a huge music fan and i wasn't at the time i wasn't a heavy metal music listener not a big fan of rock my younger brother actually yeah

um but he loved like heavy music so he'd played at home and and that's how i kind of caught on to heavy music but you know i was just into any other types of music you know it's like it's an interesting thing when you look at a person and their whole life of music listening that tapestry of what they listen to in each decade is quite interesting based on the kind of characteristics of the music of that decade so i remember at one point mark i was i was for three months i would binge and purge on a specific type of music. Three months of hip-hop. Three months, only death metal.

The best of it. Because you naturally did it or you forced yourself to do it? I didn't force myself to do it. It was almost like I'd get into one band that I really liked and then I'd go, I've never experienced this genre before. It's like, I've never eaten Indian food before. What are the best Indian restaurants in LA? You know, that kind of a thing with music. When do you remember first doing that?

Like what got you into rap? What got you into metal? 20s, 30s. My brother was into metal. So he got me into it first. And then my guitarist, Darren, was really into heavy music. So he also turned me on to a lot of music. Like which bands are your bands? i mean you know we're listening to anything from the band death for example uh to

uh you know slayer who we toured with on our first thing to you know i mean heavy heavy music uh a lot of death metal music but also rock music you know i mean i didn't grow up listening to black sabbath for example or whatever it was in my 20s that i discovered black sabbath not in my teens or whatever you know just late in life so i had an early music experience of another kind of mostly world music what you would call world music and and you know whatnot um world music huh whatever that means right but but it's a specific type of music i guess it's more folky type of ethnic music would be world music um when you started playing you only you were primarily a singer no when i when i i was a horrible singer when we first started uh i primarily played keys

and i wrote poetry so i was a word man and you know uh keyboard man um and then I started playing some guitar. My first band that I sang in was a precursor to System of a Down called Soil with my guitarist Darren and we had other band members at the time, not the current lineup of System. And it was just like this really progressive crazy metal band

that served as like the kind of pot in which System of a Down became, you know, cooked in. Yeah. It was the original flavors. And System is more kind of refined version of that. But that's when I got my first kind of, I had my first show as a singer and I had my first experience rehearsing as a singer and starting to develop my voice. Yeah.

Which, you know, takes a lifetime sometimes. And your parents, how did they respond initially? Well, my dad, funny enough, was a musician. He wasn't a professional musician, and he always wanted to do music as his career. But his dad, my grandfather, passed away when he was in second grade. And so he couldn't afford to take the risk. So he got into the shoe business and spent his whole life providing for the family being a responsible person did he always play and so

he always played yeah he still plays yeah yeah years ago we put out his record i produced his record under his name which was cool armenian music and well arranged kind of stuff and he was happy how'd that go over in Armenia? Did it sell? Yes. So the song, Bari Arakil, that you're referring to, the crane song, is the one that I do with him. And that's how I first published that song is because I sang it on his record with him. And that's a song that he used to sing when I was young,

and I used to hear him and kind of sing along when I was a young kid. And so it does bring back a lot of memories. It seems like that was sort of the kind of launching point for your poetic mind. I mean, what is that song about? It represents something, right? It's about missing home. It's about being a diasporan. It's about having a home that's somewhere else, you know, that you always long for, but you're kind of estranged from, and that you always want

to return home some way and i don't know if you could or can't you know yeah it's it's a beautiful song in that way that's interesting because like i i mean it's different for me i'm a few generations down you know from my uh polish or ukrainian or russian roots yeah I don't know that, you know, if I went back as a, you know, as a Jew to, to, to Russia, to Belarus, that I'm going to walk around and go like, you know, this feels like home to me. Yeah. Maybe not. Yeah, maybe not. Well, it's the same feeling I would have probably going to Eastern Turkey, which is where my family's from, you know, we're from central to Eastern Turkey, which was historical Armenia. So where my family was from wasn't where Armenia is now.

Where my family from is Turkey. So I've never been back. And I don't think, I don't know what kind of feelings I would have going to my grandfather's village that he was, you know, deported from and put on a pogrom through the desert i don't know what kind of feelings i would have going going oh this place is cool like i i get it i get what you feel so are there no armenians in turkey uh there are some but not you know i mean there were millions of armenians because they were our historical home lines there's probably i'm guessing 30 40 000 in 40,000 in Istanbul, probably, based around Istanbul.

And your awakening, you realized how the global politics worked in relation to admitting or acknowledging the Armenian genocide or calling it a genocide, that there was global politics involved with defining that, that was being guided by Turkey's denial of it. Correct. And when did that happen for you? When did you be like, well, this is fucked up? And when did the roots or the experience of your grandparents start to affect you personally? I was in my teens, somewhere in my teens, I don't remember the exact age, but somewhere in my teens, you know, when I saw that Congress hadn't recognized the genocide and they were playing with this G word. And, you know, we knew that Turkey was spending millions of dollars on, you know, lobbying firms, K Street lobbying firms, trying to not get the Armenian genocide recognized in the United States Congress. And I'm like, how could this be in a democracy? Like, how could this be? How could this be happening? And that made me really, you know, look into what are the reasons? What's the history behind this

denial? What's, you know, why is this happening? And that made me an activist on many grounds, because I thought, shit, if this thing's not recognized for political expediency or economic purposes, because the US wants to sell Apache helicopters to their NATO ally, Turkey, then how many other truths out there that are being denied because someone's profiting from it or because of foreign policy or whatever, whatever fucked up, you know, thing there is that that made me an activist. Yeah. And it seems like ultimately it informed almost all

of the system records you know either specifically or in a broader way you were pushing back against something against you know the sort of like brain the brain fucking and the mind numbing and the hypocrisy and the you know the the murder the bombing gen, like there was not, not too lighthearted really, and not too thinly veiled. And, and, and I think that what I see or what I can pick up is that, you know, there is a general sense of anger in, in a lot of metal music, but yours was rooted in something historical and it was something historical that also spoke to current conditions everywhere in terms of power and politics. Right. Absolutely. No, I mean, our music became, my music became somewhat, not all of it, because, you know, we're not like Rage Against the Machine. That's all political because we also have funny songs and songs about love and many things. But definitely a part of my music has always been

socio-political you know because there's a certain the the the activist in me wants his say through my music wants to say through the artist in me right and also but you know the balance is funny songs love songs i mean that that i mean there has to be some aspiration you know you could do the politics we got to fix everything because look, we can laugh and we can celebrate life and dance. So, but speaking of rage, I mean, you and Tom Morello were, I mean, you somehow found yourself together or you decided to work together on something that seemed to make perfect sense. Definitely. So Tom and I have been friends for a long time. And when we first met, it was was there was an action that he wanted to do in Santa Monica where they had come up with the local businesses had come out with the

law that you can't feed the homeless and so we kind of got together on that topic and decided to break the law and invite media to focus on the topic that the city was trying to outlaw feeding homeless people as a way of getting rid of them. And so that's when we started our nonprofit organization called Axis of Justice that we had for a number of years. We had a radio show on KPFK Pacifica Radio Network for years together and really enjoyed working with each other. We still do. He does his own activism. I do do my own but i'm very inspired by the amount of dedication he has and hard work that he puts into everything that he does

it's incredible yeah oh yeah no and and and he's you know he's always it seems like he's always been doing that that like yeah even with even with the rage like from the beginning it seemed that's what it was about always true to himself yeah. So I know I didn't know about the situation in Armenia before the new prime minister took over. But it was pretty straight up a dictatorship, right? No, it wasn't a dictatorship, Mark. It was actually we had free press from the beginning since 1991. It was actually we had free press from the beginning since 1991. It wasn't a dictatorship, but it was more of like more of like gangs of New York in a way, like where a bunch of buddies were oligarchs.

They held the monopolies. They controlled the system from back in the Russian days. No, not not from back in the Russian days. But most of those Soviet republics were similar in that sense that you would. I mean, sometimes they'd have a dictator that stayed in place, like Lukashenko's still been there from the Russian days. It wasn't like that with them. But they held on. I mean, how do I explain this? It was all hierarchical. I mean, they were they were like a group of people. They all had money. They all siphoned money away from public policy. And you couldn't get a fair shake in the courts because if someone knew someone,

then they would have the upper hand. You could pay off cops, that kind of thing. It was basic corruption. It wasn't legalized corruption like the US. It was overt corruption. But it wasn't Erdogan. It wasn't Turkey. No, it wasn't Erdogan. We've always had a free press. Armenians are way too opinionated to be able to withstand any type of dictator. But we were living under, you know, an unjust, corrupt system. And people were leaving because they were looking for work elsewhere. They didn't get a fair shake in the country. And when did that happen? You know, I know that you took some flack, you know, in the aftermath of 9-11 because of the timing of what was it, the third album release?

Second. Toxicity. Yeah. And that, you know, you were a political activist then and your reaction, which wasn't incorrect, was just the timing of it, of course, got you the attention that it it did which was uh who the fuck is this guy is he one of them yeah right yeah yeah exactly exactly um so yeah and and so you know it's it's kind of funny you're mentioning this because we just got you know metal hammer just just said that toxicity was the best record of best metal record of the 20th century or whatever, best rock record, which is huge. But all I can think about is the stress and anguish around that record.

Because when we released the single Chop Suey from Toxicity, you know, the wake up, grab brush and put a little, that song, right? It was crazy. I mean, the release was on the week of 9-11. They took our song off the air along with a bunch of other songs, Rage Against the Machine songs, you know, all sorts of music. And Clear Channel had censored like the whole playlist of music, which is really weird looking back at it now, if you think about it. Um, and I had written a piece called Understanding Oil that I posted to the band's website a day after 9-11, trying to try to understand what was going on, trying to kind of basically after who's responsible, not, you know, not being unilateral like George W. Bush, we knew was going to be, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, it's kind of funny because now they're using it for, you know, a college essay, learning, like, which is like 20 years later,

you know, but at the time it was was like it really put us on the edge and the label asked us to take it off the website the band called me in they're like you're a smart guy are you trying to get us killed what the fuck are you doing you know and i'm like but it's the truth you know you must have been a little scared though no i was very scared sure yeah we were getting threats i tell you man i mean you got you definitely got big balls in terms of how you handled that. But I have to assume that, you know, you must have been out of your mind. I don't. I'm just, I'm dedicated to the truth in a very naive way.

And that's all I have to say. So for me, it was just like, it's the truth. And I've learned since, Mark, that there there are many times it's not the only time in history where you can speak truth and public opinion hasn't caught up to that until later i get that yeah and you get you get flack for that and then later in revisionist history or whatever you want to call it you're like oh yeah that made sense that that totally makes sense right right and yeah and if you're lucky you're alive and you haven't been ruined. Right. Right. You can appreciate your vindication. Exactly. Well, it's never vindication because what happened were, you know, the invasion of Iraq, which literally had nothing to do with 9-11.

And yet they tried to make that link. WMDs, all that stuff, which we now know was non-existent. So you never really feel good unless something good happens from it. Yeah, but awareness is not nothing. And all of this is building your sort of personal political and philosophical and activist capital for what you want to accomplish, right? Right. So when it comes down to stepping up with your home country, with Armenia, was System of a Down popular in Armenia immediately? On the first album? No, not at all. Nobody knew who we were.

And I think it was after this, I'm guessing it was after the second record, but it was also our band's activism having to do with awareness of the genocide that really kind of touched upon the Armenian kind of heart. And, you know, if I go to Glendale now, an old lady will come up and hug me, not because she listens to System of a Down,

but because she knows that my band and I have been working toward the recognition of the genocide for years, right? She doesn't love that second album. She doesn't love that second album. She's not into metal. You know, it's like, ah! Right? So there's definitely that aspect of it.

But it seemed like by the time you guys go there the first time, I mean, you know, it would seem to me that Armenians would see your names and be like, look, Armenians. Yeah. Because it looks like by the time you got there, you know, there were thousands of people that identified with with you and the band and the message. True. Yeah. So that was, you know, about 20 years after we formed the band. And, you know, we've been asked to go and that was the perfect time for the band to go.

And it was it was an incredible, incredible feeling. That was before the revolution. It. That was before the revolution. It was three years before the revolution, yeah. So it was 2015, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. And the government invited the band to come and play a free show in Republic Square. Did he know what he was getting into? They did. They did. Because I, you know, in 2013,

I had written an open letter to the president at the time, Serge Sarkeesian, in kind of basically calling him out on vote rigging and, you know, you know, basically taking the elections in an undemocratic way. And we had letters exchanged back and forth within the press openly. So I challenged them, but they knew that when it came to the genocide and my dedication to my grandfather's history and the importance of the recognition that basically I would, you know, we would play the show and that we would represent our nation having to do with the recognition of the genocide. And the 100th anniversary was huge because Germany recognized the genocide. The Vatican recognized the genocide officially.

You know, many other countries came into the recognition sphere. But I also had to kind of speak truth to power from stage, the truth serum, as we call it. And, you know, so when it was time, I actually started, you know, started thinking of my grandparents, both of my grandparents. I felt like they were there in spirit with me and I started just talking and basically, you know, talking about the fact that Obama had as a candidate, you know, blame George Bush for not recognizing the Armenian Genocide. But when he became president, because of the NATO links of Turkey and stuff like that, he didn't recognize the genocide properly

and talked about the Armenian government at the same time and said, listen, you know, we got to change this. This is not right. There's injustice here. So this is 2015. So this is long after, I mean, this is years after Mesmerize and Hypnotize. So, like, I mean, so by this point, all Armenians knew you're banned. Exactly. So, like, tell me that story, like, I mean, so by this point, all Armenians knew your band. Exactly.

So, like, tell me that story, though, because, like, I thought that, you know, there was something kind of amazing about your turning away Atlantic Records. What year was that? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, that is an interesting story. I'm trying to remember the year. But you already had a record out, right? You were two? Yeah, no, we had our records out.

I had a small imprint, a label, and I had signed this band from Texas called Fair to Midland, really great progressive rock band. But it was about your imprint. It wasn't about the System's records. It wasn't about System of a Down, no. Yeah, it was about another band. So but it was about your imprint. It wasn't about the system records. It wasn't about System of a Down. No. Yeah, it was about another band. And they so we signed them to our imprint because we found them really interesting. And then we tried to get a distribution deal for them with a major label, which you would do at the time. And so there were a number of labels interested,

Universal, Atlantic and a couple of others. So they flew us out to New York to kind of present the band and kind of do their pitches, like take them out to dinner, schmooze, do their pitches, right? So each company did their pitch. Atlantic, you know, had a great pitch and we had a great meeting with them. And Craig Kelman, who's a friend, he's the, you know, he runs the label, still runs the label as far as I know. And by the of our meeting he said hey you want to come in and say hi to the old man and i'm like old man oh ahmed erdogan yeah the the the guy that signed you know zeppelin and ray and you know like all these amazing bands like he was a legend right i'm like sure i'd love to meet him uh so i went and sit down 70s office yeah yeah i mean he's the

guy man he's like he's like he did every yeah ray charles did everybody i know i know incredible um so i sat down with him i'm talking to him and i'm like i'm so appreciative of what you've done you know amazing i'm so grateful thank you for meeting me etc whatever and then somehow it came i knew it was turkish obviously and i said by the way i'm armenian and i grew up in los angeles and stuff and immediately he goes oh the first person we had at our label was armenian almost defensively like oh i have a black friend like that kind of a you know response and i just i'm like okay i'm not going to put much into this whatever so we kept on talking whatever and then 10 minutes though you know met with him

and left and on my way back they had internet on plane. And I got on and something was irking me inside. And I typed his name, Ahmed Erdogan. And then I wrote the word genocide behind it. And my jaw dropped when I saw what had happened. You know, his dad apparently was the ambassador of Turkey to the United States way long ago in the 1930s. the United States way long ago in the 1930s. And his dad was instrumental in holding back a film about the Armenian genocide called The 40 Days of Musadal by Franz Werfel. Franz Werfel is a Jewish German author who had written a huge book about the Armenian genocide in the 1930s. So he convinced MGM not to put out that movie, his dad, right? He himself, Ahmed Erdogan, had paid millions of

dollars to US think tanks and also university chairs, set up university chairs, who had hired authors who denied the Armenian genocide. Wow. So he had, yeah. So then I had to, like, I was like in this weird conundrum now. I'm trying to sign this deal to a label. And I'm like, how did this happen with an American band from Texas? Like, how does this happen to me? Kind of how do I get into these things? Now you're on the integrity line. Now on the integrity line again, accidentally.

All right. Like I had no idea. So now I'm like, what do I do? And the story is very interesting. We don't get into it that much in the film. But so I told my friend Craig Coleman, who ran the label, I, you know, I said, I'm not going to hold this against the label, obviously, because that's not fair. But I'm telling you the pros and cons of your label,

the pros and cons of the other label we're looking at. So you're aware that band hasn't made a decision yet. I'll get back to you when they do. But when our conversation was over, I said, there's one more thing that has nothing to do with business. Can I talk to you about it? He's like, yeah. And I'm like, the old man. And he goes, what about the old man? I told him what happened.

I put his name and the word genocide behind it and discovered all these things. He goes, let me look into it and call you back. I said, no pressure, all good, you know. So apparently he told me later that he went into Ahmed Erdogan's office, typed Ahmed Erdogan genocide on Ahmed Erdogan's computer. Yeah.

Yeah. And then listed all this stuff. Because Ahmed basically told Craig, how does he know all this stuff? It's the days of the Internet, right? It's public, right? And so he did that. And then he called me and he said, Ahmed wants to speak to you. And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Let's talk and then he called me and he said Ahmed wants to speak to you and I'm like

oh okay cool let's talk so he called me he called he calls me and he's like oh you know that was a long time ago when we started that chair that writer is gone and all that stuff he even said I believe the Armenian genocide should be recognized I have friends in you know Turkey I'm friends with the prime minister I have a a house in Turkey, all this stuff. Let's get together and talk. Why don't I fly you in? And I thought about it. And I said, Amit, I said, listen, I'd be happy to meet with you. I got no problems in talking to you about it. But I said, ultimately, my whole career has been based on telling my grandfather's story and the truth about the Armenian genocide. If I'm to work with someone that's, you know, spent money and helped the denial of that genocide. If I'm to work with someone that's, you know, spent

money and helped to denial of that genocide, it's going to make me look like a hypocrite. So, if you want to work with me, I need a letter from you that says, I, Ahmed Erdogan, recognize the Armenian genocide. I promise not to publicize it unless I get, I turn into an asshole somehow.

You wanted your, what do you call it? You wanted the security deposit. Security deposit, right? He goes, I can't do that. And I said, well, why not? He said, because they'll burn my house in Turkey. And I said, then don't do it. I wouldn't want anything to happen to you or anyone else, like violence-wise and stuff.

And he goes, let me think about it. Maybe there's another way. and nothing ever happened of it. Now, to my credit, I never told a band this story until after they made a decision. And they decided to go with Universal, not Atlantic at the time. So I didn't have a problem with that. And you didn't even have to tell them that.

You didn't have to tell them, like, I got this personal problem. It's a genocide thing. It's just a little genocide thing right no um yeah it's pretty crazy like some of these situations that that i've kind of just been thrown in to kind of deal with well i mean but that but what a beautiful negotiation on some level that you know that by doing that and not just you know it's a sign of maturity as an activist to not just act reactionary-like and say, fuck you, fuck Atlantic Records, fuck you, right? No, because the people at Atlantic Records were great.

They were really a great label. But for him to meet you where you live and say, well, this is what's up. I believe this now and at the time we did this. But then to ultimately say, I can't do that because of the threat to my livelihood or to my liking. I'm not willing to do that. But that gave you an out. It gave me an out. But it's not so much the business thing I was worried about. But it also shows what Erdogan's Turkey is.

E-R-T-O-G-A-N. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey. His Turkey is very, it's dictatorial. It's completely dictatorial. And he's got hundreds of thousands of people that he's put in jail since the coup, you know, been killing Kurds left and right, right? Invading Syria, invading Libya, the Mediterranean, trying to drill in the Mediterranean next to Greece and Cyprus, right? Helping another dictator invade Artsakh with Azerbaijan and bringing in Syrian mercenaries. They're using Syrian mercenaries as proxy armies everywhere now, you know?

And I'm hoping, I'm really hoping that Blinken and Biden put a stop to this once and for all. And it seems that like, you know, in terms of your solo career that, you know, outside of system, and once you sort of, I think, relaxed in your own skin around your activism and actually saw progress in terms of the message and in terms of of raising awareness and doing the things that activists do. And then ultimately, you know, being invited on the eve of revolution to Armenia to be there for that success. And then the prime minister said he sort of credited you, right, for inspiration. He was there in the crowd. Yeah, when I met him, when I went to Armenia, he was there in the crowd watching System of a Down with his wife. And, you know, he told me that he thought, and we show it in the film, that he said,

look, if you can bring 50,000 people out there, we should be able to bring some people to the square and change this country for the better. It gave him hope, you know. But honestly, they, you know, that was an amazing work. The whole revolution, story of the revolution. Oh, we got a film coming out, another film I helped co-produce and score called I Am Not Alone. It's an award-winning film. and it's a documentary about the 2018 Velvet Revolution in Armenia. We're going to put it out this year, and it kind of goes through the whole, it shows you how the revolution happened, like from day one, and you know, all the ups and downs, the whole storyline. It's really well done. Same director who did Truth to Power, Garin Hovhanisyan, also directed I Am Not Alone. And you were talking earlier about the idea of the soft revolution.

How did that tactically work? The decentralized civil disobedience. Yeah, decentralized civil disobedience, yeah. So at first, most revolutions that we know, like we see it in Belarus, Myanmar, elsewhere, everyone gathers in a square, large numbers, the police are there. It's either violent or nonviolent, right? If the police react, there might be violence, a lot of arrests, this, that. And that happened in the beginning. And Armenians had, you know, we're very outspoken people. And so we've had a protest almost every

year since independence, because it's either an issue-based protest or whatever different things um because people weren't happy but they learned from these former protests that look if we all gather in a square they're going to either arrest us right or there's going to be violence and we don't want either like we don't want it to be a violent revolution they they stuck to their non-violent uh um you know theories very strongly so they and and everything they were trying failed like they were trying to galvanize people meet in a square not many people showed up do this do that and then they started gaining momentum as soon as they realized that people were watching the current prime minister, who was the revolutionary leader, Niko Pashinyan, on Facebook Live.

And he's like, shit. Okay, so he ran and put himself in front of a bus. I mean, this is a member of parliament in Armenia. Okay, he ran and put himself in front of a bus, a public bus in the middle of Central Square in the capital and refused to get up unless, you know, told the bus to run over him if he really needs to go.

Kids saw him do that and started blocking intersections all over the country, wherever they lived. So you don't have to go to the Capitol, to the Central Square. You want to protest? Go block your little street next to you. They started doing that. The whole country shut down. The whole country shut down. And then at at that point they had the government's attention okay and then they were like they took it a step further they're like okay tomorrow every bus every truck driver in the country wherever you are at noon stop and honk the loudest noise ever made in armenia likely you know like the whole country you know just literally not violent and not chaotic non-violent non-cha. Right. No, no hurting people.

If the police they told them if the police come to you, run, don't get arrested. Don't fight. Run. But then come back and reclose the street because you've got them in numbers. They can't overwhelm you. The people are always more than the administration. Right. But, you know, you're you're sort of hoping for a non-fascistic response yes and you are and and luckily we had so many protests and so many previous things that the government was also wary of strong crackdowns because they've done that before and it's bit them

in the ass right so they were careful so but these people were also like the police are brothers and sisters let's not you know let's not harm them they were they took the whole gandhi approach the protesters so it was a very unique thing to watch and you know as as someone who's an activist my whole life seeing something like this anywhere would be interesting let alone armenia the small country of armenia and so they did it and it succeeded at one point the government officials were taking ambulances to go to their offices because they couldn't, the airport was closed, everything was closed, they couldn't get anywhere. They had them on their knees. And I'll let you watch the film so that you can learn the whole story. But

I think there's a lot to learn from that example that can be replicated elsewhere in the world, whether it's Hong Kong, Belarus, Myanmar, anywhere, because there is a way by just using numbers in a peaceful manner to overwhelm the system. Now, obviously, it won't work everywhere. Police might be extremely violent. They might kill people. Obviously, there's no magic formula, but there is something unique in this that

that could be very useful wow and and and it worked it that the people's will was honored and uh you were invited back for the celebration back man i i landed at the airport i remember mark they as soon as we got out of the airport the streets were full of people elated not smiling not happy not rock and real where they're partying but like beyond that i've never seen elation in my life that was a unique experience it was as if they were freed from indentured servitude of some type you know um yeah which is beautiful thing to see beautiful i bet and um just to be a small part of it was was extremely exciting. And it gave me a decade of extra life, I'm sure. And and just to see that change occur December 2019. Just two years ago? Yeah. 104 years after. It happened. It happened. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to fairness to Congress, House of Representatives has in the 1970s and 80s, not Senate, but the House of Representatives

had recognized the genocide solely, but not both houses. So it never became law, really. And President Reagan was the only president who's actually ever used the word genocide to talk about what happened to Armenia, you know, to Armenians. So yeah, it's quite interesting. But now it's on the record. Now it's on the record in terms of Congress. So we're like i said that president biden takes that as you know as official policy and and you know again this would have no bearing on turkey in terms of it doesn't mean they can't do trade with turkey the u.s can't do trade or whatever it doesn't have teeth but turkey's still pissed off because they're still denying that their ancestors

committed this atrocity you know that the whole world knows about you know right european union european parliament france you know the whole world majority of the world and many countries have recognized the genocide and they are still hanging on to that that it didn't happen or it was a war it happened during war everyone dies that kind of a thing they said the same thing about the holocaust didn't they at first, you know? And the difference, Mark, is that there were no Nuremberg trials after the Armenian genocide. Right. You know what I mean? No one was held accountable. No one was put in place.

There were tribunals, military tribunals by Turkey itself, who basically condemned those that committed the atrocities in absentia. They had already fleed the country to Germany mostly mostly Germany, Argentina, that kind, that kind of stuff. Just like just like after the Holocaust. But are the names out there? Do people know who they are? Is it documented? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

A couple of them were taken out by assassins. And, you know, and they were. Yeah, they had they had all fled. And but then what happened in Turkey, you know, after the war is different than what happened in Germany after World War II. Turkey felt, because the powers that defeated Turkey, the West basically, were there. They were in Istanbul. And now they have to deal with what are the repercussions? What do we do now, right?

And President Woodrow Wilson of the U.S., he had a plan that was based on justice rather than based on geopolitical realities and needs of resource acquisition of the United States. So he went to the treaty at the time and basically said, we need to set up a League of Nations, which is the precursor of the United Nations. He basically said that a part of historical Armenia, which is in Turkey, should be given back to the Armenians, that the United States should act as guarantor of that land and make sure security, that kind of thing, because these people were slaughtered. One and a half million Armenians died. That was 50% of our population at that time. But Congress shot him down because Congress said, everyone's interested

in their oil. Why are you coming to us with this stuff? You know, because the Ottoman Empire covered Iraq, Iran, right? All parts of the Middle East, all oil, you know, Saudi Arabia, right? Lebanon, Syria, you know, so that was all Ottoman Empire so everyone was more interested in oil than doing a Nuremberg trial type of situation after the genocide and after World War one yeah it was a power grab and an oil grab going on it was it was so that explains why that that denial was allowed to exist for a hundred right right because everybody was trying to get their piece exactly now the solo work it seems like like your stuff the way you kind of branched out and the way you kind of like

were able to uh you know yeah i mean you guys you have what you do together with the band but it seemed like you had more orchestral and more uh you know sort of you wanted to push the envelope in a different direction you know not the metal direction but you know, sort of you wanted to push the envelope in a different direction. You know, not the metal direction, but, you know, something more artistic in a more purely artistic way. And it reminded me a little bit of Zappa, you know, your personal one. I'm a huge Zappa fan. You're like, you know, fuck it, man. Yeah, fuck it, man. Yeah, I am. I am.

Before his wife Gail died, I had the immense opportunity to go and with my camera guys, because I always had the idea of making a film. But I didn't know what I was making a film about. I was just recording interesting experiences. But I had done a cover of Yellow Snow for Frank's birthday on itunes years ago and they're like oh that's so cool gail wants to say thank you if you ever need anything i'm like i would love to come by the studio sometime they're like sure come on did you record there no i didn't record there no you just took a look around yeah yeah took a look around i had a camera guy with me and and we taped the power was nice yeah exactly well frank was very interesting in terms of i mean, he talked truth to power to everyone and everything from hypocrisy to politics to, you know, that remember like, you know, he did, you know, I didn't know what to think, you know, and but he, you know, forced him to speak his mind and to do this thing that he didn't necessarily really want to do just to get the freedom to do the thing that he really wanted to do. Yeah. So, like, he was like, fuck you. Pay me for saying fuck you. And I'm going to go write this piece of music.

No one will understand. Right. Yeah. Genius. Genius. Yeah. He did have some amazing orchestra i mean he was you know even with the rock band he had it more as an ensemble that he was directing and then he

was also a badass guitarist right totally yeah no he did like it's just like there's just mountains of work i'm not a full zap ahead but but like you know as a person and as a musician he's totally uh impressive and especially seeing you know if you watch the doc and see where it all sort of came from. Because him and Beefheart were out in Lancaster. That's like shit town out there in the desert, in the bad desert. But you worked with an orchestra. I mean, that must have been – do you feel like you've done everything you want to do creatively?

Never. There's always some wall you haven't broken yet, right? Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've worked with 24 different orchestras. I've done a bunch of at least two dozen orchestral shows around the world. I've written a symphony called Orca. And I've done a jazz record called Jazz is Christ with a bunch of cool jazz head friends.

And I'm mostly doing film scores as far as new releases besides the EP. I'm doing a lot of film scores. So I'm scoring a bunch of films, release them as soundtracks. And that's fun because each record is a different ask as far as a type of music. It's a different director,

a different vibe, a different tone. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's fun. It's collaborative and it's a different set of uh of uh it's a different type of creativity you know correct yeah you're working to to sort of um complete someone else's vision exactly exactly yeah yeah and i've met some cool director friends that keep on you know giving me more work which is great and so i enjoy it i enjoy doing that but yeah my solo work is definitely i mean there's the, like I have a few rock records, like Harakiri. Elasticity is mostly rock. My first

record. The first one, yeah. Yeah, that was rock. Yeah. And, but then I also have orchestral stuff, like Imperfect Harmonies, and obviously Orca, my symphony, and, you know, just, just new boundaries, new, new fun stuff to try to do and how are you and the fellows from system getting along really well really well i mean we got together uh last year for we did two songs when the war started um in in arsakh and armenia we realized the need for uh we realized that there's a false parody in the press like even bbc and al jazeera were not reporting it correctly because no one was sending anyone to go under those bombs at first you know and to report the truth they later went bbc specifically went and um but at first there

was this it took them a week or two and they were just saying oh both side blame each other for the attacks and bullshit like there's it's not both side blaming you know one side attacked right it's not right um so you know and and uh so we we wanted to make it clear that there was this information misinformation out there and that we wanted to show the truth so we put out two songs one is called protect the land the other genocidal humanoids we made videos for them and we released them and it was really uh it really felt amazing because and we donated the proceeds to the armenia fund which is a non-profit in armenia dealing with humanitarian aid etc rehabilitation of soldiers um and uh we it felt really good to do something above and beyond ourselves and that

made us get together creatively to kind of just... And it wasn't important whether, you know, this song is perfectly in this thing or this will sound better. It was more like, dude, you have a song for this? Great, let's fucking record it. Let's put it out next week. Like, let's, you know, will the label... What do we do? Do we have to call the label?

Yeah, technically we do, you know. Like, well, tell them we do we do? Do we have to call the label? Yeah, technically we do. You know, like, well, tell them we're releasing it with or without them because this is for our people. Fuck that, you know. So it was one of those were just like, boom. You know, the inertia was so strong that we just had it land. It landed really well. It landed really well. It broke. Number one, it broke through some of the disinformation, which we actually have reports from, you know, seeing that kind of stuff.

And people responded really well. And Armenians in Armenia were really enthused because they didn't feel like they were alone, you know, like they felt like people cared, you know, that's a huge thing. You know, we raised some funds, we raised like 700 grand that we were able to donate. So I think that was an incredible effort, and I'm really proud of System of a Down, my brothers in System of a Down, that we were able to galvanize and do that. Well, good, man. That's great. You seem great, and great work. You've led a life of integrity, and you've made changes. I try, buddy. Just like you, I try. I try. Yeah, it's good talking to you, man. Thank you for an incredible interview and an incredible talk. I try. I try. Yeah, it's good talking to you, man. Thank you for an incredible

interview and an incredible talk. I look forward to seeing you one day. Yeah. Thank you for educating me. All right, brother. Thank you. Now I know. Now I understand more about Armenia, about my neighbors, about the struggle, about a struggle, about what struggle is, about what activism is. Are we doing enough? Are you doing enough? Am I doing enough? The documentary about surge is called Truth to Power. It's available on demand and in virtual cinemas. Play some dirgey guitar. Thank you. Boomer lives. Monkey. La Fonda.

I can see the Fonda. I can see the cat angels. Flying over the mountains. Here they come. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost almost anything.

Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Discover the timeless elegance of cozy, where furniture meets innovation. Designed in Canada, the Sofa Collections are not just elegant, they're modular, designed to adapt and evolve with your life. Reconfigure them anytime for a fresh look or a new space. Experience the Cozy difference with furniture that grows with you, delivered to your door quickly and for free.

Assembly is a breeze, setting you up for years of comfort and style. Don't break the bank. Cozy's Direct2 model ensures that quality and value go hand in hand. Transform your living space today with Cozy. Visit cozy.ca, that's C-O-Z-E-Y, and start customizing your furniture.