Surge Tankian | Music Artists

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Interview

Access All Areas.net.au: Good morning Surge, How are you today?
Surge Tankian: Hey mate, i’m doing good, feeling a lot more awake than my last interview, so i’m doing good.

Access All Areas.net.au: Well first & foremostly, i’d like to welcome you back to Australia, you haven’t been down here since your last tour in 2005, are you enjoying being back in Australia?
Surge Tankian: Oh definitely, its always a great time when i come down here, so i’m excited. I’m here for the big day out tour over the next couple weeks, so things are good & i’m having a good time.

Access All Areas.net.au: You mentioned you are on the big day out tour, the gold coast show was last night, how was your show?
Surge Tankian: Yeah it was great, there was a great crowd & everyone was rocking out, so it was really enjoyable to play. We had a 55 minute set so it was slightly limiting, but we made the most of it & i feel everyone was left happy.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now on the tour, you are playing songs off your solo record “Elect The Dead”, what was it would you say that made you want to make this solo record?
Surge Tankian: I’ve wanted to make a solo album for quite some time. When I was in the thick of it, I felt possessed. It was like swimming in the depths in that ocean of creativity. My mind was always tuned into the project, even during sleep. It’s a nice form of exorcism, getting all of that stuff out emotionally and also channeling sounds from the universe. With making this album on my own versus with a full band, there are certain vulnerabilities and intimacies you can only express by yourself, when you’re representing only yourself. And lyrically I consider this record a lot more vulnerable and intimate than anything I’ve done with System. There are love songs, pain songs…very personal songs. And of course there are political songs.

Access All Areas.net.au: With the record, you have a new backing band in the F.C.c, how did you come to fine these guys & has it been fun to play with them?
Surge Tankian: Well the majority of the guys in the band are people either myself or my guitarist/engineerist Dan Monty have known. We basically wanted to put a band together for the solo record, for not only the recording, but also the live show. We made some calls to people we knew & then when they all came together, we held some private rehearsals to determine who would fit the band. Playing with these guys has been really amazing, they are all extremely talend musicians & they fit my band perfectly.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now besides the album & other things you have, you also have your record label “Surgical Strike”. Why did you set this label up & how are things going now?
Surge Tankian: Well basically Surgical Strike was set up about 7 to 8 years ago as a basic web based label where bands who wouldn’t be able to get the attention of more mainstream labels could get some label attention. We have had some great releases over the years, we usually only release 1 or 2 albums a year, but we still do some good work. The money side of things with the label isn’t that great, but its more for the bands & the music for me than the money. At the moment, the label is doing great, we have a re-release of some early works of mine coming out soon, we also have a band called “death by sterio” doing something through us, we’re just looking for distribution partners & we have a few other things coming soon, so its all going well.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now you are probably most known for your role in the band “System Of A Down”, are there many plans for some new material from this band in the near future?
Surge Tankian: System Of A Down is currently on an indefinite hiatus after 10+ years of being a touring and recording band. System Of A Down is not a corporation that needs to put out a product every year to sustain. We’re a group of artists and we create music together when we want to. We are enjoying prioritizing other artistic and personal efforts. We’re all friends and supportive of each others’ art. If and when we need to speak as one to the world, the world will be aware.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now getting back to the tour, playing the solo material on these dates, do you feel more pressure as a solo artist then you did in a band as there is more of a role for you to play?
Surge Tankian: I don’t think so, i’ve been playing as the solo artist for about 18 months or so now, so i’ve got experience. I must say, coming down to Australia to play solo for the first time, it is a bit daunting, but i’ll deal with it.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now alongside your big day out appearances, you have some sideshows, are you looking forward to these?
Surge Tankian: Oh i am, i much prefer the headline show to the festival show, mainly as you have a longer set, so you can play more material, which i love to do to give my fans as much of my work as possible.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now on these sideshows, you are being supported by the Fantomez, are you excited to play with these guys?
Surge Tankian: Of course, they’re all great musicians & great performers. I went & saw them last night at the big day out & enjoyed their set, so it will be fun.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now with the sideshows will there be much difference in your set to what you’re doing at the big day out festival dates?
Surge Tankian: Yes, definitely. With my own shows, i will have at least 30 minutes more than what i am given at the festival dates, so there will be more time for material i don’t have time to play. I will be adding more songs from elect the dead, bonus tracks from the record & some covers which don’t make it into the festival sets.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now just finally, once you’re finished here in Australia, what’s coming up for you in the near future?
Surge Tankian: Well its 3 main things really, first i’m off to do some touring in Europe for about a month or so, then i will be going to New Zealand for an orchestral show, where it will be just me & an orchestra which will be very fun & once i’ve got that done i’m going to try & get a new record done, one which is more jazz orchestral based i think.

Access All Areas.net.au: Well Surge, thankyou for your time today & i hope the tour goes well.
Surge Tankian: Thankyou for the time today, i’ve enjoyed the interview, bye.

Interview By: Ben Coby.

Biography

Serj Tankian is not what he used to be. [He's better.] The Lebanese-born
Armenian-American poet gone wild has blossomed beyond voice and hair into true fire and brimstone, melodic visionary perched on a cannonball soaring light speed through the heavens, striking chords from every cloud and raining from the heart.

His newest solo project ELECT THE DEAD, where he plays just about every
instrument, shows more range than the US Missile System, exploding the parameters of "political" or intellectual music into realms of just good shit.

Sonic sanctuary is the term that comes to mind when describing Serj's voice. An angel scribbling into the margins of a book, unholy, contemplating the afterfuture while indicting the overbearing presence of the present (that's poetry mumbo jumbo for "you'll find it pretty cool to hear your son singing along with this album…
You'll pat yourself on the back for raising kids with good taste").

Now pop it in your Prius and listen.
-Saul Williams

One of the most unconventional frontmen in rock, System Of A Down singer Serj Tankian emerges as a solo artist with his debut album Elect The Dead. System Of A Down, whose five genre-bending studio albums have sold over 16 million copies, went on an extended hiatus in August 2006. Since then, Tankian has been holed up in his home studio in Los Angeles writing, recording, and producing Elect The Dead. It is an album that showcases the writing and arranging prowess of a man best known for his inimitable vocals, incisive lyrics, and unwavering dedication to humanitarian causes.

“Making Elect The Dead, I felt the exact same energy as I did recording System’s debut in 1998, that sense of open experimentation, the idea that ‘Wow, I’m actually doing this…’ I was living, eating, and shitting this music every day. I’d wake up in the morning and the thought of working on a song was so powerful I couldn’t focus on anything else.”

Neither a mellow excursion into world music or the frantic war-cry of System that some had predicted, Elect The Dead is multi-faceted and multi-layered. It contains elements of psychedelia, classical, and the trademark surrealist images and skewed time signatures that Tankian has made his own. It is both thought-provoking and from the heart.

“It’s definitely a rock record,” Tankian says enthusiastically. “It’s a moving album with a lot of ups and downs, starts and stops, and tempo changes. It’s depressing but it’s uplifting; it’s jazzy but it rocks.”

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1967 to Armenian parents during tumultuous political times, Tankian lived in Beirut until 1975 when his family emigrated to Los Angeles. A graduate of Marketing & Business from California State University, Tankian was running his own business developing Propriety Vertical Industry Modular Accounting Software (surely a first for a budding rock star?) when in 1995 he co-founded System Of A Down with three friends from the Armenian-American community.
Over the next ten years, System rose to become one of the most inventive hard rock bands of their generation — a band with a conscience, a message, and a desire to constantly evolve. Tankian’s contributions included not only the confrontational and often cryptic lyrics, but also a unique singing voice heavily inspired by growing up listening to his father sing traditional Armenian music. Tankian sings in a cadence like no other: An abrasive, paint-stripping, pulpit-bashing roar one moment, a maudlin lament the next.

Having achieved their goals, the members of System Of A Down decided to pursue their own projects. Tankian continued his work with Axis Of Justice — the grass-roots activist organization he launched with Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello — and nurtured his own Serjical Strike Records. He also lent his vocal and remix skills to a number of artists, ranging from Tool and Deftones to Wu Tang Clan and Notorious B.I.G., and published a book of poetry, Cool Gardens (2002), which remains a best-selling poetry collection. In 2003, he recorded a pan-international sounding album with acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Arto Tunçboyacıyan, under the name SerArt.

It should, by now, be pretty obvious that Serj Tankian is not your typical frontman.

Which brings us back to Elect The Dead. Forget the endless parade of collaborators, guests, remixers, or producers, the album is entirely Serj, though SOAD’s John Dolmayan and Brian ‘Brain’ Mantia (Primus, Tom Waits, Guns N Roses) do lend their drumming skills to the project, and guitarist/bassist Dan Monti and opera soprano Ani Maldjian make an appearance as well.

“With Elect The Dead, the sky’s the limit. There are no barriers between myself and the listeners on this album. It’s more direct,” says Tankian. “It’s liberating because all the choices are mine. With this record all success or failure rests with me. It made me realize that I have an amazing life and I am getting to make a lot of my dreams come true.”
7/07