Quotes from Serj Tankian

People always ask me 'do you think there should be more bands doing political music?' and I say 'absolutely not.'

Life is that perfect fine line between ironies.

I think music has the ability to inspire people and to change hearts, and the heart has the power to change the mind, and the mind has the power to change the world.

I've worked with some great orchestras and amazing classical musicians, but I don't like the conceptualization of classical music as an elitist form of art.

I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan.

You can say a lot more with a poem than you can with a song, but with a song you can really be more powerful with it. You can express it a lot more powerfully.

I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.

A lot of pop music is based on trying to make people remember it so that they'll buy it. To me, it was not about that.

Capitalism unchecked is not a democratic system.

Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence...faith.

Anti-depressan ts Controlling tools of your system Making life more tolerable Making life more tolerable

In America, there's more of the question, should music be political or should it just be for entertainment purposes, whereas around the world that's not even an issue. I think people just assume that music should be everything.

I've always worked on all different types of music, some with specific project goals and deadlines and some not. Sometimes I would write a piece of music that is almost like a film score or weird electro pieces, wherever the muse took me, and I still do that.

The percentage of Americans in the prison system, has doubled since 1985.

As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.

We first fought the heathens in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.

We first fought... in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.

I believe very firmly that indigenous populations had a really good, intuitive understanding of why we're here. And we're trying to gain that same understanding through psychology and intellect in modern civilization.

Day is just a collection of hours.

I'm a huge Beatles fan, but I've only really gotten into them as an adult.

I don't want to spend all my time working as an activist. I don't get satisfaction out of it. I'd rather be doing something else. I'm a musician.

With 'Elect the Dead,' I learned how to make a rock record without a rock band and make the rock record I've always wanted to make.

I think every artist should follow their vision; their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for. That said though, I think also artists have, continuously good artists, have been good for their times.

In the last few years I've been listening to jazz more than anything else. I listen to a lot of world music and experimental here and there.