Serj Tankian

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: Serge Tonkien made his debut as the idiosyncratic lead singer of the late nineties metal band System of a Down. After releasing five platinum selling albums with the band and establishing himself as one of modern day music's most outspoken human rights activists, in two thousand and seven, Serge Tonkien left System of a Down to pursue his own endeavors. Since then, he's released solo albums, composed symphonies, scored documentaries, and most recently started producing a line of Armenian coffee with a shop in Los Angeles. In May, Surge also released a memoir called Down with the System that details his personal story that starts in Beirut before his family immigrated to La during the Lebanese Civil War in the nineteen seventies. Serge's memoir also details his family's history in Armenia and their chilling plight during the genocide of Night eighteen fifteen. On today's episode, Lea Rose talks to Surge Tonkien about why he always felt like an outsider, including inside a System of Down. He also explains why it was so essential for him to exercises demons on stage and the one fundamental change that needs to take place in order for him to record new music with his band. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Leo Rose's conversation with Serge Tonkien.

00:01:40
Speaker 3: When you and Darren first started playing together. When you're in the band Soil, how did you settle on a sound? Did you know it was going to be sort of like a progressive metal sound or was there ever talk of a different sort of direction or was that just sort of understood.

00:01:56
Speaker 1: I love how you asked that question, as if any band gets together and sits down ahead of time and goes, what is a sound that we're going to make? It's not like that at all. Someone just starts playing something and someone else does something still but over, and then you have a sound. You know, it's so intuitive and so non logical.

00:02:15
Speaker 3: You're not like, oh, we want to be a yacht rock band.

00:02:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's bands that do that, you know, that that think it through. But I don't think as a new band, you know. I mean, if you're an established musician getting together with other established musicians knowing what you want to create, that's one thing. But we were all like kids getting together making noise. You know, it's there's no cerebral process to that.

00:02:41
Speaker 3: You weren't really like a metal guy though, right like Darren was more of a metal head.

00:02:46
Speaker 1: Darren Nshable. Both both are huge metal metal heads and and I wasn't no I was. You know, my influence has come from all over the place, you know, all different types of music, but not that I didn't listen to rock. My brother was a huge metal fan, so I would listen to rock and metal with him at home because he was a huge fan. But it wasn't my first sound that I was in introduced to. So you know, I'm a stranger in every aspect of my life politically, musically, it's always from the left, like coming into these arenas that I'm an outsider in every way, and it's okay because I was able to bring something to the table because of it, you know, because I didn't have the same influences. And even when I screamed, I tried to sing, and my melodies were different, my words were different, and you know, as a lyricist, I didn't know that I can't squeeze a thousand words in a second. Nobody told me, you know, so I tried. You know, the words were important, So I tried. If it means I have to go one hundred miles an hour with my worst and so be it, because I need to say that essay or whatever, I need to make that statement, kind of like the prison song you know You're actually it's a small treatise with a chorus that you're just bam, it's all there, you know. But it worked. It worked because it's different.

00:04:07
Speaker 3: Because you were in a band with guys who were sort of like metal purists. Did they question your style, your lyrical style, or were they just kind of cool with it where they're like, no, dude, Like people in the community are not gonna like this.

00:04:20
Speaker 1: For me, Metal, if it gets too hard, it gets so funny to me. It's kind of like horror movies, right, if it gets too crazy, it's so over the top. I start laughing with horror movies, and the same with metal. If it gets too crazy, it becomes funny to me. So I remember one time when we wrote the song Bounce. Before Bounce, the lyrics were completely different. I wanted to write a very heavy metal song about pajamas, silk pajamas, you know, which is totally that I askue, right, like something Zappa would do, But that was for me. I was like, oh my god, could you imagine writing a really heavy song about pajamas like the Dalai Lama's pajamas and Elton John's pajamas and you just keep on going and it becomes this funny thing and they both look at me, like with scorn, and they're like, no, bro, you're not going to make us look like that, you know, like that kind of a thing. So there was always this attitude don't fuck with the metal, So yeah, you know, but I fucked with it enough, you know, definitely.

00:05:18
Speaker 3: So did you always feel like an outsider the whole time in the band or did you start to sort of like understand the ways of the metal world where you could blend in.

00:05:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, we toured opening for Slayer for a year, you know, so you do blend and you learn the lessons. It was like Luke Kent for us. You know, you have these really hardcore fans that you know, would use a knife to make a tattoo in their arm of Slayer and stuff going like this to you, and you've got to nod, how to duck and cover and yell and scream and use use your authority and learn how to control an audience and all of that stuff. It was more performance art. Really well, I do love metal, don't get me wrong. I love rock. I love metal, but I don't necessarily love it over other types of music. I love other types of music as well.

00:06:03
Speaker 3: You just seem like such a chill guy, like you don't seem inherently metal.

00:06:08
Speaker 1: But people always so, you know, like when I'm on stage, they're like, you're crazy on stage, but in person, you're so senssible, and I'm like, well, the music's heavy. If you were playing jazz on stage, I wouldn't be screaming, believe me, you know. So it just you give the music what it needs as a performer, right, and that's it.

00:06:24
Speaker 3: Early on, was it a way for you to process different emotions and things you were going through and just personal frustrations and as a young man, was it a way for you to channel aggression?

00:06:38
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it was a gift, you know, being able to use music to exercise my demons and my anger and my frustrations with what was going on in my life at the time. Was a gift. I think had I started with pop music, I may have ended up killing someone. I'm just kidding, but you know, pop musicians usually are not happy people. They exercise all their positivity and end up negative sometimes. But yeah, I think, you know, having this platform to kind of scream therapy and be loved for it is an incredible, incredible honor, you know. So it really worked, and at the time I was very angry. It worked.

00:07:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. Did you ever have a moment where you started to play the new music that you were making with Darren and Chavo? Did you play it for your parents and what was their reaction to your music?

00:07:32
Speaker 1: My parents. I was living with my parents in my twenties, and they heard every note that I've ever played on my guitar or keys and every voice every day had to deal with it. And we didn't even have a dorg, and we had a rental in North Hollywood and we had this like part of the living room that was my studio, and they heard every note from the beginning till the end, and they never complained. They always were encouraging, which is incredible. So I'm very thankful to my parents that they allowed me to space and time to do what I do and follow it.

00:08:13
Speaker 3: Why do you think they were so supportive.

00:08:15
Speaker 1: Well, they were just generally supportive of us whatever we wanted to do. So that's a part of it. It's just them. But also my dad he loved music and he was a musician and he wanted to make it in music. But his dad died when he was really young, when he was in second grade, so he wasn't able to follow his dream of music. So I think he kind of encouraged me to do so. And so you know, that made a big difference to me having their you know, understanding love and support and a lot of parents wouldn't, especially Armenian parents, I would say, you know, they do now with the successive system, I think we've opened up doors to other young Armenian and other ethnic musicians, to be honest, and that's been cool to see as well. You know, I get Uranian friends coming up to me and saying they've heard our music in Iran and it changed, you know, the way they saw things and they got into music and stuff, and I'm like, wow, that's incredible, you know, like it's just relating to people and being encouraged, you know, And I started very late. You know. I didn't pick up music a small Casio keyboard, if you can call that music, till I was nineteen and going to university. And I didn't consider my vision until I was twenty three twenty four when I had an epiphany. So I started really late. Most most people start really young. They're like, I want to do music, you know, they're eight, they're nine, they know that that's what they want to do, you know, and that's beautiful. But it wasn't me. And I'm glad and thankful for that because I had this whole world of experiences.

00:09:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in your case, you tried out several other areas of life. You started your own software company, and it seems like every step of the way you were successful at everything you tried. And it's very different things, like different fields, like drastically different fields, different parts of the brain, and you kind of like, yeah, kill you know everywhere.

00:10:06
Speaker 1: I wake up in the morning and I get excited about something, and it could be an art design, it could be a song, It could be an idea of a film that someone wants me to score. It could be coffee, it could be anything, and I get excited about it. When I get excited about it. What happens, I think is that I start to visualize, right, I visualize how I want to be interacting with that thing, whatever it is, and how I want to you know, I don't want to use the word success, but how I can make it go forward? And then I work. I work hard at doing so. So it's a combination of visualization and hard work, and I think you can take it to where it's meant to go. And not everything succeeds, and not every song I put out succeeds or not every project, but I put them out in knowing that that's what I want to do. So what you know, a good chef makes court on blue as well as pizza. How many people are going to eat the court on blue? That's pretty much it.

00:11:05
Speaker 3: After Soil so Soil, you were in Soil for a little while and then eight months one show, one show, and one system of a down was formed. Is it true that you picked that you wanted a name with an S so you'd be close to Slayer in music stores?

00:11:21
Speaker 1: Ooh, you know that's probably a shovel or a Darren question, because they might have said something like that in the press. I remember reading something like that. It's not something I've ever said, but it's very possible. But it comes from Darren's poem called Victims of a Down, And you know, victims just sounds negative connotation. It's not it's not something and as a people, the Armenians who have been victimized by genocide, it's not something you want to use, right, right, So Systems sounded way more integral and universal, and uh, you know, but but maybe I would think I would think that's a Darren question. I think he probably thought of that, going, oh, we'll be close to Slayer and Free Put, Like, you know, I could see.

00:12:08
Speaker 3: That that that's so cool. It sucks that now it's like, that's not how we consume our music anymore. So it kind of doesn't even matter because we're not in record stores, you know. Yeah, but it struck me that you had an origin story. System of a Down has a sort of similar origin story to Guns n' Roses in that you had this rehearsal space that sort of became the clubhouse and then you started having parties there. It's in la In sort of like an industrial spot, and then it just gets you know, the parties get bigger and bigger and bigger, and that's how you built your fan base. Do you remember those early parties when you would.

00:12:44
Speaker 1: Play, Oh yeah, very very I mean I remember them like they were yesterday. I had this one thousand square foot warehouse house renting, and I had my little software business running out of it, a little hangout space, a futon that converted into a bed in case I needed to crash there, and the rest of the space we made into the band's you know, kind of rehearsal space. So and we had a giant truck door because it's in US fuel space, right, So friends would come with kegs and open up the truck door and there was no one living around. It was pretty you know, industrial area. So we'd just rock out and you know, and more people started coming. So by the time we played our first show, the promoter wanted us to sell I think seventy five tickets or something like that, and we sold over one hundred or whatever, and they were like, what the fuck are these guys? Like, how could Basilon? You know, it's paid to play la you know. And it was at the rock Sya of all places, you know, and Chabo at the time, our basis was very instrumental in kind of hassling these promoters and calling them and trying to help, you know, manage the band and some of our things, which I'm always grateful for.

00:13:50
Speaker 3: So you were kind of like drinking partying back then. Did your parents, like, did they see a change in you or they kind of ever worried about you? Because this is before the band was signed, the band really took off. Were they worried about where you were going?

00:14:05
Speaker 1: Not really. I mean I've always been a very responsible person and so irrespective of the music and some of the party that went with it, it wasn't overdone. I would still check in on them and make sure everyone's okay, and you know, spend time there and whatnot. So it wasn't you know, and I was in my late twenties. It wasn't like I was, you know, fifteen, so you know, so the age matters, you know. I think by the time we started touring, I was thirty, you know, So you know, it makes a difference.

00:14:38
Speaker 3: But also maybe better too, because you already had life experience and you knew how to sort of handle yourself, which is probably very important when you're around all that.

00:14:46
Speaker 1: Leah I remember the first time someone came at a club and goes, oh my god, you guys are the most incredible, amazing thing, and I just looked at them, like and in my mind, I'm like, wow, this industry is quite different. There's a lot of like puff, like there's a lot of bullshit, you know, and I'm like, very interesting. I'm like, oh, thank you so much, you know, like.

00:15:08
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, like you just because I've been in many industries jewelry industries, shoe industry, software industry and stuff, and I'm like, I mean, I know we do something unique, but like I know that's not you know.

00:15:19
Speaker 1: I'm glad you feel that way. But there's a lot of that bullshit in this industry. Like industry people would come up and just blow smoke up your ass, and that was a common thing, and I would just look at them and go like, I mean, I'm not buying this.

00:15:32
Speaker 3: Did you ever let yourself indulge in that at all? Like one system really started to blow up. Did you ever just sort of like roll with the ego and give into that a little bit just to have sort of the rock star experience.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: I think it's import I would say it would be impossible for our egos not to have been affected over the long run. With system success and everything that we've garnered. I think we've all our egos all played a part in our creation and disaster all at the same time. So I will you know, I won't deny that, But I always saw through a lot of stuff with this industry begin industry side, not so much fans fans. I mean it's incredible, you know, like I'm incredibly grateful every time we play a show, every time we get a response, I mean, even inviting people to the cafe or whatever and people show up or book signing, you know, from my book or whatever. It's just I'm always at awe that these people that I don't know personally come to spend a little time with me, and it's incredible. Like I'm always taken back by it because I don't take it for granted. But the industry side, I've always kind of looked through and been like, Okay, this is a business like any other, you know, especially when people started using the word baby, you know, come on, baby, like whoa, that's.

00:16:50
Speaker 3: Nice, Like agents and stuff like that.

00:16:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just the cheesier aspect you know, I'm like, wow, this is interesting. I would just look at them as non you know, fictional characters going might write about you.

00:17:05
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to ask you. I was on the system of a down Reddit page last night and I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions that yeah, sure that people threw up there because they were kind of cool of okay, okay. One of them is, what's the saddest, most heartbreaking song in the entire system of a down discography?

00:17:25
Speaker 1: Soldier's Side. I would say that's one of the saddest When I sing that, I want to cry every time.

00:17:30
Speaker 3: And that's a Darren Darren write that.

00:17:33
Speaker 1: Darren wrote the majority of Yeah, the music. I may have written some of it, but yeah, it's just to me. It's the vocals are so haunting. The messaging is so powerful, and you can relate no matter who you think of those soldiers might be, whether they're American soldiers or Armenian soldiers, or you know someone that's protecting you, or someone that's dying for you, someone that you're waiting for them to come home. You know, a mother's or a father's kind of whoe. It is so so powerful and deep as far as a cut, you know, it always gets me.

00:18:13
Speaker 3: Where do you place that in the set list knowing that it's going to be a really emotional performance for you.

00:18:19
Speaker 1: It's not always on the set depends, like we do different set lists, so it's not always on the set, but if it is, it's usually not in the beginning. It's usually a little towards the end.

00:18:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought this was interesting. So back to those party days when you were at the rehearsal space. You guys used to play a lot of cover songs at those parties. What songs would you cover?

00:18:40
Speaker 1: We did Metro by Berlin, I remember we released that. At one point. Darren liked to cover Sultons of Swing by Dire Streets, Dire Straits, thank You. I remember doing a Madonna cover, even maybe la Isla Bonita. They always would pick female covers for me just to mess with me, which was cool because I actually was more influenced by female vocalists than male vocalists. Anyway. Oh really like Yeah, Ceesaria Aevora is one you know, I just I love fado and I love her singing. I learned from her just watching and listening to her. I never matter how effortless singing should be. Singing should not be forced. It should You should open your mouth and it should come out. It should be that effortless no matter what you're singing, if you're doing it right. You know, different singers like Nina Simon and I Love you know, yeah, sultry singing.

00:19:39
Speaker 3: You know, do you sing a lot in life? In general? Do you walk around and hum?

00:19:44
Speaker 1: No?

00:19:45
Speaker 3: Do you you don't vocalize a lot? No? Just in life?

00:19:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I just you know. It's it's kind of funny because because singing became part of my profession, when I stopped doing it so much, I just don't do it until I have to in a way. I mean, if I'm writing a song, I'm singing, if I'm you know, But mostly I'm either painting or I'm composing for media, and so I'm not really using my voice. I did try this cool thing where I can compose with my voice, which is very interesting. It converts your audio to MIDI as you're singing through it. So I wrote a vocal suite using a few of those kind of techniques and we put We did a live show of it last year called Invocations, which we did at this Soriad Theater here in Los Angeles, and we put it out as I mixed it as a record, live record with like these incredible voices, five soloists, a full choir, and an orchestra.

00:20:44
Speaker 3: Oh wow.

00:20:45
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I use my voice almost like a writing tool in that sense for a choir and whatnot. But yeah, I don't generally sing. I do sing to my kid. I have sung for my kids since he was young. They say it's really great to do so, even if you're a bad singer, because that's your voice. You know, they know your voice from the womb and it's good to sing to them when they're little.

00:21:12
Speaker 3: Is he into music.

00:21:14
Speaker 1: He's into music in a different way. I think it's coming to him, and I'm not pushing it because no one ever pushed it on me. He did want to take drum lessons at one point, so I took him, but he didn't follow through. He's got a little electronic drum set. He's not playing it. So I'm like, well, if you're not going to follow through, I'm not going to drive you. You know, it's up to you. He's got a guitar, doesn't play right whatever, but he loves listening to music. He sings along. He's got incredible melodic memory, and he wanted to use loops to kind of make some music. So I've been helping him with that and whatnot. So yeah, a different ways, just approaching him in a different way. Music.

00:21:55
Speaker 3: My kid's totally not into music. It's very disappointing. Oh yet at least.

00:21:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you never know when they might catch them, you know, it's not something you can predict. Yeah, I mean, my parents wanted me to take piano lessons. My dad about me a guitar when I was really young, zero interest, you know. Yeah, and then at nineteen I got a little Casio keyboard with the tiny little keys and it changed my life. So you never know.

00:22:21
Speaker 2: We'll be back with more from Serge Tonkien after this break. We're back with more from Serge Tonkeyen.

00:22:31
Speaker 3: Do you still like playing piano? Is that? Would you say that's your main Yeah?

00:22:36
Speaker 1: I like playing both piano and guitar, but I probably play, you know, most most of the time. I'm in the studio using my controller, my keyboard controller to basically play all sorts of instruments. To compose using all sorts of instruments, but I do have a piano. I have a nice steinway both here and in New Zealand, and I love recording that once in a while and just sitting and playing, you know, just to come up with ideas for something. It's it's a really fun way of just creating a tone for a new project or something like that.

00:23:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so cool, and you're so so you have a solo album that you're putting out in the next couple of months.

00:23:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, in September, we're putting out an EP called Foundations, and it's almost like a companion to the book because it's chronological, so there's songs in there. The first song we released, called af Day, is from twenty or plus years ago that I had recorded and I just cleaned up the drums and the guitars, but left the original vocals for this archival kind of sound because your voice changes, you know, over many years. And there's some other songs there. Our next single is going to be Justice Will Shine On, which is about the Armenian genocide and my grandparents. It's a cool, heavy track, and then there's some more melodic tracks that will come out later. They're all from different periods of my career. I just wanted to put them together in a way just like the book is, like, you know, a story of different times in my life.

00:24:01
Speaker 3: I know it's been a while since you've answered this question. I don't know if the answer is different, but are there any plans to record any news system.

00:24:09
Speaker 1: Of a down music not at this time?

00:24:12
Speaker 3: No? Does that make you feel sad at all? Or is it totally fine because you're occupied creatively?

00:24:22
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean creatively, I keep on, you know, making music and making art and making you know, doing creatively what I'm meant to do. And if the opportunity arises for us to work together in an egalitarian fashion and the right way, with the right vibe and the right influence, you know, then we'll do it. In twenty twenty, we put out two songs because there was the invasion of Artzef and Armenia happening by us of AJEA during COVID, and people didn't know about what was going on. So we used you know, the band and putting out new music as an opportunity to spread awareness, and we were successful in doing so. So, you know, hopefully it's not just the decimation of our people that's going to take system of it writing new music. But I think when that time is, and I don't know if it is ever or or if it will be, that'll be amazing. But I don't get sad by it because to me, it is what it is. When it's right, then it happens. When it's not, it shouldn't happen.

00:25:26
Speaker 3: Would you be okay with a band going on without you, with like a different singer in your place.

00:25:32
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I've offered them that opportunity and been very supportive of it many years. If they wanted to do that, if they wanted to continue in a way that I didn't, For example, if they wanted to tour a lot, and I just want to do a couple of shows here and there, because I'm not into touring a lot, it's to be fair to them. If they wanted to do that, I'm totally open to it. Still, you know, I'm not sure they want to do that. They haven't until now, and you know, I think it would take something away from the prestige and legacy of the band itself. But as friends and as someone who cares very much about my partners, I would be okay with it.

00:26:10
Speaker 3: What do you think it is about you all as individuals, the alchemy of you together that makes you so great as a unit.

00:26:18
Speaker 1: Everything that each person is, from their personality to their playing style, to how they think, how they feel, and the combination thereof makes system of a down what it is. If you take any particle away from this compound, it's not going to be system of a down. It could be called system of a down, but it's not going to really be system of a down.

00:26:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:26:41
Speaker 1: Even the stubbornness and the you know, the creative difference is everything. The push and pull, the manicness, the calmness, all of the above is what makes we are.

00:26:53
Speaker 3: That relationship. Does it feel similar to sort of like other long term relationships you've had in your life? Do you count it among like the other long term relationships you've had?

00:27:03
Speaker 1: Well, I definitely counted. I mean it's my relationship with the band guys is longer than my relationship with my wife is longer than you know, not as much as my parents obviously, but it's been you know, it's like thirty years, you know, and I'm fifty seven, So yeah, I mean so long. There are long relationships and friendships and partnerships. So but I don't necessarily compare them because there it's a different type of relationship. You know, it's art with business and personal as well, you know, all wrapped in, which makes it a lot more complicated.

00:27:41
Speaker 3: I love the stories about recording Toxicity at Rick's place and sort of how it felt haunted and that I guess was the same space that the Chili Peppers recorded Blood Sugar, Sex Magic.

00:27:55
Speaker 1: We actually recorded Toxicity at Cello Studios, which are now East West. There are elements of Toxicity we did record at the Miller House in the in the basement studio. Yeah, and then we finished Steal this album also at the same place, and then we moved to the Laurel Canyon place for MESMRII sympitize where the Chili Peppers recorded, which is the one across Sudini's place.

00:28:20
Speaker 3: Okay, that's so cool.

00:28:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was haunted for sure, really. So I was there late night one day just playing keys by myself up at the top of the house and I heard these fucking doors slam and there was no one there, and I was just like, fuck yeah. And it wasn't the wind. It wasn't the wind because those were closed, like there was I can't explain it. It was just one of those where I just go off, bag out, come back tomorrow when there's people here, but I'm not staying, you know.

00:28:59
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, And I love the story that you told about Tom Petty coming by and hanging out. What do you remember about that?

00:29:07
Speaker 1: Rick was having dinner with him that night, and Darren and I were working at Miller Drive at the studio in the basement, and Rick brought him down just to say hi, which was really sweet. And Darren had rolled a joint, and you know, he was pretty cheeky by offering. He's like, hey, you want to smoke one? And You're like, oh, no, mind if I do. And he came down, smoked a joint with us and listened to a song and gave his input and liked what we were doing, which was very encouraging, very sweet. You know, those are the things that would happen if you recorded at Rex's place, right, It's pretty amazing. I got to meet a lot of people there as well. I mean that's how I met Tony Kanal was a friend of mine from No Doubt, and Gwen and you know, and just so many people would just drop in and you know, and and he'd invite us to dinners with different artists and whatnot, which was amazing. You know. It's like kismet, you know, like, you know, him walking into our life as artists, as a band really changed. And you know, I'm ever so grateful to him, Like we'd be doing whatever, and at the end, I'd go, I'm never going to forget what you've done for us, you know, Like I always feel that way. I always feel grateful for him entering our lives and you know, and changing it to what we have now. He came to our show in Las Vegas for Sysney World, which is a festival we've been doing for two years with Live Nation, and he was just rocking out and it was so nice to have him there. It was just felt like, you know, it'spent thirty years, you know, it's like, you know, just him being there and going, wow, man, like we've come so far, you know, and it hasn't been it's been a rocky road in a lot of places. It hasn't been cement, you know, but but those rocks actually made our i don't know, in a way, made our feet stronger and able to walk better in a way you know, like you just you see all this stuff looking back.

00:31:04
Speaker 3: What do you think it is that he is able to do when he's listening, when he's laying down and listening to music with his eyes closed. What is it that he's able to hear as someone who's worked with him for so long, and what's the feedback that he gives.

00:31:17
Speaker 1: I think he has an incredible intuitive understanding of the music and art that's being displayed, and I think if he loves something, he almost sees it from a fan perspective, which is a very deep perspective. So he's not thinking, at least in the beginning, in terms of capturing performance. He's not thinking this could be louder. There are producers that really get into the nitty gritty of mixing and this could be this way, Maybe bring the chorus this way that you know, for him, he just goes, Wow, that part of the song is the strongest. I want to hear more of that. It's such a simple thing to say, but it is incredibly powerful and minimal, and if you actually go with it, ninety nine percent of the cases, it'll make the song way better. There are times where maybe it might not, and he usually is the first to say that didn't work. Glad we tried it. You know. So as a pro which is not cerebral, it's incredibly intuitive, which is what music itself is, you know. And so as a producer, bringing that and he's got this incredible way of making artists feel comfortable in their own skin. And if an artist feels comfortable, they are going to produce better. So it's a combination of those two things, I think, as far as I'm concerned.

00:32:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you remember when you first started working with him, when you're recording the first album, any of his feedback overall for your sound or for any direction. Maybe he wanted to see you to like go in more of a certain direction.

00:32:47
Speaker 1: When I produce my own records, now I hear him in my head going pronounce it better, So pronounce it better. You know. Literally, he wanted to understand every word. If you're trying to throw away a word on purpose, that's one thing, but he was really into hearing every aspect of it, you know, Like he would he would spend a lot of times with our takes, general takes that we do as a full band, so that we know which is the best drum pick and then we do basically, you know, record over with guitars and bass and keys and what strings whatever we're adding end vocals. He'd spend a lot of times with me with vocals. Well, I think he gives it a lot of cred incident, so he's still in my head going pronounced that better, pronounced that better? You know, because it's important. Words are important.

00:33:35
Speaker 3: When you're screaming. How do you protect your voice? I feel like if I even talk with a loud voice for a small period of time, my throat hurts. Yeah, how do you protect your voice? And is that one of the reasons why you do the loud soft thing is to protect your voice so you don't have to just like scream for four minutes straight.

00:33:54
Speaker 1: You know. I really don't know the answer to that question, because I'm still you know, if you leave me to my own devices, I might lose my voice. You know. But I try not to scream as much, and I don't scream as much as I used to in the you know, compared to the beginning of the band career, and I have created a couple of techniques screaming and growling techniques which don't hurt the voice, you know, like instead of growling hard, I could do zero voice effect, just a little dryness for example, you know, just it's inhaling by cuppying. Yeah, there you go. The screaming thing, though, is different. That's the growling thing. The screaming thing is different with screaming. If I try to scream when my body's not ready for it to push emotionally, not so much physically, but emotionally. If I'm really if I get angry in that moment and it's a screaming part, my body just gives it to me and I scream perfectly. But most of the time I'm pretty mellow, even when I'm on stage doing these songs. So sometimes the scream will come out like King Diamond, which will be like three octaves higher but a clean voice, and I just laugh and I go, I couldn't even scream that, you know, like because the voice changes, you know. When Yeah, when I started, when I would try to hit a high note, my voice would crack because it wasn't trained. Now I can hit a high note without cracking. But then the recordings are with cracks, so everyone's like, oh, what happened to his voice? Where's the heavy cracks sound?

00:35:22
Speaker 3: Cool.

00:35:23
Speaker 1: Where's the heaviness? You know, where's the girl? Where's the scream? The thing?

00:35:27
Speaker 4: You know?

00:35:28
Speaker 1: And it's not there. Sometimes it's there, you know, I don't know. The funny thing is the more I rehearse, the better my voice gets, the less it cracks, the less heart it sounds. Yeah, but I always have to rehearse very little before a show.

00:35:41
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.

00:35:42
Speaker 1: But then if you do too many of them back to back and you're not well rehearsed and your voice is not well trained, then you'll lose your voice again, that kind of thing. I've lost my voice on tour, but mostly from getting sick rather than yeah, blowing it myself.

00:35:54
Speaker 3: Do you listen to heavy music?

00:35:57
Speaker 1: I still do.

00:35:58
Speaker 3: There's also a big debate on Reddit about your Spotify most listen to artists.

00:36:03
Speaker 1: Oh so that's really funny because my kid also listens to my account and there's like songs with farts in them and like, you know, like songs, songs about booty, you know, that kind of stuff.

00:36:17
Speaker 3: Hang out with my kid. He would love that.

00:36:19
Speaker 1: They just just loves funny shit. So if they've been listening to it, then they're gonna be They're gonna be whacked. I love I love finding out new artists that that are different than any anyone I've ever heard. Like there's a few songs from Falling in Reverse. I don't necessarily love all their stuff, like the dancy stuff, but there's a few songs and their videos like that are amazing. I follow this band called Polifia that's an instrumental band that have heavy and on heavy music, like a lot of R and B, incredible guitar playing and stuff like that, and a bunch of bands like I'll go back sometimes and just listen to Napalm Death or just like you know, crazy you know, death metal music, just to play for my son so he can understand that that's a sound and he likes it. He likes a band called Dance with the Dead that no one knows. They're an instrumental kind of dark sinceed slash metal band. You know that sounds cool. I took him to one of his one of their shows. For example. There's so much music out there right now, you know, I know, and you know if you don't go with whatever just a pop thing is and just actually do a deep dive. Unfortunately, you know, you would think that the Spotify Apple Music algorithms would teach you a lot of bands like that, but they actually don't like their curation isn't as great as I think it could be.

00:37:42
Speaker 3: I know, it's very limiting and it pigeonholes you, and it's really frustrating.

00:37:47
Speaker 1: It is.

00:37:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, makes me miss like a good curator, a good DJ.

00:37:51
Speaker 1: A good DJ, or a good indie record store where you walk in and they have a little section of all the same weird shit, similar weird shit, and you could tell from the covers and the guy behind the counter goes, oh, that's really cool. It just came out like, let me play it for you, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's we're still missing that curation thing.

00:38:12
Speaker 2: After one last quick break, we'll be back with more from Lea Rose and Surge tonky In. Here's the rest of Leo Rose's conversation with Serge Tonkyen.

00:38:26
Speaker 3: I was wondering, when you sat down and you started to think which moment to open the book with, How did you pick a single moment from your life that to sort of like kick off the entire book.

00:38:40
Speaker 1: My last poetry book I released called Glaring Through Oblivion. I started the poetry book off with a kind of long form written narrative, like an essay, and it was very much like the activist speaking, you know, and I think it had a strong effect on how people perceived the book initially. And so for me, that lesson I think brought me into you know, when I wrote the memoir, I wanted to put something in there that was a blueprint for the whole book, you know, the looking for justice, anti authoritarianism, speaking truth to power, freedom of speech in the United States war, you know, fear in a democracy, censorship, all of those things that have carried me as an activist throughout my life and as an artist, you know, thereafter were in that first chapter, you know, and so you know, it kind of made sense.

00:39:37
Speaker 3: If you could explain to us the moment that you found that really represents all those things in one where everything sort of is crystallized, and then what you came away from that moment thinking you wanted to do differently.

00:39:52
Speaker 1: So that moment was after ninety eleven, when we were all traumatized by the terrorist attacks on the United States of America. I remember feeling out of control. I felt like everything was out of control, like the world's out of control. What's next? Nuclear war, like what's going to happen? Just fear, you know. And it was a time where I had traveled to New York the night before nine to eleven because we were doing our promo for Toxicity, our second record with System of a Down, and we were at a signing at Virgin Records in a Times Square, and a bunch of fans at passed notes like they'll do little trin kids pass notes, little letters. And I had come home the night before and read one of the letters, and it was a very depressing letter by young men and I felt really really sorry and bad for him, and I called him from the house phone without blocking my number, which kind of insane at the time, you know, you know, they were just starting to block numbers. It was a new thing. We're talking about two thousand and two thousand and one. So I called this young man, had a great chat with him, and I felt like I kind of you know, brightened up his day, mood and whatnot. And then I've slept, and then the next morning, my girlfriend at the time called me and said, turn on the TV. Call me later, and I saw the second you know, plane going into the second Tower, and just like couldn't believe what was going on. Suddenly the phone rings. I think it's my girlfriend, but it's this guy from New York just losing his shit and screaming, and I'm trying to calm him down, whereas inside I'm looking at you know, the tube and going the world is like just complete chaos. So it started that way, but for me to get a grip on what's really happening, I had a very common task of writing about geopolitics and posting it to the band's website at the time, and I did that for September eleven and posted an essay called Understanding Oil on the band's website. Now, at the time, there was a lot of you know, people were really angry, people were hurt, and so there was a lot of emotions prevailing. Myself and a few other artists were really the only ones who spoke out against America's geopolitical tanglings with the Middle East and their repercussions, and so no one else was speaking about it. But a handful of artists and we know them, including the Dixie Chicks, and rage against the Machine and tool and whatnot, and we all got shipped for it, and the shit that I got for It was while we were about to start tour a week after ninety eleven, where there's still dangers of terrorist attacks and all this stuff. We were getting a lot of hate from Americans for calling out the US government's policies over the many, many years, and so it was a really really stressful, trying time. We were in Colorado and I got on the phone with Howard Stern because his crew was coming after apparently my essay, even though it was taken down off the website and they hadn't really read the essay themselves, but hearsay, they were kind of criticizing my words, and I was there to defend them, make sure that we don't get death threats with the band, make sure we can continue touring, make sure that my partners wouldn't hate me forever. And it was just horrible. And the lesson I learned from that was that it is very easy to speak truth to power when public opinion is on your side, but that truth does not change when public opinion is not necessarily on your side, and you have to do it even more then even if they hate you, even if all of them hate you, And that's the unfortunate thing that we're in a world right now that information is a commodity, a commodity that's propagandized and used in every direction that you can think of. And the educational level of our society has dwindled since the nineteen eighties Reagan arabs, and so we're in a situation that I call the uneducated majority, and uneducated majority democracies are dangerous because they can pick leaders, or leaders can pick them in a way that can really really change the quality in terms of degradation of democracy and truth of you know, freedom of speech itself. Yeah, in a nutshell.

00:44:16
Speaker 3: It's interesting because I remember on nine to eleven Howard Stern didn't leave because he was live on the air when it was happening, when the attacks were happening, and he didn't stop his show. He stayed in the studio and he sort of was doing like a live broadcast through it. And I remember him saying during it to Robin something like, oh, we know who did this, or we know who's responsible for this. So it seems like he would be somewhat in agreement with what you wrote in your essay, But was it not that was he he was sort of like making it seem as if you were anti American.

00:44:51
Speaker 1: You know, being not born in the United States. That's kind of the feeling that I got. There was that feeling of xenophobia. And you know, I you know, I write in a book that I've never felt an outsider more than that day. But I'm fifty seven years old, you know, and at the time, I was thirty something, and so it was unfair to pin me on, you know, an American just because I'm an activist and I spoke truth to power, and because I knew about the Middle East. I was from there, you know. I was born in Beirut, raised in Los Angeles, ar meaning biculture, which is neither very old indigenous Christian people from you know, the Caucuses. And but I knew how things operated, and you know, when something happens, you've got to always see who benefits in world events. And I knew that I would you know, read I had I subscribed to like intelligence reports, you know, you know, monthly intelligence reports that I paid for that I would get that that are public. I mean they write, you know, these briefs on every country in the world and what's happening, and you know that kind of stuff and read New York Times read you know, economists and music was my hobby. When music became my work, geopolitics became my hobby. So it was just a natural thing for me to do that. I still do it.

00:46:08
Speaker 3: It's one thing, though, to write an essay and another to be live on the air with someone who is, you know, the top shock jock in the country and who's intentionally trying to push your buttons.

00:46:21
Speaker 1: I don't blame Howard at all, like I, you know, because based on what he was feeling and the outcry of the nation and everything he was you know, he didn't know. He didn't know that I had good intentions and you know, all of that. He was trying to sess me out what she did, and at the end he was satisfied.

00:46:38
Speaker 3: How did you prepare for that, though? How did you prepare for that? Onslaught?

00:46:42
Speaker 1: It was like five in the morning in Colorado. I hadn't slept. I was nervous as fuck, you know, getting hate mail, and then the terrorist attacks, you know, on television showing possible terrorist attacks, and you know, at large events and every day we were going to be in front of twenty five thirty thousand people. So I didn't feel well at all. I was really stressed out. But the way I got on the show is like very mellow, very chill, non confrontational. And my friend Rick Rubin gave me great advice at the time. He said, if you talk about Vietnam, he'll agree with you. He knows governments do bad things. Don't challenge him on his points, but let him understand that ever government is corrupt and things are happening around us that we may or may not understand, and that you empathize with people obviously, which I do. So it wasn't a matter of not speaking truth. It was just not being able to challenge the rhetoric of the times, right, the dogma?

00:47:44
Speaker 3: So okay, So that's the opening moment of the book, which you say sort of crystallizes a lot of your life, and it brings in music, it brings in fame, it brings in the geopolitical conflicts. How then, did you also think about bringing in things like talking about the Armenian genocide, talking about your family's history, but also weaving in your own personal journey as obviously a very successful musician, How did you think about organizing those pieces? Was that a hard puzzle? To figure out.

00:48:18
Speaker 1: I had a lot of help. The format in which that I ended up doing the book was very much like this format where I'm answering questions about my life and just everything's being transcribed by someone and then we have these wonderful chapters that we can organize and edit and write and delete and delete and delete, because you end up with way more than you can use. It was a very interesting conversational writing technique. Of course I would also sit down and write on top of that, but it was a way that the book can be more fluid. So we had all these stories that we were organizing based on my family history and my grandfather's plight from the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian Genocide has always been kind of like the energy river through which this band has always operated. For us, it's not a political issue. It's a personal issue because all of our grandparents, in system of a down were survivors of this horrible atrocity that is still denied by the descendants of the perpetrators, which is modern day Turkey. So that's very current and real for us. It's not like the Holocaust, where there were the Nuremberg Trials. That not that put an end to the trauma, because the trauma doesn't end, but at least come to terms with the reality of it. On the same plane, you know, Germany accepting its culpability obviously. You know, in the Nuremberg trials, there were no Nuremberg truths for Deminian genocide. And so the pain keeps on going, you know, the pain keeps on continuing. The genocide continues, and we see genocide continuing today as well in many respects in different places in the world. Two weeks before Hamas attacked Israel, on September twenty seven, the government of Azerbijon, led by a dictatorial oligarch Ilhamaliev, attacked the indigenous population of Nigurno Autapa, which has been for thousands of years our means have been living there peacefully. I mean, there was a war in the nineteen nineties and Armenia to cont you know, Armenians to control of the area because they were the majority living there. And you know, after nine months of starvation and two ICG judgments against them, azer Beijun attacked these people and they became refugees. And most of the world doesn't even know about it because it's not Israel and Palestine and it's not other well known conflicts that it has so many countries involved. And it's like, with all these years gone by, with all this technology, all this culture and wisdom and everything gleaned, we're still primitive other fuckers, you know. That's what it comes down to. And it's really sad.

00:51:02
Speaker 3: You mean, primitive as far as our approach to dealing with conflict.

00:51:07
Speaker 1: Yes, as far as our approach to dealing with conflict, as far as prioritizing profit over people, as far as discriminating against whole populations, as far as minimizing their value as human beings to be able to conduct this type of outrageous ethnic cleansing. Yeah, all of the above.

00:51:28
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about how you've seen Los Angeles change? So you moved from Beirut when you were seven, family escaped the Civil War and you moved to LA in a really kind of cool time. What was the LA that you moved to because your family moved to Hollywood. What was that like for you?

00:51:49
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five? La was really colorful, a lot of soul music, a lot of disco coming on in seventy six seventy seven, a lot of you know, hippies, and it just for me, it was a total culture shock. Obviously leaving a war torn country. It was like going from black and white to color you know, hookers and pimps and you know, it's like just a tapestry. And we lived in Hollywood, like we didn't land in like Idaho, you know, we landed in Hollywood, California, you know, from Lebanon. So it was just like this crazy thing, but and we felt like it was safe. I remember, until like nine years old or ten years old, I used to walk my younger brother to school up the street from like Sunset and Alexandria, and we went to this private Armenian school. We'd walk, our parents let us walk in Hollywood, so it was like it was a great time. I remember it incredibly fondly, even though it must have been tortures for my parents because they came to the US without any money and they had to kind of make do. And they put us in private Armenion school for us to maintain our cultural heritage in our language, which is very brave, and they made it work, you know. But yeah, LA's changed drastically. I have to say it's never been home for me. I moved to New Zealand in twenty something years ago. When I say move, I got a place there, and I spend part of the year there and I've got residency there because it felt a different part of a home for me. LA's home in terms of all my friends and family are here, you know. So in that sense it's a home. As a city, I'm not in love with it. I've never been in love with it, and I can't tell you why. It just is. Maybe it's because we're all in our fucking cards all day. Yeah, but New Zealand to me has a more comfortable kind of normal bpm, you know, as far as the frequency of the heart and mind and normal kind of living, clean air, clean water, all of that stuff. But it also is not completely home, you know. Culturally, I'm always missing Europe Armenia because I feel like that's where I eat that culture, you know, the food and the colors of different countries and you know, and what they have to bring the art to music, you know. So for me, it's a balance of all these places, I guess, you know.

00:54:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, one place, so I you know, I was listening to your book, to the audio book, and I thought, oh, let me just google some some live system of a Down performances. And the first one that came up was the show in Armenia for the hundredth anniversary of the genocide. And I was blown away by the size of the audience. And I know that's normal for you all, because you're a huge band, but it was just incredible the amount of people there.

00:54:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, it was, It was just it was just an incredible evening. And the way I remember it was, you know, it's this one hundredth you know, anniversary of Dermine genocide. We were invited to play in Republic Square and there were about fifty thousand plus people and in the rain, in the rain, yeah, and they say it all rains the day before the commemoration of the genocide, you know what I mean, even though it's in April at spring, you know. So I just felt calm amidst this incredible emotional chaos of the evening, and I felt like, had we stopped as a band doing anything at that moment, we've reached our kind of climax, you know, top of the mountain fuel and anything after was bonus that it felt like we were designed to be there on that day, from day one, thirty years back, twenty five years back, whatever that time period is. And that's a unique feeling to have, you know, you don't always feel that playing a show, or that's a feeling like we belong here. This is what we've been doing all this for, you know. And in the same show, we were able to pay homage to our ancestors, our grandparents who survived theirs who did not speak truth to power, both in terms of the hypocrisy of at the time the Obama administration not properly recognizing the genocide, as well as you know, other countries and their you know, involvement criticizing the oligarchic Armenian government at the time. This is before the twenty eighteen revolution and they're bad policies and rocking out with the crowd and enjoying it. It was just like so many things at once. It was just like incredible in that sense.

00:56:38
Speaker 3: And I know, you have a show coming up in Golden Gate Park. System of a Down is playing and it's a one off show. You're playing with deaf Tones.

00:56:47
Speaker 1: Mars Volta, deaf Tones, Yes and a few other bands, and I know you.

00:56:51
Speaker 3: Get super excited for these one off shows, So why is that especially exciting to have just like one show in the future that you're looking forward to.

00:56:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, we've done many tours, especially in the beginning of our career, and they're fun, but they're exhausting, physically exhausting, and artistically they're redundant after a few shows because you're excited to play, then you're excited to play. You're playing the same set give or take right, and they become groundhog Day. So when it's one, it's an event. You build up to it, you rehearse for it specifically, you set up a setless sports specifically for that show. You go there specifically for that show, and you rock out that day that show, and you leave and it just seems way more fun, I mean, way more honest.

00:57:38
Speaker 3: What do you do physically to prepare for that? You know you're not on tour and you're not every night going up there. What do you do to prepare your body for that?

00:57:48
Speaker 1: Well, in my case, I got to prepare my voice for it, because I don't sing unless i'm performing or recording, and I'm not always recording my voice because I do a lot of you know, soundtrack work and scoring work, which is instrumental, and so I'm always recording, but I'm not always recording my voice. It's rare. So with systems, it's not just ruoning. It's it's like gymnastics, vocal gymnastics. So I got to get into it, you know. So I'll start singing at home on my own, through my system in my studio just to get my voice back in shape. It's a muscle, you got to get it back in shape. So I'll do a few of those. I get lazy sometimes and not do as much as I really should. And then there's the rehearsals with the bands that allow you to really do it and perform and get your voice in shape and your body movements and what you know. But it's really just a voice in my case, remembering some of your parts. You know, whoa I don't remember that keyboard part of that song, Let me play it, you know that kind of stuff, guitar or whatever. So it's really just kind of brushing up. I mean, it's a long time to get your voice in shape just for one show, whereas if you're touring, you don't have to worry about it because you could do the show. Then your voice is already in shape. You go do the Mexio and then Mexio.

00:58:58
Speaker 3: So is it like several weeks that you're practicing.

00:59:01
Speaker 1: I'm way lazier than that it used to be when I was actually on point. Now I'm like, now it's several days ahead, several days of rehearsals. I have rehearsals. Yeah, but then the rehearsals are pretty for long. You get your workout on them.

00:59:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so cool. All right, Well, is there anything else that you want to talk about that we didn't talk about.

00:59:22
Speaker 1: We've covered a lot of ground here. Thank you, Leah. That's been awesome.

00:59:26
Speaker 3: Cool. Well, thank you again for doing this. Thank you for spending so much time. I appreciate you.

00:59:30
Speaker 1: It's actually my pleasure and I appreciate you as well. Thank you, Leah.

00:59:36
Speaker 2: Thanks to search Tonkin for taking us deep into System of a Down's history and talking about some of the inspiration behind his new memoir Down with the System. You can hear all of our favorite tracks featuring Surge on a playlist at Broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Lkin Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Anny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.