Serj Tankian

Tetragrammaton I kind of didn't want to do like a rock typical rock anymore. Originally I wanted to write a philosophy book like you wrote you know that was my goal I wanted to I've been interested in the intersection of justice and spirituality to great kind of topics that have led my evolution as a human being and as an artist but you know the agent that I met a

really nice young man from London he said why can't you do both why can't you tell your stories and share the lessons you've learned or philosophies or whatever from it so that kind of really got me going into thinking in that route and it's been an incredible learning experience because I've

had to do a deep dive in terms of research in my own family's history in my own history my own troubles having to like face stuff from the past you know it's the best therapy session I've ever had in my life writing a book because there's things you realize that you may have known intuitively

but you weren't admitting to yourself about yourself like I didn't know the day that my mom and that had met I had never asked them they had never told us my brother and I am you know we're like how come we didn't know like how did you first meet when was the you know and then they told us the

story and it just became like wow so I'm very grateful for the process you know how you make art for yourself in that term like even if it never came out I'm grateful that I had this incredible learning opportunity to be able to do this did you interview both your parents I did yeah amazing

and you know I interviewed them I interviewed my older uncle about my grandparents great and things I didn't know about them so in a way the book starts with a really traumatic experience of you know right after 9-11 the essay I had written and the Howard Stern interview and us being on tour

and toxicity being the number one record in the country with self-righteous suicide being the one of the what are the odds what are the odds the first system of downs first album comes out it's number one on the charts and that's the week of 9-11 it's a remarkable moment in time

you have a band named system of a down yes your single is thrown off the charts by a clear channel and the whole regime that was happening at the time right all because of well not just our songs but Lucy in the sky with diamonds anything with the word sky or anything the whole rage against

the machine catalog it was you know it was censorship they were afraid that they were going to provoke people people's emotions by hearing these songs I think that was the reason given at that time but it's straight out self-sensorship in a democracy which has really to be reviewed you

know it's something to be reviewed and we all know the artist that actually spoke up at the time you know Maynard from tool to Dixie Chicks and you know obviously Tom Morello myself and a handful of other artists everyone else was very there was a lot of fear pervading I remember

and the Dixie Chicks gut band from country radio it's right there's a lot of censorship around music at that time at that time yeah there was a great fear I remember that and when people so when people ask they're like toxicity it's like your biggest record you know you guys made it like

how did you feel and all I remember is the stress yeah you know which is not great but I guess it explains it and the song you know which is chop sui you know you're talking about self-righteous suicide you know like not that it relates to that but it just the poinsies yeah but that's the power

of music what was written as a poetic line all of a sudden the universe conspires to make that poetic line mean something much more extreme than it was originally written as absolutely it's wild it is wild yeah I mean we know that we're not writing this this is coming from the universe

and we're just interpreting it and if we become great artists that means we're great skilled interpreters of this thing we're downloading you know but I think anyone can download it yeah it's just you have to be open to it yes and then you have to know how to present it yes those

two things but yeah I mean a lot of stuff the song jet pilot was on there I remember the eyes of a horse on a jet pilot when you flew over the bay I'm like what right like it's unbelievable I mean those songs were written obviously within years of 9-11 and all that but you know and then the

essay took it to another level with reactionism got taken down and we got the band got death threats you know I remember we were in Colorado starting a tour the week after 9-11 with all those you know on television there were all these orange light red light danger like for terrorist attacks

and we're in front of like 20 30,000 people a night right like it's just your mind's going what am I do must be terrifying it was terrifying I can't imagine it it was terrifying I can't imagine it I remember being in New York and we were playing across the bridge at the continental

air and lion's arena I think that's technically Jersey right I remember waking up on the bus getting up and walking down the truck load-in and there was no one there no security nothing like I literally walked into a venue the week after 9-11 a venue that's going to hold 30,000 people or

whatever yes after getting death threats after getting yeah and it scared me and I remember calling you know being our manager and going you got to call somebody I mean we got to have some dogs sniffing stuff here because you know I got into like too easily that I shouldn't this is like 9-11

everyone's freaking out we're on the road so very strange time very strange time I remember when Michigan's the machine played at the DNC did you come to that or you might have been after okay they played the DNC conscious great outside peaceful everybody's cool music and it

was far away from the building and next thing you know the police come with shields horses horses batons and firing rubber bullets which you put into a song yeah and sweet D Tom Rill's wife gets gets baton by the police loved by the police we all had to escape never

saw anything like it yeah never saw anything like insane we actually wrote deer dance about that I went a day after but I obviously read about the event and spoke to Tom thereafter and what not and it's interesting because early in the band's career we had this one show at the parking lot

of Best Buy I want to say it was Burbank and we went in and the minute we went in we noticed an extreme amount of police presence and I remember someone coming up to me and saying it's kind of weird but they're saying they want to arrest you and I had just gotten there like no idea what's

going on so they were on horses and stuff literally I think it was in Burbank in California in California yeah this is early on this is like 99 2000 era right and so we get on and we play our show and as a joke Darren and I were like oh look at the nice policeman glad they get to hear

the music as well we're just we're having fun we're not like you know the show ends and they say the police captain wants to see you we haven't done anything wrong we haven't broken any laws right we have a permit to play there obviously so we walk into the kind of conference room at the Best Buy

and Bino was there our manager that is our mutual friend and our lawyer John Blavard was there police captain sitting like all the way across like it was a long conference table he's sitting all the way on one side I'm sitting on the other and there's other people sitting on the side

and he just starts like saying that you know we can arrest you for what you've done and I'm like what law have I broken like I'm I'm like I haven't broken any law sir like I haven't done anything well you're inciting you're inciting I'm like what am I inside what are we inciting we're playing

our music like what they just had it in for us I remember that so yes for my ID and I just took out my ID it was all the way across the table I just flung it it was my brave act of he literally looked at my ID and he goes you walk out of here you sign one autograph I promise I'm going to take you in

literally like that I haven't done anything I don't want to autograph I don't know it's inciting you know signing an autograph is inciting apparently at that day for that captain in that department it was we hadn't done anything bro I mean you know us like very gentle so get up on stage do your

crazy antics say anything and do a concert everybody comes here because they love the music right it's a big party everybody's partying celebrating together mm-hmm sharing emotion and pain that we all feel yeah and it's a healing thing that happens to the cause it is it is it could have something to do I'm thinking now in retrospect with remember the parking lot of the Roosevelt hotel where we were supposed to have this show that got canceled at the launch of toxicity we had this free show that

we were doing in Hollywood behind the Roosevelt hotel there was there used to be a big parking lot there and we were I think they were expecting 5,000 people or something and we had 10 to 15,000 people fire marshal came and closed it off so they wouldn't let us play and I remember the police

basically saying we'll arrest you if we go up to play and and we were saying listen but if you don't play it's going to be a riot which turned into a riot because you didn't play because they wouldn't let you play they wouldn't let us play I said please let us get up there and do one

song and announce like another date that will do and apologize to the audience everyone will be cool and everyone will leave please let us do that you know they're like no and I got the guys together I remember that day and I'm like this will be cool if we actually do get arrested let's

just go up there and play a song let's get arrested fuck it you know because we're an anti-establish band what better way to launch boxes my lawyer John John's a really funny guy there was a window nearby he goes since coming here he overheard me he goes coming for a second and he showed me the

audience and he said you see all these people here they're all going to sue you if you do that and I'm like oh shit I'm not going there you know like especially with the legal trauma my family it had over the years and all of that stuff and so that became like no that's not going to happen

you know but again it's like that didn't have to happen and there was a riot and people you know people lost their shit because some people had stayed there overnight waiting for the show and all they saw is our banner coming down in our gear being taken off stage and they lost it

and then the police had the downside of of that is the audience would blame you because they're coming to see you they did they said the band hadn't shown up you know so you know we know had to get on like CBS and NBC and basically say the band was there to play the fire

martial shot it down wow the police could have been a little more understanding you know like I remember going in New York right after and going at least in this city there might be police brutality which there is but at least people are used to being on the street with each other right

in LA you're not like there's this weird thing I mean we haven't had any police problem since think you know in fact they've gotten us out of like some tricky traffic and whatever situations and you know all of that but I don't I don't know I don't know why that was what what is that fear

that causes that kind of reaction to something musical okay tell me more about the book okay well it starts with the kind of understanding oil the essay I had written right after 9-11 but then that's the intro and then the first chapter is actually not about me it's about my grandfather

and because it's kind of like if you want to understand who I am then you have to understand where I come from so he came from a small village in central turkey called FKR and it talks about his life and obviously the genocide that you know he survived from and my grandparents survived

the whole story of the genocide as well as you know it well Armenians used to live in the area of central turkey to eastern turkey for about 600 years that was historical Armenia and when the Turks conquered the area in the 1200s they subjugated Armenians so Armenians became the

largest minority in that country which later became the Ottoman Empire for many years it was okay there was Armenians and Turks living next to each other neighbors you know there was some tension based on religious differences but it wasn't horrible right it had its golden periods as an empire

let's say but then in the last few hundred years of its existence the Ottoman Empire from 1700s to 1900s let's say they started cracking down on minorities there were massacres there were like an 1896 Sultan Hamid did a massacre of I want to say 100,000 Armenians so as the century was turning before 1915 which is during World War I which is when the Armenian genocide occurred there were already smaller massacres that were happening and was it always just based on the Armenians

killed them? It's based on our problems are because of this person it's the same thing happened during the holidays the Jews it's not our problem right it's their you know their main things yeah scapegoating so Armenians were prosperous middle class and there was a lot of jealousy

and all of that so they used the Armenian population as a scapegoat for their basically empire crumbling which was happening and then during the First World War Turkey sided with Germany and so they were fighting you know the Western powers and all of that stuff and they said Armenians are the traders you know and all this so again further scapegoating and do we know how many Armenians

there were at that point in time in Turkey? There were a few million if not more one and a half million were massacred I think Armenians altogether were about three to four million worldwide at that time yeah so half of the Armenians had to be on the planet correct yeah so my grandfather was able to

survive through the pogroms there were pogroms so what they did was they first came and took the men and said they're enlisting them in the army because it's wartime but instead of giving them weapons they gave them shovels and they ended up digging their own graves ultimately right because

they killed them all how did your grandfather escape so they came to their house they said women and children you have to leave you'll be back in a few days don't take many things with you you know complete lie and so they were forced to leave I tell a story in the book about when my grandfather's

last saw his father which is a very interesting story his father had come to America and had come back to Turkey at the time and they were afraid that he would be imprisoned because the pogroms were starting so they said they would say oh the Turkish man is here like they would pretend

he's Turkish so that they wouldn't kind of arrest him but eventually they did arrest him and they took him and my grandfather went to the police station to try to touch his dad and and whatnot and his dad said don't worry don't worry I'll be back soon don't I'll be back home and that was the

last time he saw him so he he went on this long journey on the pogrom where he lost his eyesight from hunger he lost his younger brother he and his mother survived but his mother and him were separated and he ended up in a few orphanages in an American orphanage in Greece in the stumble

and then eventually ended up in Lebanon and then eventually was reunited with his mom that's a miracle that they got reunited it is it is I mean all my grandparents I would say the majority of system of a Downs members grandparents are survivors of the genocide they are the

the few that survived that I mean we're here because of those few that survived which is an incredible thing unbelievable so a million and a half what is the time period 1915 to 1918 what happens after that immediately after that so immediately after that there were not a lot of Armenians left in

Turkey obviously majority of Armenians that were left were basically refugees on what is present they Armenia which is to the east which was was an area controlled by Russia and so they survived but there were even after the war Turkey actually attacked Armenia with an army and Armenians had

to gather an army together and fight them at a battle in an area called Sardarabad and miraculously Armenians won that small battle you know Ragtag refugees I mean look what choice did they have it was they knew what was what their fate would be otherwise right and soon thereafter Russia

basically came Russia turned communist right and in 1917 1918 Russia came and basically gave Armenians the ultimate you either become a Soviet state or the Turks are next door they want you otherwise you know so Armenia didn't have a choice but to become a Soviet republic which happened

in 1921 so Armenia had independence from 1918 to 21 about two and a half three years before it was basically engulfed into the Soviet Union until 1991 and then what happened in 1991 1991 all the Soviet republics got independence including Armenia unfortunately Armenia had a very traumatic kind

of disengagement because in 1988 there was the big earthquake in speedog and area of Armenia called speedog 25,000 people died from their earthquake it's mostly attributed to corruption and subpar materials which was very much a Soviet hierarchical kind of graft-based system and then the war in

Nagorno-Arapa started in 1988-1989 which lasted until 1994 so there was you know huge kind of war going on so by the time Armenia became independent independent Armenia didn't have power electricity like a few hours a day you know my wife Angela she's from Armenia she literally would go to school and they would create a fire in the school to warm up and in the winter you know that kind of

stuff they lived without electricity for many years. This is in the 90s. This is in the 90s early 90s so 91 to 95 you know but slowly and surely you know Armenia started coming back and it took about 30 years for them to transition from a post-Soviet oligarchic corrupt system to kind of more a you know proper democratic and you know now Western-leaning nation since the revolution in 2018 which I was 18 that recently. Yeah. So much of today's life happens on the web.

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Visit squarespace.com slash tetra and get started today. What's the first time you went to Armenia? The first time I went to Armenia was I think in 99 or 2000. And what was your experience like? My experience was very mystical because you know I've been Armenia my whole life but it was a place. It wasn't real almost you know.

And during Soviet times like it was hard to go you know I mean my parents actually went during the Soviet time once to visit family but yeah your parents are from that Armenia. My parents are in Armenia. Right so current Armenia is what we used to call Eastern Armenia. I see. And my parents are from Western Armenia where they did the genocide which is Turkey. I see. So my parents were never born in Eastern Armenia. I see.

And they weren't even born in Armenia at all because they were born in Syria and Lebanon because my grandparents you know ended up there from the genocide. After they escaped. After they escaped. Yeah so my first time in Armenia was very mystical and it was interesting because I was just experiencing things. The people, the places I mean Armenia has you know churches and buildings from 400, 500 AD you know. Europe makes America look young. Armenia makes Europe look young. Right.

You feel the roots you feel you also feel people's anxieties and some of the troubles and just everything you know. But you also lived in grew up in an Armenian community here probably the biggest one outside of Armenia. Yes. Yeah. Second if not the biggest one. Yeah. Yeah. So I did but it was different you know. Of course. Going back to the homeland would you say American Armenians are more American and then there are minion whereas in Armenia there are minions. Is that accurate or no?

That's a good question. It kind of reminds me of I went to Armenia in 2017 with Anthony Bourdain first year in parts of New York. He did a show on Armenia that I was a part of that I encouraged them to do which was incredible. And that was one of his shows unfortunately. But that was his first point black question.

He goes so you live in America you got a place in New Zealand you're born in Lebanon you're Armenian you're in Armenia like how Armenian are you and it just like blew my mind because it's it's such a tough question to answer. You know how Armenian are you and it's hard because look Armenians are you know the majority of Armenians live outside of Armenia.

So you have Armenians that have grown up in the states Armenians grew up in Europe South America Russia and all of those cultures change who you are as an Armenian. I consider it an incredible advantage to be able to have these incredible experiences culturally to be able to integrate into who we are to offer our people this diversity you know. Similar to Jews around the world actually you know the incredible diaspora that Jews have around the world and the experience that's gleaned from it.

It's one of the things that most excited me about system in the early days from the time I first saw you guys play was the thing that most other people didn't like about your band was the Armenian roots. Right. And to me that was the best thing about your band because it was so unusual and that it came through in the music that it wasn't the heavy metal that everyone else was making. Right. You could feel ancient grooves that no one else touched rhythms. It was so exciting to me. That's awesome.

I still remember that first day at the Vyper Room. I'll never forget it. You sitting at the top of the little table whatever it was because there was people there and you were looking over their heads and you were laughing out loud. I laughed a little show. And I loved it when I saw your face and I knew you left. That's when I knew you got it. Yeah. I laughed the whole show. And you guys were screaming and angry over the top. I was just laughing. Over the top. It was so much fun. It was.

Yeah. I remember the, I don't know if you remember, but I remember the small chat we had right outside the Vyper Room right after and I'm a very shy person by nature. And I had the balls to look at you and I say would you ever consider producing us? Because I just, to me it was like a dream come true if that would happen. And so, you know, thank you. Thank you. Worked out. We had so much fun. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. And amazing to share your experience with the world. So beautiful.

Yeah. It is. Next time you went to Armenia after the first time. That would be 2005. I went with my current wife, girlfriend at the time. Got to meet her family. Got to see friends. Her family still lives there. She does have some family there but mostly here now. How was that experience different going with a local essentially? Completely different. Yeah. Because you're not, you're, you're starting to see it from the inside. Yeah. You know, you weren't a tourist the second time.

No. You know, my relationship with her and my kind of, you know, insiders perspective really lent me to become more of an activist for Armenia than I had before because I was an Armenian. I was an activist but mostly for the genocide, you know. But I didn't know I mean you're well enough to really speak for it. Has the U.S. ever acknowledged the genocide? Yes. So but it took until 2019, I want to say.

So 104 years after the genocide for the United States to properly, you know, recognize the genocide. And it was first the two houses of Congress and then Joe Biden was the first president to actually, you know, use a proclamation recognizing the genocide. That said, in the 1970s and 80s, the lower house, the house of representatives had passed resolutions about the genocide, but it wasn't both houses. President Reagan had used the word genocide because he used to be governor of California.

He knew Armenians, you know. So the word was used, but it wasn't an official proclamation. And, you know, obviously pissed off Turkey with Erdogan being, you know, the president and how... Has Turkey ever acknowledged it? You know, what is the story from the Turkish perspective?

So the story from the Turkish perspective from what I gather speaking to different friends who are from there is that when they lost the First World War, they felt like they had an empire that extended to the Balkans, to the Middle East. Now, you know, you look at all these Middle Eastern countries with oil that used to be under the Ottoman Empire. So for them, they lost so much. During their history books, it says, people died, Armenians died, other people died, it was wartime.

But that's not true, you know. Of course people died. And of course it was wartime. But the Armenian genocide was a perpetrated, planned and executed genocide. To a point where the word genocide was actually coined by Rafael Lempkin, who in the... I want to say 1940s or 50s coined the term talking about the Armenians. He created basically that term to refer back to what happened to the Armenians.

And you know, the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire at the time, Talat Pasha, he sent out communiques basically organizing the whole thing. The army was involved, extra militia was involved. They took out prisoners from prisons. There was a jihad. They created a jihad as a... It wasn't really a religious thing, but they kind of created that as a way of creating kind of that Islamist fervor to go against the Christians, you know, that kind of a thing.

But it was a very well-calculated economic thing, as a lot of Holocaust and genocides are. You know, I mean, we're still seeing art looted during World War II that's being returned, you know, to their rightful owners and through lawsuits and all this stuff. They gained a lot by taking the homes, the wealth, the businesses, the assets of one and a half million people. I mean, that's huge, you know. What is the state of Armenia now? The state of Armenia now is still very vulnerable, unfortunately.

In 2020, Azerbaijan decided to attack an enclave known as Nagorno-Rarapah, which was fought over from 1989 to 1994. And basically, those people have been living on those lands for thousands of years. It's part of the Old Armenian Kingdom, it's part of the oldest Armenian lands. During the 1920s, against the decisions of the Soviet...

Well, I don't know if it was the Politburo or the organizing committee, to grant those lands to Armenia, Stalin himself, unilaterally decided, no, I'm going to give it to Azerbaijan. Same with another Armenian territory, Armenian populated and historical Armenian territory, known as Nagorno-Rarapah, he gave to Azerbaijan.

So Azerbaijan, legally, you know, under Stalin's decision, had those laws, but these Armenians have been living there for thousands of years, and they've been massacred by Azerbaijanis as well in the 1920s, etc. So instead of making peace and finding a way to be neighbors, Azerbaijan attacked during COVID in 2020. Wow. During COVID. And 5,000 Armenians died, and about 5,000-6,000 Azadi soldiers died, which was horrible. I mean, a young generation of men gone, you know. I remember COVID hit.

We were all scared. We were all in our homes, and what to do this that. But once there's a war, you're like, COVID's out the door, right? Like who's worried about masks when bombs are falling, you know? So after that, in 2021 and 2022, Azerbaijan invaded Armenia proper, and holds about 150 kilometers of Armenia now, and there's weekly threats. They still fire across the border, and sometimes within Armenia itself, because they're within Armenia itself.

As of last year, in September, Azerbaijan attacked the population of Armenians living in the Goranogarapa, 120,000 people, and those people had to leave because they were going to die. That's after nine months of them being starved by an illegal economic blockade that amnesty, human rights watch, international court of justice had to decrease against Azerbaijan for trying to star these people.

For nine months, they starved them, not letting any food or medical supplies in, then they attacked them. What changed from the 1920s to the 1980s? Why did this start? If you don't really want to think about the issue, you could say that it's contested territory. And that's what major media is usually saying, oh contested territory, because they're contesting this area. But it has a lot... And at peace for 100 years. Azadis and Armenians were living there next to each other for a long time.

But after the genocide, I think the genocide itself, and what was the perpetration of by Turkey, of the genocide, Azadis are Turkic as well. I mean, they're Shia, they're not Sunni, unlike the Turks, but they're very much Turkic. They're like, they call themselves One Nation, Two People's, or something like that. So they were encouraged by those same pogroms. And in the 1920s, in Shushi, which is a part of Nagorno-Arabal, there were massacres of Armenians, it's just difficult.

I always say I wish our forefathers had picked better real estate, you know, like, because your neighbor suck, you know, like, I mean, I'm not putting down people, obviously, because I have Turkish friends. Of course. But I'm talking about ideologies. I'm talking about heavy religious vibes, you know, that really subjugate entire populations to their kind of thinking, you know. It's a tough area. What religion is practiced on either side? Armen is actually technically the first Christian nation.

It's the first nation that adopted Christianity as a country. In history, I want to say it was 301. Wow. AD? While it was spreading in Rome, before the Byzantine Empire took it up as its official religion, Armenia was the first to do so. And in a way, it's worked against us because of our neighbors. So Turkey's Sunni, Islamic, Azerbaijan, Shia Islamic, Iran, Shia Islamic, obviously, those are the three immediate neighbors. Georgia to the north is Christian, Orthodox, like Armenia.

So those are the immediate borders and neighbors. How's the relationship with Georgia? Can you us? In some ways, good. There are a lot of Armenians living in Georgia. They're both Christian. There's that, but there's also... They don't have the ideology issue. They don't have the ideology issue, more of typical economic, neighbor, you know, type of issues. Some good, some bad, you know, better than the others, obviously.

But since the revolution in 2018, which I wholeheartedly supported because I knew that that was what the Armenian people wanted, there was a peaceful revolution in Armenia in 2018. A parliamentarian basically started a protest walk from a small city up in the north to the capital. And at first, it didn't gather much momentum. There's been other protests before.

There's been, you know, and the protest was basically against the oligarchic regime that ran Armenia for the last 30 years before the revolution because there was no fairness in the courts, there were no economic fairness, you know, typical post-Soviet country, like Ukraine, like many of these other countries. But something happened and they realized that, you know, they basically started doing acts of decentralized civil disobedience, which no one's ever done before.

And what that is is instead of all being in one square and getting arrested, sitting and singing kumbayan, getting arrested, they would basically go all around the country and break the law in very minimal ways. Block streets, for example, or, you know, and they used Facebook live to basically stream what they were doing during the revolution. It was a streamed revolution, just like Arab Spring. And it was pretty incredible. It was very inspiring because the techniques were very interesting.

It was new. So they started blocking traffic and they said, okay, wherever you live, you don't have to go anywhere else, block your street. And the cops come, they would be like, don't get arrested, run, wait till they leave, then go back and do it again. So it was almost like using the power of numbers to overwhelm the system. And they succeeded. In a bloodless coup, not a single bullet was fired. And the revolution succeeded.

And that parliamentarian became Prime Minister, the day that he became Prime Minister, I was there. He greeted me at the airport, actually, when I flew into Armenia the day before that. And there was, Rick, there was thousands of people at the airport on the streets. Wow. Jubilation, like I had never seen. That's why I was. That's why I was. That's why I was. These people, like I felt like they had just broken the yolks of like centuries of oppression off their backs, you know.

It was just beautiful to see. And it's really sad because two years later the war happened and everything changed, you know, Azerbaijan, the tactics and stuff. But Armenia is a thriving country now, it's got to really probably the highest economic growth in Europe. A lot of investment coming in.

It's pivoted to the West specifically because irrespective of its kind of Soviet era alliance with Russia and the Hormann's NATO, which is the local Russian-led military alliance, it got thrown under the bus by Russia because it allowed Azerbaijan in its territory. It allowed Turkey in its territory to allow the massacres, the wars and all of that. It didn't, you know, you have a bilateral defense agreement with another country and they don't come.

Then, you know, not just that, but they're actually in Khutsu with Turkey in Azerbaijan for sanctions evasion. Well. Because basically Russian oil is being funneled through Azadi pipelines to Europe right now. In Europe, buying that at a premium, knowing part of that is Russian oil. Just so they're not saying we're buying from Russia. You know, so there's this axis of evil now for Armenia that, you know, and part of that is your biggest ally that was your ally, Russia.

So Armenia is totally pivoted West, but it's very vulnerable because no Western boots are on the ground or will ever be on the ground in the near future. So it's making a very strong kind of determination to kind of join Europe and be more Western, but we don't know what's looming around the corner because Azerbaijan is threatening to attack any day. Like, one week they'll be like, give us these four villages or we'll attack.

And now we feel like more than Azerbaijan is actually Russia pushing them because Russia is trying to punish Armenia for trying to pivot West. Wild story. It has been cherished in tribal wisdom traditions for thousands of years. And as people the world over have used this plant-based compound in spiritual healing and ceremonial rights and rituals or centuries.

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Experience the power of this natural nutrupping by visiting Lucy.co slash tetra and discover next level smoke pre-nicotine. The system ever play in Armenia 2015. Tell me the story. In 2015, at the 100th anniversary of the genocide, the Armenian government officially invited the members of the system over down to come and play and we went and it was at Republic Square. They only allowed 50,000 people, capacity, they closed it off at 50,000. It was a rainy day.

They say it always rains in Armenia even though it's spring because of the genocide, April 23, April 24. It was like raining. It was cold. I remember huddling with the guys at the hotel before we took off. I looked at them and I remember everyone felt like everyone felt something different than we've ever felt playing a live show. It wasn't playing a live show. It was doing something way beyond. That's what it felt like.

For me personally, it felt like the top of the mountain for a system over down. After that, whatever. It felt like if that is all that we had achieved then we've already achieved something amazing. The show was a anniversary of the genocide to 50,000 Armenians in Armenia, outdoors in the rain. It sounds unbelievable. It was epic. It was epic. The system aren't celebrated in the Armenian community. Absolutely. Yeah, we are.

We are probably the most popular Armenian band in the world for Armenians. We are the band. There's other musicians. We are the band. That was incredible. I remember when I met during the revolution when I met the current Prime Minister of Armenia, he was at that show with his wife. He told me, he goes, if you guys can bring 50,000 people here, I don't see why we can't bring people into the streets and change Armenia for good. That kind of thing, which was amazing to just hear.

So it was a powerful show in many ways. That's exactly why the police didn't want you to get on the stage coming all the way back. Exactly. They knew what they were doing. Exactly. While music does have power, we know that. What was the emotion? It's undescribable, Rick. It was nothing I've ever felt before because it wasn't about playing a show. It wasn't about doing an act of solidarity or protest. It was all of the above and beyond. It felt like the perfect show. It felt like a dream.

It felt like a dream. I did imagine. Because as he was lost in it, it sounds hard to grok the experience. It's too much. Yeah. It is too much. Yeah. I remember looking at the guys and just thinking, this is where we're meant to be. This is why we were created in the first place. It felt like you finally realized why you're a band. Yeah. I'm not talking about activism specifically or something. It's more emotional and spiritual that this is where we're meant to be.

And everything we've done and everything we've experienced brought us to this day. You don't feel that at every show. You don't feel that at every occasion. Did it strike all the members as emotional? Yeah. Yeah. The first was hesitant about going, he had his personal reasons and all of that, which we dealt with. But once he was there and once we were faced with what was happening, he was overwhelmingly incredibly taken back by it.

In fact, he decided to stay in Armenia longer like he changed his flight back. I was on stage. I remember between songs like Darren was playing this beautiful guitar line and it kind of made me just talk, you know, as I do. And I literally saw my grandparents looking over us, you know. And because we're kind of celebrating their legacy who had survived the genocide.

But at the same time, I was dealing with a corrupt leadership in Armenia that at first didn't want us to play there, which is a whole different story in 2013, for example. So I was dealing with those issues. So I was basically thinking of my grandparents, but also kind of talking geopolitically, you know.

And at the time, I think Obama was president and I said, you know, it's a shame that as a candidate, Obama promised to recognize the genocide, but as president, he's failed to do so like all the rest, you know. And Russia, you know, they had recognized the genocide, but I said something like, it would be nice if we can look at each other eye to eye, not as a client state to a master kind of thing, you know. And then I criticized the Armenian government from that stage in the country.

But in a smart way. I said, you know, there's depopulation, there's economic inequity, there's inequality in the courts. And we've come a long way, but there's a lot of fucking work to do. You know, so it was this incredible moment that will not be replicated in my lifetime. Was it filmed? Yeah. It was actually streamed, rolling stone streamed at live, immediately like millions of people were watching it around the world, because it was such an amazing, it's still on, it's still on YouTube.

Yeah. Fantastic. How do you describe what makes system of a down system of a down? I think it's our unique personalities. You know, when you're making a dish with four really diverse ingredients, you take one away and try to replace it, it's never going to work. It's just who we are. And it doesn't matter who's playing what instrument or what it is, it's just the combination of four of us, you know. This is the wonderful advantage of the book that it just kind of opens up the memory logs.

I was thinking of the first day, Darren and I actually sat down and just harmonized, you know. We weren't in a band together at the time. He was playing guitars for this other band that we were sharing, and I was playing keyboards for a band and we were sharing studio space. And him and I got, you know, got to know each other and I realized he was 16, you know, and I was probably like 20 early 20s. And I realized how dedicated he is to music, how serious he was to music.

I remember he held up his guitar and he started playing something and I started singing and then he harmonized and I think we both stopped and looked at each other because that harmony was something I had never heard. Our voices harmonized in a very, very unique fashion. And our tones completely different. But together they have this really interesting thing. And that's when we looked at each other and we realized there's something special there. I remembered that the other day.

Beautiful. So I think it started with that obviously because Darren and I first connected before any other band members joined. But then it's the four of us. It's what we do together. It's what we feel on stage together and what comes out of us because of the other. When we jam on stage for example or even in a rehearsal studio, someone's playing something, not necessarily a song that we've written or anything like that.

We have an interesting way of grabbing that and turning it around ourselves and someone grabbing it and you know, it's how you play off each other that's unique. I think a good band has that. That's how it feels. It's different between being a solo artist and being in a band is that what comes from the collaboration is unexpected. Right. You know, someone decides to put in a part that you would have never thought of. Correct. The way those two parts bounce off each other creates something new.

A third thing. Yeah, absolutely. And it's also the multiplier effect in terms of power as well. Yeah. The OnePlus 1 becomes 3. Tell me about the early days of being on the road. How much of a grind is it or was it? You know, I think I was a little older than the other guys. I was like hitting 30 and they were in their early 20s. And I think also that music was a later love in life for me. You know, I had all these other experiences.

And when I thought of doing music, I always thought I was going to be in a studio every day creating. Like, that was my vision. I didn't know that, you know, you make the music for six months. You record the music for six months. Then you tour for two years, right? And you're making videos and doing press and all this other stuff, which is not making music. That's what I love about it. And the fun of it, your idea of doing music was being in the studio making music?

Pretty much, creating. Creating. And I did enjoy touring and I still enjoy performing, but it is a grind. You know, the travel is the grind. It's not the performance. If you can just show up every day in the same place and play, it's a dream come true right. Because the performance is fun. But it's that travel. And as I got older, especially in my 50s and start having back problems and all this the aspect of let's leave health aside, there's the, I don't know if it's a purest way of thinking

about it, but repeating performance is artistic redundancy. So the first week, two weeks fun, the first show incredibly fun, right? But then after a while it's diminishing returns artistically and you become a performer and you're doing the performance and you're being incredibly rewarded with love and everything else, right? Economically, you know? But that does kind of also add up over time and you go, why am I repeating myself? You know, art is not supposed to repeat itself that much,

you know? So there's that aspect of it. I think David Bowie said after two weeks any tours redundant, basically, you know? Which is why doing a one-off, like we're doing Sick New World, for example, we did it last year and may we're doing it this year in April. Just doing a one-off is fun because you kind of know about this. Tell me about it. Oh yeah, we, so we started a festival with live nation in Vegas called Sick New World. We did the first one last year, 60,000 people sold out like

with an hours. This year, same thing. Last year, it was just fun because there's not the same pressure of touring, right? Doing so many shows, oh, you know, I got sick halfway through or this happened, that happened, you know? It's more like you're a hers, you laugh, you know, with the guys and then you go play this one, show it, become special, like the Armenia show, you know? It just become special. It's an event. It's an event, you know? You enjoy it, you know? Your friends are

there because it's an event. It's not like, okay, now we're in Oklahoma, now we're in South Carolina, you know? It's like, it's special. So performing when it's special, like for example, I was doing this in April, I did an orchestral event at CSUNs Zeraya Theatre. You know, I had like five incredible solo ists, singers, a choir, a 20 person choir and an orchestra and I had written music for it,

beautiful music, very piano, moody kind of with strings. They offered me a second night because the first night, so I got, I said, thank you, but no, you know, let's keep it one, let's keep it special. Same thing, like there's something about it not repeating and it just being a one-off event that just makes it more interesting. Yeah, tell me about New Zealand. New Zealand's incredible. I went to New Zealand the first time in the year 2000 or 2001 with the band for a tour called The

Big Day Out tour, which is no longer around, but it was a great tour. And I had this incredible, intuitive sense of belonging from the minute that we were there. And this pervasive piece, this incredible greenery around and I was just so curious. Is it the visual thing or is it more than that? Is it like what you saw or what you felt? It's both. So I started exploring it. I kept going back every year and you know vacationing there, looking at different parts of the country and traveling

and whatnot. And it was a dream of mine to get residency and get a place there which I was able to do, which was amazing. Yeah, you know, it's great being in a place where the land is clean, the waters clean, the air is pure. You know, it's healthy food. I believe healthy, very healthy food. The fish is incredible. So we grow stuff. We have a little farm. We grow stuff on the farm, a lot of fruit trees, you know, veggies and whatnot. And it's just more than anything, my mind

slows down, you know. It kind of balances out LA living for me, you know, because here it's all fast, fast, fast, right? Too many things to do, too many projects, which I enjoy each and everyone. But I need that. I need it. I need that slowing down. And I still work there, but at a much slower pace. LMNT. Element electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun?

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it's changing over the years, over the last 20 years. But the original, one of the reasons I went there was political neutrality. I like the fact that they were non-new clear, that they were politically quite neutral at the time. That's changed over time. How has it changed? It's become way more aligned with Western interests militarily and all of that stuff, economically militarily, during Helen Clark's time as Prime Minister. It felt like they had their own path, their

forced their own path. I remember during the Iraq war when I went to New Zealand, the foreign minister of New Zealand at the time kept on saying, why is America in Iraq? On TV, which you wouldn't see anywhere else, for example, right? Any Western country, let's say. But it's not like that now. It's like kind of more on board. But it's still a unique, special place. The more I slow down, the more I appreciate bigger picture things, then just whatever is happening in my mind or my life

and stuff. Some of it is nasty, what's happening around the world and everything. You start feeling things more. I find it incredible that with all of the medical and technological progress we've made as humanity, with everything that we've learned, with data at our fingertips, that no human being, no animal has ever been able to have. We have more wars, starvation, crazy shit. It's like

none of it's making us better. No. And that is what saddens me the most. You said originally when you set out to work on the book, you thought of it as talking about your spiritual life and your activism. And those are the two big pieces of your life. How do they fit together? Years ago, I had the honor of meeting the Delai Lama for this TV special. They were doing our movie special. It was in Philadelphia. They flew us in. It was myself, Moby, Katie Tonsdal and Justone.

They picked four artists. And we each got to ask two questions on camera to the holiness. And first of all, he's a really funny guy. I don't know if anybody's a really, yeah. But I'm going to that because I asked him that question. I asked him, I said, what do you think is the intersection of justice and spirituality? And he thought about it for a second. And he said, I'm paraphrasing, of course, but he said something like to follow a path of injustice is spiritually disconcerting.

Now, now, first I thought that was like a double negative. Of course, that's the case. I mean, it's a no brainer that that's the case. But if you really think about it, our intuition, our moral existence, connect to our spirituality, cannot allow us to be unjust. And if so, we're not going to be unhappy with ourselves. Right? It is the connection. You know? So I kind of ended the book with that actually. That that's the realization that they are almost one in the same.

How could you live a spiritual life in a world of injustice? Or how could you live in a in a non-spiritual life in a world of justice? It's like they are almost one in the same. Have you ever been to an Armenian Orthodox church? Sure. Yeah, I grew up going to church. There was a church right across our school. I used to actually sing there. The head priest would kind of enlist us and we would sing. And at one point, I kind of got tired of it. And I asked to

be excused. You know, I said, I don't want to do this anymore. And at first, it's like, why? You should, you've got a great voice. You should sing. I'm like, yeah, you know, he said something like in our age, we would be too embarrassed to tell the priest that we don't want to sing and say, no. And I said, that's it. It's not your age. So I guess I'm thinking back right now. So I had the singing thing then and the rebellious spirit at the same time. But that was a straight-e student,

nice kid, you know, all of that stuff. It's interesting. Would the teachings done in English or they done an Armenian? We had both. It was a school in Hollywood. Piliboa says the name. It's actually a really good Armenian school. And most of our classes are in English, but then you have Armenian language class and Armenian history class, which would be done in Armenian. What was it like working with an orchestra and how is it different than being on state

with an orchestra versus being on state with a band? It's different working with an orchestra. It has taught me a lot, specifically different orchestras. So you have the same written music and you go from, let's say, Russia to Italy to Germany to Poland. They all play it differently. They're all great orchestras, but they play it differently. And it taught me that they play based on their cultural strengths and weaknesses. So with the Italians, phenomenal soloists. When they play

together, they're not so tight. Yeah, I mean tight sometimes, but not yeah. With the Russians, Germans, Austrians, they play like when the baton comes down, they're all hitting that one or three or whatever. That's interesting to me. Really interesting. Yeah. To hear the music you've written interpreted by different players just by the nature of who they are. Fascinating. It is fascinating. I wouldn't have guessed that. And to be a songwriter versus a composer is a whole different

feeling as well. Because songwriter, you're in it. You know, you're performing it, you wrote it, you're vibing with other people on stage, you're playing it. But being a composer and stepping back and listening to others interpret your music is a whole different feeling. And with an orchestra, you know, you have all these acoustic instruments playing. You could have up to 80, 90 people playing music on stage. And what I do is with the band that have both my ear monitors in otherwise I'd go

deaf. But with an orchestra, I drop one if I'm performing with them, like if I'm going to sing, for example, I'll drop one so I could hear my voice in one and hear the full orchestra and the room and the other. Because I have to. Like I want to hear it, you know, it's a different feeling. I think classical music and its dynamics lend themselves to emotions that electronic music or electrified music I should say cannot touch. And vice versa, you know, rock music is

the power of loud guitars is or, you know, program music could be very powerful. Yeah. And, you know, like rock music overall is music of protest. It's a fuck you, right? Whereas classical music with classical music, you can get so vulnerable emotionally with a beautiful solo violin or something like that

that you can't get there with rock. And same with jazz, like you jazz music has its own beautiful emotions at portraits, you know, the diversity and colors of those different genres that really, really that I love to explore. Because I can only express so many emotions with one genre, right? Are you writing songs all the time? I'm so busy scoring that I'm not writing as many songs. Is that more main job now? Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I find it incredibly fun and challenging.

Yeah. I'm doing two films and a Netflix series now, which is cool, you know, but different. One of the films is fun because it's kind of like a Hollywood funny film kind of thing. I'm enjoying being creative within limitations. Yes. Because writing a song is there are no limitations. Like it comes to you, you write it. Yeah, it's more of a puzzle when it has to fit somewhere. Exactly.

And sometimes you do like a bunch of cues and everything's perfect. Then there's one key you do 10 times and you're struggling because that one thing for whatever it is, you know, and you learn it, you figure out, you have to figure that out. Yeah. And each score is a completely different tone sound musically. Like it's, you know, one could be like synths all since one is orchestral, one is more rocky or modern, you know, one more. Is there an idea before it happens or

is it more of a feeling? So as a composer for media, you always want to find something you can sync your teeth into. So conversation with the director, for example, you're always looking for something that musically makes sense, right? And that's where you will eventually figure out what you need to do. So in my conversations with director or creative producer, whoever's making decisions, I try to get the tone, but they don't know the tone. So you have to kind of be like, what are the

emotions you're trying to portray? What type of instrumentation are you thinking of? Sometimes it's I don't know. And then you're like, okay, what's going on through the stories? There any music in this story? I've had instances where director will come and say, we're using this old ancient lullaby. I'm like, great, I want to hear it send it to me. And I listen to it. I'm like, perfect. So use

the course to create like an orchestral thing around that. It's just anywhere to start. And usually, if there's some relation already within the film musically, then as soon as you correspond to it, the doors open musically for it. And then the next step is to do a small suite of music and send it to the director and be like, are we on the same wavelength or is this totally off field, right? And you send it in picture or just as a piece of music?

Generally, just as a piece of music. And do you know where the music's going to go in the film? There might not even be a film at that point. There might not be video at that point. They might still be in script mode or shooting. They might have dailies. Yeah. Sometimes you start early. Sometimes you start late. It's rare to have a final cut where they hire you and go, we want to

compose or you know, and here's the final cut, like along the way that you develop it. And there's some cool directors that like integrating the music in their shoots too, because it helps set up the tempo. Yeah. And also imagine the mood of the scene. The mood of the scene. And when the actors here, they act differently. Right? So I haven't had that experience yet where the music's been used in the film, but there are some creative directors that do that. But again, like you said,

it's the problem solving, the puzzle solving element that I find interesting. And the fact that each of them are going to be musically completely different. So that's fun. Sometimes I don't even watch. I listen. Because if you list, especially with documentaries, if you listen to dialogue, you don't even have to watch. You just compose on the spot listening. You're going in between when there's a change, you feel it emotionally, you play your modulator or whatever. It's interesting. It's like

scoring a conversation. Sounds cool. Yeah, it's fun. When you're writing a song, do the lyrics start with a sound or do they start with words? Is it about the way they sound or is it about what the words mean? It's mostly sound. Sometimes words come in. Because I think your consciousness starts bringing in certain words. And then you go backwards and say, well, why did my mind use that word there?

What does that mean? Is that what this song is about? So it's like a puzzle that your spirit or your consciousness is solving while you're going through the process. And then you go and you fill in the blanks of the gibberish words that you were using to make up for. You know, once you figure out what that puzzle is, and you go backwards. And sometimes you don't figure it out correctly. You know, I've written one song. I remember where the song was funny, but I wasn't giving it enough

credence for its funniness. And the lyrics were not. And it just wasn't working. And I'm like, yeah, but those lyrics are great. The music's great. Why isn't it working? And then I just realized it like out of the blue. I'm like, wait a minute. This is a funny or song. Then, you know, I should change it. You know, so I rewrote the lyrics. Boom. Worked perfectly. So sometimes it's confusing, but you know, I think stream of consciousness is the best way vocally to help write. And you

always do it out loud or can you do it silently? Oh, I can do it silently. And would it still you'd find vocal phrasing and words even silently? You can find it, but you've got to do it out loud to remember it. I see. Whether it's on your phone or whatever that you want to record. So like, you might be thinking of it, but if you can't record it, you're going to forget it because it goes like that, right? Have you ever started with lyrics? Yes. And what's that like?

It wasn't my lyrics. So it's actually a funny story because the current prime minister of Armenia had written lyrics. He had said this one thing and it was a flowery thing about Armenia, an arm being Armenian and stuff. And he had hit me up and said, do you think you could put music to this? And I'm like, yeah, let me try. Let me play with it, you know? And I picked up an acoustic guitar and wrote a song using those exact same lyrics, sang them, send it to Armenia,

it was like, wow. And I put it out like, I think in 2020 or 2019, something like that. It's called Hayashtan, which is the Armenian word for Armenia. Okay. What are the words being? It's basically talking about Armenia. Well, Armenia is a country where the roads get lost. Friends gather together around a Khodovaz, which is kebab, basically fire. Armenia is a country where the autumn is serene and warm. And pure wine shines in grapes. It's very

visual. Armenia is a land of fruits, a garden of apricots, a cellar full of dry lavash, a ringing thump of an anvil. And then the chorus is the names of all of the capitals of Armenia historically. I love it. Thank you. Won't play anything else? Anything you feel? Yeah. There's a song I did with my dad. Yeah. Should I play it now? Yeah. Boy you see Zadin he?

That was great. I only got the chorus down. How would you do it with your dad when you were a kid Who would play nobody would play so you just do it a catalog or he would be listening to the song on like vinyl I see I You guys sing along we would sing along then I'd sing along with him and would you ever sing unison or immediately Harmony mostly unison and then over time Harmony but when I sang with and there are parts I sing in unison on on his record

parts I sing and there's actually a video on YouTube where I just brought him into my studio and We did the song live and recorded it basically which was beautiful as a way of putting out the record at the time You know, yeah, it was amazing feeling Welcome to the house of macadamias

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Visit house of macadamias dot com slash tetra I was going to ask you what would be a good piece of classic Armenian folk music that we could listen to together Something from Kachadur Avadician My dad's name popped up because it's Kachadur as well

There's some really beautiful Armenian folk music in there Th 來 My dad's name popped up because it's Kachadur I need to be able to see the moon I'm going to the moon I need to be able to see the moon I'm going to the moon I'm going to the moon I need to be able to see the moon

I don't know what to learn I don't know anything Saribesatarl tu ne naai yachun ne naai Naani chaule re nei andunu andev manai Saribesatarl tu ne naai yachun ne naai Yari sarashada nushe la Vilavchara Yari darada zago pushe sa Vin sa Vilavchara Yari sarashada nushe la Vilavchara

Yari darada zago pushe sa Vin sa Vilavchara Katsle na ra churda vaza ang maha gane Elchiha, chi purda vaza ho ki gane Yari chaule re nei andunu andev manai Saribesatarl tu ne naai yachun ne naai Yari chaule re nei andunu andev manai Saribesatarl tu ne naai yachun ne naai I had no idea you'd act and sing like that. It's unbelievable. Yeah. When would you hear your dad singing? Growing up. He'd sing with... What occasion?

Family get together and stuff. He would just start singing. He has a very emotive voice. Would he sing a capella? Yeah, he'd sing a capella mostly. Yeah. But when he grew up... I've written about him in the book. In the sense he's got an interesting story because he was a musician growing up. He played the Ud and he sang at different events and stuff like that. He played drums and stuff. And he wanted to learn the...

This was in Beirut. This was in Syria actually because he was born in Syria. He later went to Beirut. My mom was born in Beirut. So he decided to study with this one Ud master in Syria. So he took a bus to go see this teacher. At the time his dad had passed away. My grandfather had passed away when my dad was in second grade. Pretty young. So he was young. But he was, you know, he was enjoying playing music. At this point he's a young teen or whatever.

And he's taking the strip. And he's sitting near him is like this other guy that looks like a musician. So he kind of befriends him and starts talking to him and says, are you a musician? He's like, yeah, I am. And he's like, oh, okay. And the guy sees my dad holding an Ud. And he says, how long have you been playing the Ud? And he says, oh, I just started. I'm going to take classes, you know, from this one master. He's like, what's his name?

And he knew him obviously because it's a small world kind of thing. And my dad goes, tell me about your life. Tell me the life of a musician. And so this guy gives him like this whole kind of brief history of his life. The ups and downs, the tragic part of the music world. And whether it's drugs or being on the road away from family. And you know, just all of that stuff. And my dad ends up stopping at a stop and taking another bus back. Never goes to that thing. Wow.

He's a musician that never did music. He went to Milan, started to do design. He became a shoe manufacturer. He was successful in his life, all of that. But music was always his love. So when he retired, when they were at my parents and mom just throws it out and just says, hey, you should make a record with your dad. And I'm like, yes, of course. And it was for me, it was giving back because there were times in our family where in the early 90s where it was really difficult.

My parents lost everything in a huge lawsuit, a civil lawsuit. And I was coming of age at that time. I was 16, 17, helping them with legal briefs and really, really stressful time. And we went from pretty much having a lot of things, a comfortable lifestyle to back to zero. And starting over and renting and trying to make a living. And at that time, I had realized that music is my calling. But I had started a software company to help pay the bills.

It was a vertical industry software for jewelers. An industry I knew well because of my uncle's business. And so I remember having a conundrum. I was like, I need the finances for the family, but I want to do music and I need more time for music. And my dad saw me grappling with that issue one day. And we sat down and he said, what's wrong? And I'm like, I'm playing it off. I'm like, oh, nothing's wrong. It's okay.

And he goes, no, tell me. And I said, look, I'm just faced with a dilemma. I want to do music, but I don't have enough time because I'm working. And I said, no, this is not. And he goes, if I have to get a second fucking job, you do music. Just like that. You are not going to knock on a knock to music. If that's what it is that you want to do. So that gave me the wings to be able to enter an industry where all the odds are against you.

And he wanted your dreams to come true because he couldn't follow his. That's wild. So he got to make that record. I got to make it beautiful. Did he love it? He loves it. Yeah. Oh, he goes to a Dalteca. He sings there. Great. He has musician friends in his circle and stuff. So he loves it now. When you hear the music of system of a down, are you aware of the Armenian roots in it? Or is it just ordinary music to you?

I'm aware in retrospect now. I wasn't when we were making it originally. Because it was just what was a much part of your growing up. It was a thing to do with anything else. I didn't think that our rhythms are that different. It was just natural to us whether it's John playing the drums or Darren writing something that would be Eastern.

It was just part of what's great is that the melodies to the melodies and the harmonies it all doesn't sound like anything that we're used to in that genre of music. Yeah. No, it's true. It's all from somewhere else and it's so cool. Yeah. I think the greatest thing about system of down musical influence, I don't mean our influence on other people, but how we got influence is the diversity of our influence. Yes. Because Darren himself is like soul divers and is musical listening tastes.

And he grew up with Armenian music, Arabic music and all sorts of stuff because of his parents being from Iraq and all of that. And of course he has a love for many different types of genres. And where he started, which was very much rock-oriented, he was a metalhead and all that, that wasn't my musical beginning.

Rock to me was way later on. Rock, punk, rock, hip-hop. My origins were way more Armenian music, European music, Arabic music, all the Eastern music, but also in Goth and 80's music, new wave. Although he's got that too, but he got that later. I got that when I was in the 80's because of our age difference. And I wasn't a heavy, heavy metal guy when I started singing in a heavy metal band, which also makes it interesting.

Like learning to scream. But it was great because I remember in our early days, all of the trauma in my life, I exercised through rehearsals. Forget about the shows, like we didn't, you know, that was amazing. And at one point, you learn to regulate the anger and frustration that's built into your music into a performative art, where you no longer are that angry, but you realize where it comes from.

I think also when it's, the music itself has energy that propels you, you can't help it. You can't help but get swept up in the power of the groove. Totally. Do you read much poetry? I used to. I read less poetry now. I read more prose than I do poetry. Once in a while, you know, something will touch me.

I like your words. They come to me as poetry, whether you intended for them to be or not, because they have weight to them. Each word is weighed. And no unnecessary ones are there. I think that's good poetry. Thank you. What are your typical reading habits today in prose? Audio books. More than anything. I've been listening to a lot of memoirs.

I just listened to flees, getteles, a lot of music memoirs. Anthony Bourdain's, I've already heard kitchen confidential, but I listened to the second one, medium, something great. I love his writing style. He was really cool, man. Like he, the way I even got to meet him was we were in New Zealand. Angela and I, my wife, we were watching CNN parts and known with Anthony Bourdain.

I think it was Georgia or some other country near Armenia. And she's like, you know what? He's never been to Armenia. He's done it special with all these other countries. She's like, why don't you hit him up? And he likes rock music. You know, you can hit him up. Come on. I'm just going to hit up someone. I don't know.

Our mutual friend Dave Worsh after actually helped make the connection. So I hit him up and I just got an email and I wrote to him, never thinking I'd hear back within minutes. He responded. He's like, you got it. I'll have my production people contact you.

And I'm like, it was almost like, this is a joke. Someone's franking me right? You know, and then they did. And then we worked through people they should meet places we should go restaurants and this, that the food aspect, the political aspect. What was interesting about him is I wasn't really pushing the genocide thing or anything like that, but he really got into it. He really got into it. And like, it was almost like he had this penchant for injustice.

Like when he saw hypocrisy and injustice, he would go after it. Like, that's what I loved about him. And that's what I wrote to him in my email. First time I said, listen, here's who I am. And what I love about you is you're not like a typical talking head. If you don't like something, you say whether it's food or people or politics, I appreciate that about you. I said, but you've never been to Armenia. If you go, I got your back kind of thing.

Yeah. And it worked out, which was surprising for me. But he was, he was very no nonsense type of person, but he was very loving. And I think you really enjoyed being there. He really enjoyed things he hadn't experienced before. He was an adventurer. What may fall within the sphere of tetragramatine?

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Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day, take a breath, and see where you are drawn. Tell me about painting. Yeah, I love painting. Painting gives me the same feeling of playing music 30 years ago. Wow, because you've done less of it over the course of your life. There's less intellectualizing of it, so more being lost. That sounds great. Be paying on a regular basis.

I do. I paint more when I have an exhibition to prepare for and stuff, but I paint on a regular basis, and all my paintings are musically scored. Do you finish the painting first and then score it? I do that more now, or appropriate a music piece that I have, that I've composed, and I've just have it there, and I'm like, oh, this works well with this kind of thing.

I do that now, but when I first started, it was the reverse, so I would have a piece of music, and then I'd go, what does this piece look like? I see, so you would paint the music. Yeah, I would paint to the specific music, and originally I started using the musical clef, the bass clef, and I started using clocks without arms to denote the notes and the first measure of the music as a score, and then paint all around it.

I've got these cool clocks and musical clefs on the paintings and stuff. Music has become so bastardized. It's become a commodity, and I was trying to create a situation where it would be an exclusive experience with something physical. Music's also not physical. Having something physical associated with music creates this new dimension, and for the art, it becomes a multi-sensory experience. It becomes a stronger way of interacting with multiple senses than just visual.

I remember one time I came backstage to a show, and you had a camera on your head, and you were filming everything in your life for some window of time. Yeah, a whole year, actually. Tell me about that experience. How do you get the idea? How do I get the idea? I must have seen something POV, like from a person's point of view, with a camera strap. I don't remember what it was, but I must have seen something.

It was the year 2011, I remember that vividly, and it was going to be a very busy year workwise. I thought to myself, this is going to be an incredibly diverse year, because the first year started touring back with system 2011. I was doing a symphony called Orca, which I did in Austria and Lins. I was doing a solo rock record touring with my backup band, as well as system, touring with orchestra around the world, and also wrote a jazz record that year.

I was like, I got to record all this, because I don't know how this is going to turn out, kind of thing. So I started strapping a camera to my head, and at shows, at everything. Like I remember Rock and Rio, I have from that camera. I had it on my head in the beginning, and the audience is bouncing. You see that wave? Yeah. Because the music reaches them later, and so it's a wave, you know? And then I put the camera down on Shalvo's bass rig, and of course the bass shook it.

So it became like Batman in the 1960s, that diagonal view. For me, there was also something incredibly psychological about it too. I had inhibitions about working with the band again, because it had been six years, five, six years, whatever, which is really not a long period of time.

But with the things that had happened in the last days of Mesmerized hypnotized, and I had these inhibitions, and for me, being able to see behind the camera, rather than through my own eyes, even though I had the camera and my own eyes, was a way of me dealing with it and processing. It's really interesting. But I didn't realize that until later, of course. Yeah, no, but that's a really interesting point. It just made me more comfortable.

And you could also then go back and look at, I remember this happening, and you could watch it, it's like, oh, it didn't happen exactly like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fun. I was playing around. So I had three cameras from what I remember. One was like a GoPro, where you see it, and it's like, oh my god, that looks horrible on your head, right? But the other one was spy glasses. Wow. I didn't reveal anything or do anything bad.

But I was just, again, it was a way of me. I was just trying to understand my own steps. Did you ever do a project with all the footage? I did. Originally, I planned to make a movie out of it. But then, once you actually look at the footage, you realize we're more like birds than you think, because your head's like, you know, going fast left and right. A lot of it becomes unwatchable. And without a story, visuals mean nothing, right?

So at the time I was making a documentary called, I am not alone about the revolution in Armenia. And my director friend, Gariin Havanaisian, was also involved with me, and I gave him all this footage. And I said, I don't know what to do with all this footage. I want to make a film. But I'm not sure what the story is. Can you help me hash it out? And he did. And we came up with a film called Truth to Power, which we put out a couple of years back, a documentary.

And it became more of an activist journey. But we did bring in some of those elements, because that's cool, you know, like cutting to funny stuff on tour, or weird stuff with protests, or whatever, just from that shaky camera, the POV thing. And that was an interesting adventure. Again, sometimes you plan something and you get something else. You don't ever know where you're starting and where you're ending up as an artist, which is beautiful.

Yeah. How do you say your taste has evolved over the question of your life? I think as you get older, you try more things. And you know, whether it's food, or music, or art. I think it's important to be always open as an artist to experiences, and to try things, or see things you don't necessarily gravitate with. I'll give an example. Years ago, I got this one song from a DJ duo, a well-known DJ duo, and I didn't like the song.

So I told my representative, I'm like, I'm not really into this, you know. But that experience taught me something. So the second time a similar thing happened, and I got some music from an electronic artist, a DJ artist. I didn't say no. I still didn't like the song, but I said, hey, I'm not really into this. Can we meet and have some coffee? Because I'd love to see what else you've got. I was more open to an experience, and I ended up doing a song with that person.

So I think that's important to not close doors. Is there a wrong way to interpret lyrics? No, nor music, nor art, you know, nor anything, really.

I always relate music to food, you know. You make a pizza, some people like to cross, some people like to cheese, some people like to pepperoni, you can't tell, like, you know, I've had people ask me in a different way, the same question, saying, hey, do you think you're lyrics go over the head of some of your audience or something like that, or the activist or political stuff?

And it's unfair as someone who creates something to tell people how to enjoy it. It's like me making a pillow, and telling you you have to only have it on your back. Like that makes no sense. Tell me something that you believed today that you didn't believe when you were younger. When I was younger, I couldn't see how we're all interrelated. It's something that over time, over life, and spiritual kind of knowledge and experience, which by the way started with you. Really?

If you know, but you, early in the band's career, I was having these weird nightmarish type of things, but they were daydream nightmarish type of things. I'd be in a shower, and the hot water would hit me, probably lowering my blood pressure, and I'd have these weird things, and I'd almost pass out. Like just early days of the band.

And I remember telling you about it at one of our sessions when we were working together, and you said, you know what I'd like to introduce you to someone, you introduced me to Nancy, the Herrera. Who became my teacher for TM, transcendental meditation. And that changed my life. Wow. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, yeah. I missed Nancy. She was the coolest lady. She was the coolest lady. The coolest lady. Yeah, sometimes I'd go up to her house, and she'd be walking the dogs, but her area was so peaceful.

I was just waiting for her. I'd already like being a chill zone, you know? Yeah. If you go to a place where someone's meditated for a long time, it has a resonance of peace. It does. Yeah. You feel it in the space. And I remember meditating with her, and you know, her getting a phone call or something, and she'll pick it up and talk and put it down, and she would look at me and say, meditation is a way of life.

You don't have to necessarily cut everything out. You don't have to be thing about it. And so I think all of that, and experience in life, like to me, is the connection between all things, the energy, like all energies, and either created, or destroyed Einstein, you know? It just changes forms, and we are all energy. And that is the biggest thing that's changed in my life, that it's not me anymore. It's everything, right?

You know how the Bible says, at the end of times, we will be judged between good and evil. That good and evil, to me, is those that realize everything's interconnected and those that don't. That's all that it is. Music Music