Serj Tankian
Serj Tankian is an Armenian-American musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band System of a Down, which was formed in 1994.
Tankian has released five albums with System of a Down and five solo albums, as well as collaborating with musicians such as rapper Tech N9ne and folk singer Arto Tunçboyacıyan. He also released Elect the Dead Symphony, a live orchestral version of Elect the Dead featuring the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. He is the founder of the record label Serjical Strike Records, and is currently represented by Velvet Hammer Music and Management Group.
Tankian is regarded as one of the best vocalists in heavy metal, with praise given to his unusual delivery and his wide vocal range. In 2006, he was ranked No. 26 on the Hit Parader list of "Top 100 Heavy Metal Vocalists". A study conducted by VVN Music found that Tankian possesses a high and diverse vocal range of 4.2 octaves.
In 2002, Tankian co-founded the non-profit political activism organization Axis of Justice, alongside guitarist and fellow activist Tom Morello. In 2011, he was awarded the Armenian Prime Minister's Medal for his contributions to the recognition of the Armenian genocide and the advancement of music.
Early life
Serj Tankian was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on August 21, 1967, to Armenian parents Khachadour and Alice Tankian. He traces his ancestry to the cities of Dörtyol, Kayseri, Tokat, and Urfa, all of which are in modern-day Turkey. His four grandparents were survivors of the Armenian genocide. Amid the Lebanese Civil War, at the age of 7, he moved to the U.S. with his parents, and the family settled in Los Angeles. In his youth, he attended the bilingual Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School, which was also attended by his future System of a Down bandmates Daron Malakian and Shavo Odadjian. Tankian was accepted into California State University, Northridge, graduating with a marketing degree in 1989. During his sophomore year, he first began to play instruments, particularly the keyboard, and write songs.In an interview in 2021, Tankian stated;
"I was very lost. I was playing music at home, but I didn't have a band, I didn't have any connection, and my vision hadn't interpreted that this was my future yet. I was like, probably 22, 23 when I was really, when I discovered it... I was driving home, I had a Jeep Wrangler, I remember it was raining, very dramatic, and I really, I always say I have to go to the far reaches of who I don't wanna be to admit to myself who I really am. And I was in my car, and I literally stopped, and I just go, "I want to fuckin' do music. This is bullshit. I don't want to do all this shit." And that was the day that changed my life. From then on, anything I did was with the idea that I'm going on this path, and I gotta do whatever I gotta do to be on this path."
During his college years, Tankian began participating in political activism, attempting to draw attention to the recognition of the Armenian genocide during his time as president of the university's Armenian Students Association. He has said that his activism started with the Armenian Youth Federation and the Shant Student Association of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
Career
System of a Down (1994–present)
The beginnings of System of a Down lie in a band named Soil with Tankian on vocals & keyboards, Malakian on vocals & lead guitar, Dave Hakopyan on bass, and Domingo Laranio on drums. The band initially hired Odadjian as their manager before he was to transition into their rhythm guitarist.Laranio and Hakopyan later left the band feeling that it was not going anywhere, leading to Soil splitting up.
After the split, Tankian, Odadjian and Malakian formed System of a Down, named after a poem Malakian wrote called Victims of a Down. The band recruited drummer Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian, an old school friend of Malakian, and Odadjian who had played with Malakian in a band called Snowblind during their teens. In mid-1997, Khachaturian left the band because of a hand injury. Khachaturian was replaced by John Dolmayan. Dolmayan is also the drummer for the band Indicator and former drummer for Scars on Broadway.
The band began touring the Southern California rock clubs, building a strong following.
The band achieved commercial success with the release of five studio albums, three of which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. System of a Down has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, and their song "B.Y.O.B." won the Best Hard Rock Performance of 2006. In May the same year, the band announced they were going on hiatus.
On November 29, 2010, following several weeks of internet rumors, System of a Down officially announced that they would play shows in Europe during Festivals and in North America, mostly in the U.S., embarking on a tour for the following three years.
The band was in limbo of not releasing any new tracks until November 2020, when they released "Protect the Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz", which were songs that were made to help the cause of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The song's profits went to the Armenia Fund.
In the following years, System of a Down increasingly limited their live appearances. On May 14, 2023, the band hosted their only live performance of the year as co-headliners of the Sick New World festival in Las Vegas. In 2024, the band performed two gigs, making headline appearances at Sick New World on April 27, and at a standalone concert at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, the first-ever ticketed live event to take place at the venue.
''Elect the Dead'', side projects, and guest appearances (2007–2009)
Tankian's breakthrough as a solo artist came with the release of his debut record Elect the Dead. The first singles from Elect the Dead are "The Unthinking Majority" and "Empty Walls". The music video "Feed Us" was released on the Swedish and UK MTV. A music video was directed and filmed for every song on the record, each by unique directors. Tankian explained, "I asked each of the directors for their visual interpretation of my work. They were asked not to write treatments and that they could make whatever they liked. The results have been overwhelmingly amazing!"Three different promo versions of the album have surfaced to the public. The instrumental promotional version, issued by Serjical Strike/Reprise Records and intended for the music and movie industry, contains instrumental versions of the twelve album tracks. Another promotional version, issued by Reprise Records and made only for individual reviewers, features the album in final master form. This promotional CD-R, which was labeled "Smart Talk" as a codename for "Serj Tankian" to prevent leaking by unauthorized persons, also indicates that the album was finalized prior to.
The official tour for Elect the Dead commenced on October 12, 2007, with a show at Chicago's Vic Theatre. Roughly one thousand people attended the first concert. Although Tankian had stated he would not be performing any material by System of a Down, he performed "Charades" and "Blue", songs co-written by Daron Malakian, the guitarist of the band. "Blue" had previously appeared on their Fourth Demo Tape in 1998, and Charades was attempted during the 2005 Mezmerize/''Hypnotize'' sessions, but never released. Although it is originally a song restricted to piano and vocals, Tankian used his backing band, the Flying Cunts of Chaos.
Tankian is also politically involved. Together with Tom Morello, he founded the organization Axis of Justice and often speaks publicly against violence and injustice in the world. Tankian released a new song "Fears" in November 2008 exclusively in support of Amnesty International's Global Write-A-Thon.
In 2009, Tankian collaborated with the band Viza for their track "Viktor".
''Imperfect Harmonies'' (2010)
Tankian's second solo album was originally due in 2009. It is said to be more of a jazz and orchestral based sound. Tankian said of the second album: The album had the working title Music Without Borders, however, the final album title is Imperfect Harmonies. On June 23, 2010, a promo single from his upcoming album Imperfect Harmonies was released called "Borders Are". The first radio single from Imperfect Harmonies, "Left of Center", was released on July 13, 2010. A third single, "Disowned Inc." was released on August 9, 2010. Imperfect Harmonies was released on September 21, 2010. Preceding the album's release, two contests were announced in which fans could win prizes such as Tankian's autograph and merchandise. On August 22, 2010, a music video for "Left of Center" was released on Tankian's MySpace account.The premiere date for Tankian and Sater's Prometheus Bound at the American Repertory Theater was February 25, 2011. Tankian said that collaborating on the show has been a great learning experience for him. "I've been using a lot of my archives, a lot of different types of music that I had already put together for underscoring and what not," he said. "It's quite diverse, from noise to jazz to electronic stuff to hip-hop songs to rock songs to cool, piano dark underscores, and that's a whole different bag of tricks there because it's always evolving. Unlike a film score that's very linear and you get a scene to score for, this is something where you do another workshop and one song is gone, that underscore changes to 20 seconds and they need something else on the spot. Everything's always changing until the show comes, so it's quite interesting."
In January 2011, Tankian released a music video for his song "Reconstructive Demonstrations" from his album Imperfect Harmonies. Tankian also announced on his Facebook page, during the video's release, that an EP titled Imperfect Remixes would be released sometime within 2011. On March 1, Tankian released Imperfect Remixes and the music video for "Goodbye", a remix of "Gate 21" from Imperfect Harmonies.
Tankian co-wrote a musical with the American playwright Steven Sater. It is based on the Ancient Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound. It opened at the American Repertory Theater on March 14, 2011.