Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Serge Tonkien made his debut as the idiosyncratic lead singer
Speaker 2: of the late nineties metal band System of a Down.
Speaker 2: After releasing five platinum selling albums with the band and
Speaker 2: establishing himself as one of modern day music's most outspoken
Speaker 2: human rights activists, in two thousand and seven, Serge Tonkien
Speaker 2: left System of a Down to pursue his own endeavors.
Speaker 2: Since then, he's released solo albums, composed symphonies, scored documentaries,
Speaker 2: and most recently started producing a line of Armenian coffee
Speaker 2: with a shop in Los Angeles. In May, Surge also
Speaker 2: released a memoir called Down with the System that details
Speaker 2: his personal story that starts in Beirut before his family
Speaker 2: immigrated to La during the Lebanese Civil War in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. Serge's memoir also details his family's history in
Speaker 2: Armenia and their chilling plight during the genocide of Night
Speaker 2: eighteen fifteen. On today's episode, Lea Rose talks to Surge
Speaker 2: Tonkien about why he always felt like an outsider, including
Speaker 2: inside a System of Down. He also explains why it
Speaker 2: was so essential for him to exercises demons on stage
Speaker 2: and the one fundamental change that needs to take place
Speaker 2: in order for him to record new music with his band.
Speaker 2: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
Speaker 2: I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Leo Rose's conversation with Serge Tonkien.
Speaker 3: When you and Darren first started playing together. When you're
Speaker 3: in the band Soil, how did you settle on a sound?
Speaker 3: Did you know it was going to be sort of
Speaker 3: like a progressive metal sound or was there ever talk
Speaker 3: of a different sort of direction or was that just
Speaker 3: sort of understood.
Speaker 1: I love how you asked that question, as if any
Speaker 1: band gets together and sits down ahead of time and goes,
Speaker 1: what is a sound that we're going to make? It's
Speaker 1: not like that at all. Someone just starts playing something
Speaker 1: and someone else does something still but over, and then
Speaker 1: you have a sound. You know, it's so intuitive and
Speaker 1: so non logical.
Speaker 3: You're not like, oh, we want to be a yacht
Speaker 3: rock band.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's bands that do that,
Speaker 1: you know, that that think it through. But I don't
Speaker 1: think as a new band, you know. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're an established musician getting together with other established musicians
Speaker 1: knowing what you want to create, that's one thing. But
Speaker 1: we were all like kids getting together making noise. You know,
Speaker 1: it's there's no cerebral process to that.
Speaker 3: You weren't really like a metal guy though, right like
Speaker 3: Darren was more of a metal head.
Speaker 1: Darren Nshable. Both both are huge metal metal heads and
Speaker 1: and I wasn't no I was. You know, my influence
Speaker 1: has come from all over the place, you know, all
Speaker 1: different types of music, but not that I didn't listen
Speaker 1: to rock. My brother was a huge metal fan, so
Speaker 1: I would listen to rock and metal with him at
Speaker 1: home because he was a huge fan. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: my first sound that I was in introduced to. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a stranger in every aspect of my
Speaker 1: life politically, musically, it's always from the left, like coming
Speaker 1: into these arenas that I'm an outsider in every way,
Speaker 1: and it's okay because I was able to bring something
Speaker 1: to the table because of it, you know, because I
Speaker 1: didn't have the same influences. And even when I screamed,
Speaker 1: I tried to sing, and my melodies were different, my
Speaker 1: words were different, and you know, as a lyricist, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that I can't squeeze a thousand words in
Speaker 1: a second. Nobody told me, you know, so I tried.
Speaker 1: You know, the words were important, So I tried. If
Speaker 1: it means I have to go one hundred miles an
Speaker 1: hour with my worst and so be it, because I
Speaker 1: need to say that essay or whatever, I need to
Speaker 1: make that statement, kind of like the prison song you
Speaker 1: know You're actually it's a small treatise with a chorus
Speaker 1: that you're just bam, it's all there, you know. But
Speaker 1: it worked. It worked because it's different.
Speaker 3: Because you were in a band with guys who were
Speaker 3: sort of like metal purists. Did they question your style,
Speaker 3: your lyrical style, or were they just kind of cool
Speaker 3: with it where they're like, no, dude, Like people in
Speaker 3: the community are not gonna like this.
Speaker 1: For me, Metal, if it gets too hard, it gets
Speaker 1: so funny to me. It's kind of like horror movies, right,
Speaker 1: if it gets too crazy, it's so over the top.
Speaker 1: I start laughing with horror movies, and the same with metal.
Speaker 1: If it gets too crazy, it becomes funny to me.
Speaker 1: So I remember one time when we wrote the song Bounce.
Speaker 1: Before Bounce, the lyrics were completely different. I wanted to
Speaker 1: write a very heavy metal song about pajamas, silk pajamas,
Speaker 1: you know, which is totally that I askue, right, like
Speaker 1: something Zappa would do, But that was for me. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, could you imagine writing a
Speaker 1: really heavy song about pajamas like the Dalai Lama's pajamas
Speaker 1: and Elton John's pajamas and you just keep on going
Speaker 1: and it becomes this funny thing and they both look
Speaker 1: at me, like with scorn, and they're like, no, bro,
Speaker 1: you're not going to make us look like that, you know,
Speaker 1: like that kind of a thing. So there was always
Speaker 1: this attitude don't fuck with the metal, So yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: but I fucked with it enough, you know, definitely.
Speaker 3: So did you always feel like an outsider the whole
Speaker 3: time in the band or did you start to sort
Speaker 3: of like understand the ways of the metal world where
Speaker 3: you could blend in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, we toured opening for Slayer
Speaker 1: for a year, you know, so you do blend and
Speaker 1: you learn the lessons. It was like Luke Kent for us.
Speaker 1: You know, you have these really hardcore fans that you know,
Speaker 1: would use a knife to make a tattoo in their
Speaker 1: arm of Slayer and stuff going like this to you,
Speaker 1: and you've got to nod, how to duck and cover
Speaker 1: and yell and scream and use use your authority and
Speaker 1: learn how to control an audience and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: It was more performance art. Really well, I do love metal,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. I love rock. I love metal,
Speaker 1: but I don't necessarily love it over other types of music.
Speaker 1: I love other types of music as well.
Speaker 3: You just seem like such a chill guy, like you
Speaker 3: don't seem inherently metal.
Speaker 1: But people always so, you know, like when I'm on stage,
Speaker 1: they're like, you're crazy on stage, but in person, you're
Speaker 1: so senssible, and I'm like, well, the music's heavy. If
Speaker 1: you were playing jazz on stage, I wouldn't be screaming,
Speaker 1: believe me, you know. So it just you give the
Speaker 1: music what it needs as a performer, right, and that's it.
Speaker 3: Early on, was it a way for you to process
Speaker 3: different emotions and things you were going through and just
Speaker 3: personal frustrations and as a young man, was it a
Speaker 3: way for you to channel aggression?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it was a gift, you know, being able to
Speaker 1: use music to exercise my demons and my anger and
Speaker 1: my frustrations with what was going on in my life
Speaker 1: at the time. Was a gift. I think had I
Speaker 1: started with pop music, I may have ended up killing someone.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, but you know, pop musicians usually are
Speaker 1: not happy people. They exercise all their positivity and end
Speaker 1: up negative sometimes. But yeah, I think, you know, having
Speaker 1: this platform to kind of scream therapy and be loved
Speaker 1: for it is an incredible, incredible honor, you know. So
Speaker 1: it really worked, and at the time I was very angry.
Speaker 1: It worked.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Did you ever have a moment where you started
Speaker 3: to play the new music that you were making with
Speaker 3: Darren and Chavo? Did you play it for your parents
Speaker 3: and what was their reaction to your music?
Speaker 1: My parents. I was living with my parents in my twenties,
Speaker 1: and they heard every note that I've ever played on
Speaker 1: my guitar or keys and every voice every day had
Speaker 1: to deal with it. And we didn't even have a dorg,
Speaker 1: and we had a rental in North Hollywood and we
Speaker 1: had this like part of the living room that was
Speaker 1: my studio, and they heard every note from the beginning
Speaker 1: till the end, and they never complained. They always were encouraging,
Speaker 1: which is incredible. So I'm very thankful to my parents
Speaker 1: that they allowed me to space and time to do
Speaker 1: what I do and follow it.
Speaker 3: Why do you think they were so supportive.
Speaker 1: Well, they were just generally supportive of us whatever we
Speaker 1: wanted to do. So that's a part of it. It's
Speaker 1: just them. But also my dad he loved music and
Speaker 1: he was a musician and he wanted to make it
Speaker 1: in music. But his dad died when he was really young,
Speaker 1: when he was in second grade, so he wasn't able
Speaker 1: to follow his dream of music. So I think he
Speaker 1: kind of encouraged me to do so. And so you know,
Speaker 1: that made a big difference to me having their you know,
Speaker 1: understanding love and support and a lot of parents wouldn't,
Speaker 1: especially Armenian parents, I would say, you know, they do
Speaker 1: now with the successive system, I think we've opened up
Speaker 1: doors to other young Armenian and other ethnic musicians, to
Speaker 1: be honest, and that's been cool to see as well.
Speaker 1: You know, I get Uranian friends coming up to me
Speaker 1: and saying they've heard our music in Iran and it changed,
Speaker 1: you know, the way they saw things and they got
Speaker 1: into music and stuff, and I'm like, wow, that's incredible,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's just relating to people and being encouraged,
Speaker 1: you know, And I started very late. You know. I
Speaker 1: didn't pick up music a small Casio keyboard, if you
Speaker 1: can call that music, till I was nineteen and going
Speaker 1: to university. And I didn't consider my vision until I
Speaker 1: was twenty three twenty four when I had an epiphany.
Speaker 1: So I started really late. Most most people start really young.
Speaker 1: They're like, I want to do music, you know, they're eight,
Speaker 1: they're nine, they know that that's what they want to do,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's beautiful. But it wasn't me. And
Speaker 1: I'm glad and thankful for that because I had this
Speaker 1: whole world of experiences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in your case, you tried out several other
Speaker 3: areas of life. You started your own software company, and
Speaker 3: it seems like every step of the way you were
Speaker 3: successful at everything you tried. And it's very different things,
Speaker 3: like different fields, like drastically different fields, different parts of
Speaker 3: the brain, and you kind of like, yeah, kill you
Speaker 3: know everywhere.
Speaker 1: I wake up in the morning and I get excited
Speaker 1: about something, and it could be an art design, it
Speaker 1: could be a song, It could be an idea of
Speaker 1: a film that someone wants me to score. It could
Speaker 1: be coffee, it could be anything, and I get excited
Speaker 1: about it. When I get excited about it. What happens,
Speaker 1: I think is that I start to visualize, right, I
Speaker 1: visualize how I want to be interacting with that thing,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and how I want to you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to use the word success, but how
Speaker 1: I can make it go forward? And then I work.
Speaker 1: I work hard at doing so. So it's a combination
Speaker 1: of visualization and hard work, and I think you can
Speaker 1: take it to where it's meant to go. And not
Speaker 1: everything succeeds, and not every song I put out succeeds
Speaker 1: or not every project, but I put them out in
Speaker 1: knowing that that's what I want to do. So what
Speaker 1: you know, a good chef makes court on blue as
Speaker 1: well as pizza. How many people are going to eat
Speaker 1: the court on blue? That's pretty much it.
Speaker 3: After Soil so Soil, you were in Soil for a
Speaker 3: little while and then eight months one show, one show,
Speaker 3: and one system of a down was formed. Is it
Speaker 3: true that you picked that you wanted a name with
Speaker 3: an S so you'd be close to Slayer in music stores?
Speaker 1: Ooh, you know that's probably a shovel or a Darren question,
Speaker 1: because they might have said something like that in the press.
Speaker 1: I remember reading something like that. It's not something I've
Speaker 1: ever said, but it's very possible. But it comes from
Speaker 1: Darren's poem called Victims of a Down, And you know,
Speaker 1: victims just sounds negative connotation. It's not it's not something
Speaker 1: and as a people, the Armenians who have been victimized
Speaker 1: by genocide, it's not something you want to use, right, right,
Speaker 1: So Systems sounded way more integral and universal, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, but but maybe I would think I would
Speaker 1: think that's a Darren question. I think he probably thought
Speaker 1: of that, going, oh, we'll be close to Slayer and
Speaker 1: Free Put, Like, you know, I could see.
Speaker 3: That that that's so cool. It sucks that now it's like,
Speaker 3: that's not how we consume our music anymore. So it
Speaker 3: kind of doesn't even matter because we're not in record stores,
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, but it struck me that you had
Speaker 3: an origin story. System of a Down has a sort
Speaker 3: of similar origin story to Guns n' Roses in that
Speaker 3: you had this rehearsal space that sort of became the
Speaker 3: clubhouse and then you started having parties there. It's in
Speaker 3: la In sort of like an industrial spot, and then
Speaker 3: it just gets you know, the parties get bigger and
Speaker 3: bigger and bigger, and that's how you built your fan base.
Speaker 3: Do you remember those early parties when you would.
Speaker 1: Play, Oh yeah, very very I mean I remember them
Speaker 1: like they were yesterday. I had this one thousand square
Speaker 1: foot warehouse house renting, and I had my little software
Speaker 1: business running out of it, a little hangout space, a
Speaker 1: futon that converted into a bed in case I needed
Speaker 1: to crash there, and the rest of the space we
Speaker 1: made into the band's you know, kind of rehearsal space.
Speaker 1: So and we had a giant truck door because it's
Speaker 1: in US fuel space, right, So friends would come with
Speaker 1: kegs and open up the truck door and there was
Speaker 1: no one living around. It was pretty you know, industrial area.
Speaker 1: So we'd just rock out and you know, and more
Speaker 1: people started coming. So by the time we played our
Speaker 1: first show, the promoter wanted us to sell I think
Speaker 1: seventy five tickets or something like that, and we sold
Speaker 1: over one hundred or whatever, and they were like, what
Speaker 1: the fuck are these guys? Like, how could Basilon? You know,
Speaker 1: it's paid to play la you know. And it was
Speaker 1: at the rock Sya of all places, you know, and
Speaker 1: Chabo at the time, our basis was very instrumental in
Speaker 1: kind of hassling these promoters and calling them and trying
Speaker 1: to help, you know, manage the band and some of
Speaker 1: our things, which I'm always grateful for.
Speaker 3: So you were kind of like drinking partying back then.
Speaker 3: Did your parents, like, did they see a change in
Speaker 3: you or they kind of ever worried about you? Because
Speaker 3: this is before the band was signed, the band really
Speaker 3: took off. Were they worried about where you were going?
Speaker 1: Not really. I mean I've always been a very responsible
Speaker 1: person and so irrespective of the music and some of
Speaker 1: the party that went with it, it wasn't overdone. I
Speaker 1: would still check in on them and make sure everyone's okay,
Speaker 1: and you know, spend time there and whatnot. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, and I was in my late twenties.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like I was, you know, fifteen, so you know,
Speaker 1: so the age matters, you know. I think by the
Speaker 1: time we started touring, I was thirty, you know, So
Speaker 1: you know, it makes a difference.
Speaker 3: But also maybe better too, because you already had life
Speaker 3: experience and you knew how to sort of handle yourself,
Speaker 3: which is probably very important when you're around all that.
Speaker 1: Leah I remember the first time someone came at a
Speaker 1: club and goes, oh my god, you guys are the
Speaker 1: most incredible, amazing thing, and I just looked at them,
Speaker 1: like and in my mind, I'm like, wow, this industry
Speaker 1: is quite different. There's a lot of like puff, like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of bullshit, you know, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: very interesting. I'm like, oh, thank you so much, you know, like.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, like you just because I've
Speaker 4: been in many industries jewelry industries, shoe industry, software industry
Speaker 4: and stuff, and I'm like, I mean, I know we
Speaker 4: do something unique, but like I know that's not you know.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you feel that way. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of that bullshit in this industry. Like industry people would
Speaker 1: come up and just blow smoke up your ass, and
Speaker 1: that was a common thing, and I would just look
Speaker 1: at them and go like, I mean, I'm not buying this.
Speaker 3: Did you ever let yourself indulge in that at all?
Speaker 3: Like one system really started to blow up. Did you
Speaker 3: ever just sort of like roll with the ego and
Speaker 3: give into that a little bit just to have sort
Speaker 3: of the rock star experience.
Speaker 1: I think it's import I would say it would be
Speaker 1: impossible for our egos not to have been affected over
Speaker 1: the long run. With system success and everything that we've garnered.
Speaker 1: I think we've all our egos all played a part
Speaker 1: in our creation and disaster all at the same time.
Speaker 1: So I will you know, I won't deny that, But
Speaker 1: I always saw through a lot of stuff with this
Speaker 1: industry begin industry side, not so much fans fans. I
Speaker 1: mean it's incredible, you know, like I'm incredibly grateful every
Speaker 1: time we play a show, every time we get a response,
Speaker 1: I mean, even inviting people to the cafe or whatever
Speaker 1: and people show up or book signing, you know, from
Speaker 1: my book or whatever. It's just I'm always at awe
Speaker 1: that these people that I don't know personally come to
Speaker 1: spend a little time with me, and it's incredible. Like
Speaker 1: I'm always taken back by it because I don't take
Speaker 1: it for granted. But the industry side, I've always kind
Speaker 1: of looked through and been like, Okay, this is a
Speaker 1: business like any other, you know, especially when people started
Speaker 1: using the word baby, you know, come on, baby, like whoa, that's.
Speaker 3: Nice, Like agents and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just the cheesier aspect you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, this is interesting. I would just look
Speaker 1: at them as non you know, fictional characters going might
Speaker 1: write about you.
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to ask you. I was on
Speaker 3: the system of a down Reddit page last night and
Speaker 3: I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions
Speaker 3: that yeah, sure that people threw up there because they
Speaker 3: were kind of cool of okay, okay. One of them is,
Speaker 3: what's the saddest, most heartbreaking song in the entire system
Speaker 3: of a down discography?
Speaker 1: Soldier's Side. I would say that's one of the saddest
Speaker 1: When I sing that, I want to cry every time.
Speaker 3: And that's a Darren Darren write that.
Speaker 1: Darren wrote the majority of Yeah, the music. I may
Speaker 1: have written some of it, but yeah, it's just to me.
Speaker 1: It's the vocals are so haunting. The messaging is so powerful,
Speaker 1: and you can relate no matter who you think of
Speaker 1: those soldiers might be, whether they're American soldiers or Armenian soldiers,
Speaker 1: or you know someone that's protecting you, or someone that's
Speaker 1: dying for you, someone that you're waiting for them to
Speaker 1: come home. You know, a mother's or a father's kind
Speaker 1: of whoe. It is so so powerful and deep as
Speaker 1: far as a cut, you know, it always gets me.
Speaker 3: Where do you place that in the set list knowing
Speaker 3: that it's going to be a really emotional performance for you.
Speaker 1: It's not always on the set depends, like we do
Speaker 1: different set lists, so it's not always on the set,
Speaker 1: but if it is, it's usually not in the beginning.
Speaker 1: It's usually a little towards the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought this was interesting. So back to those
Speaker 3: party days when you were at the rehearsal space. You
Speaker 3: guys used to play a lot of cover songs at
Speaker 3: those parties. What songs would you cover?
Speaker 1: We did Metro by Berlin, I remember we released that.
Speaker 1: At one point. Darren liked to cover Sultons of Swing
Speaker 1: by Dire Streets, Dire Straits, thank You. I remember doing
Speaker 1: a Madonna cover, even maybe la Isla Bonita. They always
Speaker 1: would pick female covers for me just to mess with me,
Speaker 1: which was cool because I actually was more influenced by
Speaker 1: female vocalists than male vocalists. Anyway. Oh really like Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ceesaria Aevora is one you know, I just I love
Speaker 1: fado and I love her singing. I learned from her
Speaker 1: just watching and listening to her. I never matter how
Speaker 1: effortless singing should be. Singing should not be forced. It
Speaker 1: should You should open your mouth and it should come out.
Speaker 1: It should be that effortless no matter what you're singing,
Speaker 1: if you're doing it right. You know, different singers like
Speaker 1: Nina Simon and I Love you know, yeah, sultry singing.
Speaker 3: You know, do you sing a lot in life? In general?
Speaker 3: Do you walk around and hum?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Do you you don't vocalize a lot? No? Just in life?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I just you know. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny because because singing became part of my profession, when
Speaker 1: I stopped doing it so much, I just don't do
Speaker 1: it until I have to in a way. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I'm writing a song, I'm singing, if I'm you know,
Speaker 1: But mostly I'm either painting or I'm composing for media,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not really using my voice. I did
Speaker 1: try this cool thing where I can compose with my voice,
Speaker 1: which is very interesting. It converts your audio to MIDI
Speaker 1: as you're singing through it. So I wrote a vocal
Speaker 1: suite using a few of those kind of techniques and
Speaker 1: we put We did a live show of it last
Speaker 1: year called Invocations, which we did at this Soriad Theater
Speaker 1: here in Los Angeles, and we put it out as
Speaker 1: I mixed it as a record, live record with like
Speaker 1: these incredible voices, five soloists, a full choir, and an orchestra.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I use my voice almost like a writing
Speaker 1: tool in that sense for a choir and whatnot. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't generally sing. I do sing to my kid.
Speaker 1: I have sung for my kids since he was young.
Speaker 1: They say it's really great to do so, even if
Speaker 1: you're a bad singer, because that's your voice. You know,
Speaker 1: they know your voice from the womb and it's good
Speaker 1: to sing to them when they're little.
Speaker 3: Is he into music.
Speaker 1: He's into music in a different way. I think it's
Speaker 1: coming to him, and I'm not pushing it because no
Speaker 1: one ever pushed it on me. He did want to
Speaker 1: take drum lessons at one point, so I took him,
Speaker 1: but he didn't follow through. He's got a little electronic
Speaker 1: drum set. He's not playing it. So I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: if you're not going to follow through, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to drive you. You know, it's up to you. He's
Speaker 1: got a guitar, doesn't play right whatever, but he loves
Speaker 1: listening to music. He sings along. He's got incredible melodic memory,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to use loops to kind of make
Speaker 1: some music. So I've been helping him with that and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So yeah, a different ways, just approaching him in a
Speaker 1: different way. Music.
Speaker 3: My kid's totally not into music. It's very disappointing. Oh
Speaker 3: yet at least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you never know when they might catch them,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not something you can predict. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: my parents wanted me to take piano lessons. My dad
Speaker 1: about me a guitar when I was really young, zero interest,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and then at nineteen I got a
Speaker 1: little Casio keyboard with the tiny little keys and it
Speaker 1: changed my life. So you never know.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with more from Serge Tonkien after this break.
Speaker 2: We're back with more from Serge Tonkeyen.
Speaker 3: Do you still like playing piano? Is that? Would you
Speaker 3: say that's your main Yeah?
Speaker 1: I like playing both piano and guitar, but I probably play,
Speaker 1: you know, most most of the time. I'm in the
Speaker 1: studio using my controller, my keyboard controller to basically play
Speaker 1: all sorts of instruments. To compose using all sorts of instruments,
Speaker 1: but I do have a piano. I have a nice
Speaker 1: steinway both here and in New Zealand, and I love
Speaker 1: recording that once in a while and just sitting and playing,
Speaker 1: you know, just to come up with ideas for something.
Speaker 1: It's it's a really fun way of just creating a
Speaker 1: tone for a new project or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so cool, and you're so so you have
Speaker 3: a solo album that you're putting out in the next
Speaker 3: couple of months.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in September, we're putting out an EP called Foundations,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like a companion to the book because
Speaker 1: it's chronological, so there's songs in there. The first song
Speaker 1: we released, called af Day, is from twenty or plus
Speaker 1: years ago that I had recorded and I just cleaned
Speaker 1: up the drums and the guitars, but left the original
Speaker 1: vocals for this archival kind of sound because your voice changes,
Speaker 1: you know, over many years. And there's some other songs there.
Speaker 1: Our next single is going to be Justice Will Shine On,
Speaker 1: which is about the Armenian genocide and my grandparents. It's
Speaker 1: a cool, heavy track, and then there's some more melodic
Speaker 1: tracks that will come out later. They're all from different
Speaker 1: periods of my career. I just wanted to put them
Speaker 1: together in a way just like the book is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, a story of different times in my life.
Speaker 3: I know it's been a while since you've answered this question.
Speaker 3: I don't know if the answer is different, but are
Speaker 3: there any plans to record any news system.
Speaker 1: Of a down music not at this time?
Speaker 3: No? Does that make you feel sad at all? Or
Speaker 3: is it totally fine because you're occupied creatively?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean creatively, I keep on, you know, making
Speaker 1: music and making art and making you know, doing creatively
Speaker 1: what I'm meant to do. And if the opportunity arises
Speaker 1: for us to work together in an egalitarian fashion and
Speaker 1: the right way, with the right vibe and the right influence,
Speaker 1: you know, then we'll do it. In twenty twenty, we
Speaker 1: put out two songs because there was the invasion of
Speaker 1: Artzef and Armenia happening by us of AJEA during COVID,
Speaker 1: and people didn't know about what was going on. So
Speaker 1: we used you know, the band and putting out new
Speaker 1: music as an opportunity to spread awareness, and we were
Speaker 1: successful in doing so. So, you know, hopefully it's not
Speaker 1: just the decimation of our people that's going to take
Speaker 1: system of it writing new music. But I think when
Speaker 1: that time is, and I don't know if it is
Speaker 1: ever or or if it will be, that'll be amazing.
Speaker 1: But I don't get sad by it because to me,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. When it's right, then it happens.
Speaker 1: When it's not, it shouldn't happen.
Speaker 3: Would you be okay with a band going on without you,
Speaker 3: with like a different singer in your place.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I've offered them that opportunity and been very supportive
Speaker 1: of it many years. If they wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: if they wanted to continue in a way that I didn't,
Speaker 1: For example, if they wanted to tour a lot, and
Speaker 1: I just want to do a couple of shows here
Speaker 1: and there, because I'm not into touring a lot, it's
Speaker 1: to be fair to them. If they wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: I'm totally open to it. Still, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure they want to do that. They haven't until now,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think it would take something away
Speaker 1: from the prestige and legacy of the band itself. But
Speaker 1: as friends and as someone who cares very much about
Speaker 1: my partners, I would be okay with it.
Speaker 3: What do you think it is about you all as individuals,
Speaker 3: the alchemy of you together that makes you so great
Speaker 3: as a unit.
Speaker 1: Everything that each person is, from their personality to their
Speaker 1: playing style, to how they think, how they feel, and
Speaker 1: the combination thereof makes system of a down what it is.
Speaker 1: If you take any particle away from this compound, it's
Speaker 1: not going to be system of a down. It could
Speaker 1: be called system of a down, but it's not going
Speaker 1: to really be system of a down.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Even the stubbornness and the you know, the creative difference
Speaker 1: is everything. The push and pull, the manicness, the calmness,
Speaker 1: all of the above is what makes we are.
Speaker 3: That relationship. Does it feel similar to sort of like
Speaker 3: other long term relationships you've had in your life? Do
Speaker 3: you count it among like the other long term relationships
Speaker 3: you've had?
Speaker 1: Well, I definitely counted. I mean it's my relationship with
Speaker 1: the band guys is longer than my relationship with my
Speaker 1: wife is longer than you know, not as much as
Speaker 1: my parents obviously, but it's been you know, it's like
Speaker 1: thirty years, you know, and I'm fifty seven, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean so long. There are long relationships and friendships
Speaker 1: and partnerships. So but I don't necessarily compare them because
Speaker 1: there it's a different type of relationship. You know, it's
Speaker 1: art with business and personal as well, you know, all
Speaker 1: wrapped in, which makes it a lot more complicated.
Speaker 3: I love the stories about recording Toxicity at Rick's place
Speaker 3: and sort of how it felt haunted and that I
Speaker 3: guess was the same space that the Chili Peppers recorded
Speaker 3: Blood Sugar, Sex Magic.
Speaker 1: We actually recorded Toxicity at Cello Studios, which are now
Speaker 1: East West. There are elements of Toxicity we did record
Speaker 1: at the Miller House in the in the basement studio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we finished Steal this album also at the
Speaker 1: same place, and then we moved to the Laurel Canyon
Speaker 1: place for MESMRII sympitize where the Chili Peppers recorded, which
Speaker 1: is the one across Sudini's place.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's so cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was haunted for sure, really. So I
Speaker 1: was there late night one day just playing keys by
Speaker 1: myself up at the top of the house and I
Speaker 1: heard these fucking doors slam and there was no one there,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, fuck yeah. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: the wind. It wasn't the wind because those were closed,
Speaker 1: like there was I can't explain it. It was just
Speaker 1: one of those where I just go off, bag out,
Speaker 1: come back tomorrow when there's people here, but I'm not staying,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, And I love the story that you
Speaker 3: told about Tom Petty coming by and hanging out. What
Speaker 3: do you remember about that?
Speaker 1: Rick was having dinner with him that night, and Darren
Speaker 1: and I were working at Miller Drive at the studio
Speaker 1: in the basement, and Rick brought him down just to
Speaker 1: say hi, which was really sweet. And Darren had rolled
Speaker 1: a joint, and you know, he was pretty cheeky by offering.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, you want to smoke one? And You're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: mind if I do. And he came down, smoked a
Speaker 1: joint with us and listened to a song and gave
Speaker 1: his input and liked what we were doing, which was
Speaker 1: very encouraging, very sweet. You know, those are the things
Speaker 1: that would happen if you recorded at Rex's place, right,
Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing. I got to meet a lot of
Speaker 1: people there as well. I mean that's how I met
Speaker 1: Tony Kanal was a friend of mine from No Doubt,
Speaker 1: and Gwen and you know, and just so many people
Speaker 1: would just drop in and you know, and and he'd
Speaker 1: invite us to dinners with different artists and whatnot, which
Speaker 1: was amazing. You know. It's like kismet, you know, like,
Speaker 1: you know, him walking into our life as artists, as
Speaker 1: a band really changed. And you know, I'm ever so
Speaker 1: grateful to him, Like we'd be doing whatever, and at
Speaker 1: the end, I'd go, I'm never going to forget what
Speaker 1: you've done for us, you know, Like I always feel
Speaker 1: that way. I always feel grateful for him entering our
Speaker 1: lives and you know, and changing it to what we
Speaker 1: have now. He came to our show in Las Vegas
Speaker 1: for Sysney World, which is a festival we've been doing
Speaker 1: for two years with Live Nation, and he was just
Speaker 1: rocking out and it was so nice to have him there.
Speaker 1: It was just felt like, you know, it'spent thirty years,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, you know, just him being there
Speaker 1: and going, wow, man, like we've come so far, you know,
Speaker 1: and it hasn't been it's been a rocky road in
Speaker 1: a lot of places. It hasn't been cement, you know,
Speaker 1: but but those rocks actually made our i don't know,
Speaker 1: in a way, made our feet stronger and able to
Speaker 1: walk better in a way you know, like you just
Speaker 1: you see all this stuff looking back.
Speaker 3: What do you think it is that he is able
Speaker 3: to do when he's listening, when he's laying down and
Speaker 3: listening to music with his eyes closed. What is it
Speaker 3: that he's able to hear as someone who's worked with
Speaker 3: him for so long, and what's the feedback that he gives.
Speaker 1: I think he has an incredible intuitive understanding of the
Speaker 1: music and art that's being displayed, and I think if
Speaker 1: he loves something, he almost sees it from a fan perspective,
Speaker 1: which is a very deep perspective. So he's not thinking,
Speaker 1: at least in the beginning, in terms of capturing performance.
Speaker 1: He's not thinking this could be louder. There are producers
Speaker 1: that really get into the nitty gritty of mixing and
Speaker 1: this could be this way, Maybe bring the chorus this
Speaker 1: way that you know, for him, he just goes, Wow,
Speaker 1: that part of the song is the strongest. I want
Speaker 1: to hear more of that. It's such a simple thing
Speaker 1: to say, but it is incredibly powerful and minimal, and
Speaker 1: if you actually go with it, ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: the cases, it'll make the song way better. There are
Speaker 1: times where maybe it might not, and he usually is
Speaker 1: the first to say that didn't work. Glad we tried it.
Speaker 1: You know. So as a pro which is not cerebral,
Speaker 1: it's incredibly intuitive, which is what music itself is, you know.
Speaker 1: And so as a producer, bringing that and he's got
Speaker 1: this incredible way of making artists feel comfortable in their
Speaker 1: own skin. And if an artist feels comfortable, they are
Speaker 1: going to produce better. So it's a combination of those
Speaker 1: two things, I think, as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you remember when you first started working with him,
Speaker 3: when you're recording the first album, any of his feedback
Speaker 3: overall for your sound or for any direction. Maybe he
Speaker 3: wanted to see you to like go in more of
Speaker 3: a certain direction.
Speaker 1: When I produce my own records, now I hear him
Speaker 1: in my head going pronounce it better, So pronounce it better.
Speaker 1: You know. Literally, he wanted to understand every word. If
Speaker 1: you're trying to throw away a word on purpose, that's
Speaker 1: one thing, but he was really into hearing every aspect
Speaker 1: of it, you know, Like he would he would spend
Speaker 1: a lot of times with our takes, general takes that
Speaker 1: we do as a full band, so that we know
Speaker 1: which is the best drum pick and then we do basically,
Speaker 1: you know, record over with guitars and bass and keys
Speaker 1: and what strings whatever we're adding end vocals. He'd spend
Speaker 1: a lot of times with me with vocals. Well, I
Speaker 1: think he gives it a lot of cred incident, so
Speaker 1: he's still in my head going pronounced that better, pronounced
Speaker 1: that better? You know, because it's important. Words are important.
Speaker 3: When you're screaming. How do you protect your voice? I
Speaker 3: feel like if I even talk with a loud voice
Speaker 3: for a small period of time, my throat hurts. Yeah,
Speaker 3: how do you protect your voice? And is that one
Speaker 3: of the reasons why you do the loud soft thing
Speaker 3: is to protect your voice so you don't have to
Speaker 3: just like scream for four minutes straight.
Speaker 1: You know. I really don't know the answer to that question,
Speaker 1: because I'm still you know, if you leave me to
Speaker 1: my own devices, I might lose my voice. You know.
Speaker 1: But I try not to scream as much, and I
Speaker 1: don't scream as much as I used to in the
Speaker 1: you know, compared to the beginning of the band career,
Speaker 1: and I have created a couple of techniques screaming and
Speaker 1: growling techniques which don't hurt the voice, you know, like
Speaker 1: instead of growling hard, I could do zero voice effect,
Speaker 1: just a little dryness for example, you know, just it's
Speaker 1: inhaling by cuppying. Yeah, there you go. The screaming thing, though,
Speaker 1: is different. That's the growling thing. The screaming thing is
Speaker 1: different with screaming. If I try to scream when my
Speaker 1: body's not ready for it to push emotionally, not so
Speaker 1: much physically, but emotionally. If I'm really if I get
Speaker 1: angry in that moment and it's a screaming part, my
Speaker 1: body just gives it to me and I scream perfectly.
Speaker 1: But most of the time I'm pretty mellow, even when
Speaker 1: I'm on stage doing these songs. So sometimes the scream
Speaker 1: will come out like King Diamond, which will be like
Speaker 1: three octaves higher but a clean voice, and I just
Speaker 1: laugh and I go, I couldn't even scream that, you know,
Speaker 1: like because the voice changes, you know. When Yeah, when
Speaker 1: I started, when I would try to hit a high note,
Speaker 1: my voice would crack because it wasn't trained. Now I
Speaker 1: can hit a high note without cracking. But then the
Speaker 1: recordings are with cracks, so everyone's like, oh, what happened
Speaker 1: to his voice? Where's the heavy cracks sound?
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 1: Where's the heaviness? You know, where's the girl? Where's the scream?
Speaker 1: The thing?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: And it's not there. Sometimes it's there, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. The funny thing is the more I rehearse,
Speaker 1: the better my voice gets, the less it cracks, the
Speaker 1: less heart it sounds. Yeah, but I always have to
Speaker 1: rehearse very little before a show.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But then if you do too many of them back
Speaker 1: to back and you're not well rehearsed and your voice
Speaker 1: is not well trained, then you'll lose your voice again,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. I've lost my voice on tour,
Speaker 1: but mostly from getting sick rather than yeah, blowing it myself.
Speaker 3: Do you listen to heavy music?
Speaker 1: I still do.
Speaker 3: There's also a big debate on Reddit about your Spotify
Speaker 3: most listen to artists.
Speaker 1: Oh so that's really funny because my kid also listens
Speaker 1: to my account and there's like songs with farts in
Speaker 1: them and like, you know, like songs, songs about booty,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Hang out with my kid. He would love that.
Speaker 1: They just just loves funny shit. So if they've been
Speaker 1: listening to it, then they're gonna be They're gonna be whacked.
Speaker 1: I love I love finding out new artists that that
Speaker 1: are different than any anyone I've ever heard. Like there's
Speaker 1: a few songs from Falling in Reverse. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: love all their stuff, like the dancy stuff, but there's
Speaker 1: a few songs and their videos like that are amazing.
Speaker 1: I follow this band called Polifia that's an instrumental band
Speaker 1: that have heavy and on heavy music, like a lot
Speaker 1: of R and B, incredible guitar playing and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of bands like I'll go back sometimes
Speaker 1: and just listen to Napalm Death or just like you know,
Speaker 1: crazy you know, death metal music, just to play for
Speaker 1: my son so he can understand that that's a sound
Speaker 1: and he likes it. He likes a band called Dance
Speaker 1: with the Dead that no one knows. They're an instrumental
Speaker 1: kind of dark sinceed slash metal band. You know that
Speaker 1: sounds cool. I took him to one of his one
Speaker 1: of their shows. For example. There's so much music out
Speaker 1: there right now, you know, I know, and you know
Speaker 1: if you don't go with whatever just a pop thing
Speaker 1: is and just actually do a deep dive. Unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 1: you would think that the Spotify Apple Music algorithms would
Speaker 1: teach you a lot of bands like that, but they
Speaker 1: actually don't like their curation isn't as great as I
Speaker 1: think it could be.
Speaker 3: I know, it's very limiting and it pigeonholes you, and
Speaker 3: it's really frustrating.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, makes me miss like a good curator, a good DJ.
Speaker 1: A good DJ, or a good indie record store where
Speaker 1: you walk in and they have a little section of
Speaker 1: all the same weird shit, similar weird shit, and you
Speaker 1: could tell from the covers and the guy behind the
Speaker 1: counter goes, oh, that's really cool. It just came out like,
Speaker 1: let me play it for you, that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's we're still missing that curation thing.
Speaker 2: After one last quick break, we'll be back with more
Speaker 2: from Lea Rose and Surge tonky In. Here's the rest
Speaker 2: of Leo Rose's conversation with Serge Tonkyen.
Speaker 3: I was wondering, when you sat down and you started
Speaker 3: to think which moment to open the book with, How
Speaker 3: did you pick a single moment from your life that
Speaker 3: to sort of like kick off the entire book.
Speaker 1: My last poetry book I released called Glaring Through Oblivion.
Speaker 1: I started the poetry book off with a kind of
Speaker 1: long form written narrative, like an essay, and it was
Speaker 1: very much like the activist speaking, you know, and I
Speaker 1: think it had a strong effect on how people perceived
Speaker 1: the book initially. And so for me, that lesson I
Speaker 1: think brought me into you know, when I wrote the memoir,
Speaker 1: I wanted to put something in there that was a
Speaker 1: blueprint for the whole book, you know, the looking for justice,
Speaker 1: anti authoritarianism, speaking truth to power, freedom of speech in
Speaker 1: the United States war, you know, fear in a democracy, censorship,
Speaker 1: all of those things that have carried me as an
Speaker 1: activist throughout my life and as an artist, you know,
Speaker 1: thereafter were in that first chapter, you know, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it kind of made sense.
Speaker 3: If you could explain to us the moment that you
Speaker 3: found that really represents all those things in one where
Speaker 3: everything sort of is crystallized, and then what you came
Speaker 3: away from that moment thinking you wanted to do differently.
Speaker 1: So that moment was after ninety eleven, when we were
Speaker 1: all traumatized by the terrorist attacks on the United States
Speaker 1: of America. I remember feeling out of control. I felt
Speaker 1: like everything was out of control, like the world's out
Speaker 1: of control. What's next? Nuclear war, like what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: Just fear, you know. And it was a time where
Speaker 1: I had traveled to New York the night before nine
Speaker 1: to eleven because we were doing our promo for Toxicity,
Speaker 1: our second record with System of a Down, and we
Speaker 1: were at a signing at Virgin Records in a Times Square,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of fans at passed notes like they'll
Speaker 1: do little trin kids pass notes, little letters. And I
Speaker 1: had come home the night before and read one of
Speaker 1: the letters, and it was a very depressing letter by
Speaker 1: young men and I felt really really sorry and bad
Speaker 1: for him, and I called him from the house phone
Speaker 1: without blocking my number, which kind of insane at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, they were just starting to block numbers.
Speaker 1: It was a new thing. We're talking about two thousand
Speaker 1: and two thousand and one. So I called this young man,
Speaker 1: had a great chat with him, and I felt like
Speaker 1: I kind of you know, brightened up his day, mood
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And then I've slept, and then the next morning,
Speaker 1: my girlfriend at the time called me and said, turn
Speaker 1: on the TV. Call me later, and I saw the
Speaker 1: second you know, plane going into the second Tower, and
Speaker 1: just like couldn't believe what was going on. Suddenly the
Speaker 1: phone rings. I think it's my girlfriend, but it's this
Speaker 1: guy from New York just losing his shit and screaming,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to calm him down, whereas inside I'm
Speaker 1: looking at you know, the tube and going the world
Speaker 1: is like just complete chaos. So it started that way,
Speaker 1: but for me to get a grip on what's really happening,
Speaker 1: I had a very common task of writing about geopolitics
Speaker 1: and posting it to the band's website at the time,
Speaker 1: and I did that for September eleven and posted an
Speaker 1: essay called Understanding Oil on the band's website. Now, at
Speaker 1: the time, there was a lot of you know, people
Speaker 1: were really angry, people were hurt, and so there was
Speaker 1: a lot of emotions prevailing. Myself and a few other
Speaker 1: artists were really the only ones who spoke out against
Speaker 1: America's geopolitical tanglings with the Middle East and their repercussions,
Speaker 1: and so no one else was speaking about it. But
Speaker 1: a handful of artists and we know them, including the
Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks, and rage against the Machine and tool and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and we all got shipped for it, and the shit
Speaker 1: that I got for It was while we were about
Speaker 1: to start tour a week after ninety eleven, where there's
Speaker 1: still dangers of terrorist attacks and all this stuff. We
Speaker 1: were getting a lot of hate from Americans for calling
Speaker 1: out the US government's policies over the many, many years,
Speaker 1: and so it was a really really stressful, trying time.
Speaker 1: We were in Colorado and I got on the phone
Speaker 1: with Howard Stern because his crew was coming after apparently
Speaker 1: my essay, even though it was taken down off the
Speaker 1: website and they hadn't really read the essay themselves, but hearsay,
Speaker 1: they were kind of criticizing my words, and I was
Speaker 1: there to defend them, make sure that we don't get
Speaker 1: death threats with the band, make sure we can continue touring,
Speaker 1: make sure that my partners wouldn't hate me forever. And
Speaker 1: it was just horrible. And the lesson I learned from
Speaker 1: that was that it is very easy to speak truth
Speaker 1: to power when public opinion is on your side, but
Speaker 1: that truth does not change when public opinion is not
Speaker 1: necessarily on your side, and you have to do it
Speaker 1: even more then even if they hate you, even if
Speaker 1: all of them hate you, And that's the unfortunate thing
Speaker 1: that we're in a world right now that information is
Speaker 1: a commodity, a commodity that's propagandized and used in every
Speaker 1: direction that you can think of. And the educational level
Speaker 1: of our society has dwindled since the nineteen eighties Reagan arabs,
Speaker 1: and so we're in a situation that I call the
Speaker 1: uneducated majority, and uneducated majority democracies are dangerous because they
Speaker 1: can pick leaders, or leaders can pick them in a
Speaker 1: way that can really really change the quality in terms
Speaker 1: of degradation of democracy and truth of you know, freedom
Speaker 1: of speech itself. Yeah, in a nutshell.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because I remember on nine to eleven Howard
Speaker 3: Stern didn't leave because he was live on the air
Speaker 3: when it was happening, when the attacks were happening, and
Speaker 3: he didn't stop his show. He stayed in the studio
Speaker 3: and he sort of was doing like a live broadcast
Speaker 3: through it. And I remember him saying during it to
Speaker 3: Robin something like, oh, we know who did this, or
Speaker 3: we know who's responsible for this. So it seems like
Speaker 3: he would be somewhat in agreement with what you wrote
Speaker 3: in your essay, But was it not that was he
Speaker 3: he was sort of like making it seem as if
Speaker 3: you were anti American.
Speaker 1: You know, being not born in the United States. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the feeling that I got. There was that
Speaker 1: feeling of xenophobia. And you know, I you know, I
Speaker 1: write in a book that I've never felt an outsider
Speaker 1: more than that day. But I'm fifty seven years old,
Speaker 1: you know, and at the time, I was thirty something,
Speaker 1: and so it was unfair to pin me on, you know,
Speaker 1: an American just because I'm an activist and I spoke
Speaker 1: truth to power, and because I knew about the Middle East.
Speaker 1: I was from there, you know. I was born in Beirut,
Speaker 1: raised in Los Angeles, ar meaning biculture, which is neither
Speaker 1: very old indigenous Christian people from you know, the Caucuses.
Speaker 1: And but I knew how things operated, and you know,
Speaker 1: when something happens, you've got to always see who benefits
Speaker 1: in world events. And I knew that I would you know,
Speaker 1: read I had I subscribed to like intelligence reports, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, monthly intelligence reports that I paid for that
Speaker 1: I would get that that are public. I mean they write,
Speaker 1: you know, these briefs on every country in the world
Speaker 1: and what's happening, and you know that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: and read New York Times read you know, economists and
Speaker 1: music was my hobby. When music became my work, geopolitics
Speaker 1: became my hobby. So it was just a natural thing
Speaker 1: for me to do that. I still do it.
Speaker 3: It's one thing, though, to write an essay and another
Speaker 3: to be live on the air with someone who is,
Speaker 3: you know, the top shock jock in the country and
Speaker 3: who's intentionally trying to push your buttons.
Speaker 1: I don't blame Howard at all, like I, you know,
Speaker 1: because based on what he was feeling and the outcry
Speaker 1: of the nation and everything he was you know, he
Speaker 1: didn't know. He didn't know that I had good intentions
Speaker 1: and you know, all of that. He was trying to
Speaker 1: sess me out what she did, and at the end
Speaker 1: he was satisfied.
Speaker 3: How did you prepare for that, though? How did you
Speaker 3: prepare for that? Onslaught?
Speaker 1: It was like five in the morning in Colorado. I
Speaker 1: hadn't slept. I was nervous as fuck, you know, getting
Speaker 1: hate mail, and then the terrorist attacks, you know, on
Speaker 1: television showing possible terrorist attacks, and you know, at large
Speaker 1: events and every day we were going to be in
Speaker 1: front of twenty five thirty thousand people. So I didn't
Speaker 1: feel well at all. I was really stressed out. But
Speaker 1: the way I got on the show is like very mellow,
Speaker 1: very chill, non confrontational. And my friend Rick Rubin gave
Speaker 1: me great advice at the time. He said, if you
Speaker 1: talk about Vietnam, he'll agree with you. He knows governments
Speaker 1: do bad things. Don't challenge him on his points, but
Speaker 1: let him understand that ever government is corrupt and things
Speaker 1: are happening around us that we may or may not understand,
Speaker 1: and that you empathize with people obviously, which I do.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't a matter of not speaking truth. It
Speaker 1: was just not being able to challenge the rhetoric of
Speaker 1: the times, right, the dogma?
Speaker 3: So okay, So that's the opening moment of the book,
Speaker 3: which you say sort of crystallizes a lot of your life,
Speaker 3: and it brings in music, it brings in fame, it
Speaker 3: brings in the geopolitical conflicts. How then, did you also
Speaker 3: think about bringing in things like talking about the Armenian genocide,
Speaker 3: talking about your family's history, but also weaving in your
Speaker 3: own personal journey as obviously a very successful musician, How
Speaker 3: did you think about organizing those pieces? Was that a
Speaker 3: hard puzzle? To figure out.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of help. The format in which
Speaker 1: that I ended up doing the book was very much
Speaker 1: like this format where I'm answering questions about my life
Speaker 1: and just everything's being transcribed by someone and then we
Speaker 1: have these wonderful chapters that we can organize and edit
Speaker 1: and write and delete and delete and delete, because you
Speaker 1: end up with way more than you can use. It
Speaker 1: was a very interesting conversational writing technique. Of course I
Speaker 1: would also sit down and write on top of that,
Speaker 1: but it was a way that the book can be
Speaker 1: more fluid. So we had all these stories that we
Speaker 1: were organizing based on my family history and my grandfather's
Speaker 1: plight from the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide. The
Speaker 1: Armenian Genocide has always been kind of like the energy
Speaker 1: river through which this band has always operated. For us,
Speaker 1: it's not a political issue. It's a personal issue because
Speaker 1: all of our grandparents, in system of a down were
Speaker 1: survivors of this horrible atrocity that is still denied by
Speaker 1: the descendants of the perpetrators, which is modern day Turkey.
Speaker 1: So that's very current and real for us. It's not
Speaker 1: like the Holocaust, where there were the Nuremberg Trials. That
Speaker 1: not that put an end to the trauma, because the
Speaker 1: trauma doesn't end, but at least come to terms with
Speaker 1: the reality of it. On the same plane, you know,
Speaker 1: Germany accepting its culpability obviously. You know, in the Nuremberg trials,
Speaker 1: there were no Nuremberg truths for Deminian genocide. And so
Speaker 1: the pain keeps on going, you know, the pain keeps
Speaker 1: on continuing. The genocide continues, and we see genocide continuing
Speaker 1: today as well in many respects in different places in
Speaker 1: the world. Two weeks before Hamas attacked Israel, on September
Speaker 1: twenty seven, the government of Azerbijon, led by a dictatorial
Speaker 1: oligarch Ilhamaliev, attacked the indigenous population of Nigurno Autapa, which
Speaker 1: has been for thousands of years our means have been
Speaker 1: living there peacefully. I mean, there was a war in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties and Armenia to cont you know, Armenians
Speaker 1: to control of the area because they were the majority
Speaker 1: living there. And you know, after nine months of starvation
Speaker 1: and two ICG judgments against them, azer Beijun attacked these
Speaker 1: people and they became refugees. And most of the world
Speaker 1: doesn't even know about it because it's not Israel and
Speaker 1: Palestine and it's not other well known conflicts that it
Speaker 1: has so many countries involved. And it's like, with all
Speaker 1: these years gone by, with all this technology, all this
Speaker 1: culture and wisdom and everything gleaned, we're still primitive other fuckers,
Speaker 1: you know. That's what it comes down to. And it's
Speaker 1: really sad.
Speaker 3: You mean, primitive as far as our approach to dealing
Speaker 3: with conflict.
Speaker 1: Yes, as far as our approach to dealing with conflict,
Speaker 1: as far as prioritizing profit over people, as far as
Speaker 1: discriminating against whole populations, as far as minimizing their value
Speaker 1: as human beings to be able to conduct this type
Speaker 1: of outrageous ethnic cleansing. Yeah, all of the above.
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about how you've seen
Speaker 3: Los Angeles change? So you moved from Beirut when you
Speaker 3: were seven, family escaped the Civil War and you moved
Speaker 3: to LA in a really kind of cool time. What
Speaker 3: was the LA that you moved to because your family
Speaker 3: moved to Hollywood. What was that like for you?
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five? La was really colorful, a lot
Speaker 1: of soul music, a lot of disco coming on in
Speaker 1: seventy six seventy seven, a lot of you know, hippies,
Speaker 1: and it just for me, it was a total culture shock.
Speaker 1: Obviously leaving a war torn country. It was like going
Speaker 1: from black and white to color you know, hookers and
Speaker 1: pimps and you know, it's like just a tapestry. And
Speaker 1: we lived in Hollywood, like we didn't land in like Idaho,
Speaker 1: you know, we landed in Hollywood, California, you know, from Lebanon.
Speaker 1: So it was just like this crazy thing, but and
Speaker 1: we felt like it was safe. I remember, until like
Speaker 1: nine years old or ten years old, I used to
Speaker 1: walk my younger brother to school up the street from
Speaker 1: like Sunset and Alexandria, and we went to this private
Speaker 1: Armenian school. We'd walk, our parents let us walk in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: so it was like it was a great time. I
Speaker 1: remember it incredibly fondly, even though it must have been
Speaker 1: tortures for my parents because they came to the US
Speaker 1: without any money and they had to kind of make do.
Speaker 1: And they put us in private Armenion school for us
Speaker 1: to maintain our cultural heritage in our language, which is
Speaker 1: very brave, and they made it work, you know. But yeah,
Speaker 1: LA's changed drastically. I have to say it's never been
Speaker 1: home for me. I moved to New Zealand in twenty
Speaker 1: something years ago. When I say move, I got a
Speaker 1: place there, and I spend part of the year there
Speaker 1: and I've got residency there because it felt a different
Speaker 1: part of a home for me. LA's home in terms
Speaker 1: of all my friends and family are here, you know.
Speaker 1: So in that sense it's a home. As a city,
Speaker 1: I'm not in love with it. I've never been in
Speaker 1: love with it, and I can't tell you why. It
Speaker 1: just is. Maybe it's because we're all in our fucking
Speaker 1: cards all day. Yeah, but New Zealand to me has
Speaker 1: a more comfortable kind of normal bpm, you know, as
Speaker 1: far as the frequency of the heart and mind and
Speaker 1: normal kind of living, clean air, clean water, all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. But it also is not completely home, you know. Culturally,
Speaker 1: I'm always missing Europe Armenia because I feel like that's
Speaker 1: where I eat that culture, you know, the food and
Speaker 1: the colors of different countries and you know, and what
Speaker 1: they have to bring the art to music, you know.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's a balance of all these places,
Speaker 1: I guess, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one place, so I you know, I was listening
Speaker 3: to your book, to the audio book, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: let me just google some some live system of a
Speaker 3: Down performances. And the first one that came up was
Speaker 3: the show in Armenia for the hundredth anniversary of the genocide.
Speaker 3: And I was blown away by the size of the audience.
Speaker 3: And I know that's normal for you all, because you're
Speaker 3: a huge band, but it was just incredible the amount
Speaker 3: of people there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, it was, It was just it was
Speaker 1: just an incredible evening. And the way I remember it was,
Speaker 1: you know, it's this one hundredth you know, anniversary of
Speaker 1: Dermine genocide. We were invited to play in Republic Square
Speaker 1: and there were about fifty thousand plus people and in
Speaker 1: the rain, in the rain, yeah, and they say it
Speaker 1: all rains the day before the commemoration of the genocide,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, even though it's in April
Speaker 1: at spring, you know. So I just felt calm amidst
Speaker 1: this incredible emotional chaos of the evening, and I felt like,
Speaker 1: had we stopped as a band doing anything at that moment,
Speaker 1: we've reached our kind of climax, you know, top of
Speaker 1: the mountain fuel and anything after was bonus that it
Speaker 1: felt like we were designed to be there on that day,
Speaker 1: from day one, thirty years back, twenty five years back,
Speaker 1: whatever that time period is. And that's a unique feeling
Speaker 1: to have, you know, you don't always feel that playing
Speaker 1: a show, or that's a feeling like we belong here.
Speaker 1: This is what we've been doing all this for, you know.
Speaker 1: And in the same show, we were able to pay
Speaker 1: homage to our ancestors, our grandparents who survived theirs who
Speaker 1: did not speak truth to power, both in terms of
Speaker 1: the hypocrisy of at the time the Obama administration not
Speaker 1: properly recognizing the genocide, as well as you know, other
Speaker 1: countries and their you know, involvement criticizing the oligarchic Armenian
Speaker 1: government at the time. This is before the twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: revolution and they're bad policies and rocking out with the
Speaker 1: crowd and enjoying it. It was just like so many
Speaker 1: things at once. It was just like incredible in that sense.
Speaker 3: And I know, you have a show coming up in
Speaker 3: Golden Gate Park. System of a Down is playing and
Speaker 3: it's a one off show. You're playing with deaf Tones.
Speaker 1: Mars Volta, deaf Tones, Yes and a few other bands,
Speaker 1: and I know you.
Speaker 3: Get super excited for these one off shows, So why
Speaker 3: is that especially exciting to have just like one show
Speaker 3: in the future that you're looking forward to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, we've done many tours, especially
Speaker 1: in the beginning of our career, and they're fun, but
Speaker 1: they're exhausting, physically exhausting, and artistically they're redundant after a
Speaker 1: few shows because you're excited to play, then you're excited
Speaker 1: to play. You're playing the same set give or take right,
Speaker 1: and they become groundhog Day. So when it's one, it's
Speaker 1: an event. You build up to it, you rehearse for
Speaker 1: it specifically, you set up a setless sports specifically for
Speaker 1: that show. You go there specifically for that show, and
Speaker 1: you rock out that day that show, and you leave
Speaker 1: and it just seems way more fun, I mean, way
Speaker 1: more honest.
Speaker 3: What do you do physically to prepare for that? You
Speaker 3: know you're not on tour and you're not every night
Speaker 3: going up there. What do you do to prepare your
Speaker 3: body for that?
Speaker 1: Well, in my case, I got to prepare my voice
Speaker 1: for it, because I don't sing unless i'm performing or recording,
Speaker 1: and I'm not always recording my voice because I do
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, soundtrack work and scoring work,
Speaker 1: which is instrumental, and so I'm always recording, but I'm
Speaker 1: not always recording my voice. It's rare. So with systems,
Speaker 1: it's not just ruoning. It's it's like gymnastics, vocal gymnastics.
Speaker 1: So I got to get into it, you know. So
Speaker 1: I'll start singing at home on my own, through my
Speaker 1: system in my studio just to get my voice back
Speaker 1: in shape. It's a muscle, you got to get it
Speaker 1: back in shape. So I'll do a few of those.
Speaker 1: I get lazy sometimes and not do as much as
Speaker 1: I really should. And then there's the rehearsals with the
Speaker 1: bands that allow you to really do it and perform
Speaker 1: and get your voice in shape and your body movements
Speaker 1: and what you know. But it's really just a voice
Speaker 1: in my case, remembering some of your parts. You know,
Speaker 1: whoa I don't remember that keyboard part of that song,
Speaker 1: Let me play it, you know that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: guitar or whatever. So it's really just kind of brushing up.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a long time to get your voice
Speaker 1: in shape just for one show, whereas if you're touring,
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about it because you could
Speaker 1: do the show. Then your voice is already in shape.
Speaker 1: You go do the Mexio and then Mexio.
Speaker 3: So is it like several weeks that you're practicing.
Speaker 1: I'm way lazier than that it used to be when
Speaker 1: I was actually on point. Now I'm like, now it's
Speaker 1: several days ahead, several days of rehearsals. I have rehearsals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then the rehearsals are pretty for long. You get
Speaker 1: your workout on them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so cool. All right, Well, is
Speaker 3: there anything else that you want to talk about that
Speaker 3: we didn't talk about.
Speaker 1: We've covered a lot of ground here. Thank you, Leah.
Speaker 1: That's been awesome.
Speaker 3: Cool. Well, thank you again for doing this. Thank you
Speaker 3: for spending so much time. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: It's actually my pleasure and I appreciate you as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Leah.
Speaker 2: Thanks to search Tonkin for taking us deep into System
Speaker 2: of a Down's history and talking about some of the
Speaker 2: inspiration behind his new memoir Down with the System. You
Speaker 2: can hear all of our favorite tracks featuring Surge on
Speaker 2: a playlist at Broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to
Speaker 2: our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast,
Speaker 2: where you can find all of our new episodes. You
Speaker 2: can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record
Speaker 2: is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help
Speaker 2: from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday.
Speaker 2: Lkin Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
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Speaker 2: by Anny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.