Episode 1210 - Serj Tankian
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck brothers and sisters?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:I'm not winded.
Marc:Maybe I am.
Marc:Maybe I'm a little winded.
Marc:Serge Tankian is on the show today.
Marc:He is the lead singer of System of a Down.
Marc:He also works with Tom Morello from Rage Against a Machine, as well as on his own solo stuff.
Marc:He's an outspoken activist on human rights issues.
Marc:And there's a new documentary about him called Truth to Power.
Marc:Now, I came, like, as many of you know me,
Marc:which many of you do i'm not a metal guy i appreciate the metal some of it the metal i be look i like all kinds of music but i hypnotized and mesmerized were those the two records i remember listening to i don't remember which one came out first but i listened to the shit out of it i don't remember who turned me on to it or what year that was it seemed like a while back but i was definitely aware of system of a down i knew they were intense i knew they meant fucking business
Marc:And I also knew as time went on that they were Armenian.
Marc:I knew about Serge a bit.
Marc:But when I got the opportunity to watch this documentary, I was like, holy shit, this guy's got big balls, man.
Marc:He walks to walk this guy.
Marc:on an activist level.
Marc:I also realized, and as many of us do, about things, about stuff, about places other than our own place, I don't know much about it.
Marc:I don't know anything about Armenia.
Marc:Really.
Marc:And I live amongst the Armenians.
Marc:Now...
Marc:And I was curious.
Marc:I mean, I could have read a book.
Marc:I looked at a wiki page.
Marc:But, you know, somebody like Serge who has been doing activism around a while back changing the political system of Armenia to a more democratic situation and then to get the recognition of
Marc:to elevate the recognition of the Armenian genocide globally, especially in the United States.
Marc:But Serge had a profound impact on the politics of modern-day Armenia.
Marc:And he's a metal dude, but he means business.
Marc:Also, this is solo work, but I wanted to be schooled.
Marc:I wanted to learn.
Marc:I wanted to know about the Armenian experience in America and in Armenia and what's happening.
Marc:And I asked Serge.
Marc:And he schooled me.
Marc:And I appreciate it.
Marc:In other news, I'm going to get a vaccine.
Marc:I'm going to use my vulnerability to death, my vulnerability to death to get a vaccine.
Marc:Got a little bit of heart disease going on.
Marc:Why not use those things for a positive?
Marc:Hey, man, look, I got a lot of things slowly killing me.
Marc:I'd rather not go out with the COVID.
Marc:Can you hit me?
Marc:Hit me.
Marc:Hit me with that Pfizer.
Marc:Hit me with that Moderna.
Marc:Give me that J&J.
Marc:Hit me.
Marc:Hit me.
Marc:Hit me with your rhythm stick.
Marc:Hit me.
Marc:Hit me.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:Where did that come from?
Marc:I'm set up.
Marc:It's going to happen.
Marc:I'm going to get the vaccine.
Marc:Everyone should get the vaccine.
Marc:I don't understand vax resistance.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I just don't get it.
Marc:You know, there used to be polio and measles and stuff, right?
Marc:Y'all know that, right?
Marc:Look, I understand in a gut way, like you don't want to need the vaccine.
Marc:But, you know, sometimes you got to take a hit for the herd.
Marc:That was back when democracy was popular.
Marc:Now there's a growing contingent in this country of outright authoritarians and psycho libertarians bordering on fascists and strange militia groups that, you know, in order for somebody to be empathetic to the idea of the herd in a broad way, in a democratic way, you have to believe in it.
Marc:Get your shot if you can.
Marc:Get it however you can.
Marc:So I got the new kitten.
Marc:I got the new kitten coming.
Marc:New kitten moving in tomorrow.
Marc:Sammy.
Marc:Sammy the kitten.
Marc:I got one of his first IG appearances.
Marc:Not moving, just a still shot.
Marc:Me and Sammy on the couch.
Marc:Being our own things.
Marc:Being our own beings.
Marc:Being our own individuals.
Marc:Sammy's now five weeks and change old.
Marc:Between five and six weeks old.
Marc:We've been bringing him over here.
Marc:Kind of like letting Buster look at him.
Marc:Letting them see each other.
Marc:But Sammy...
Marc:at this stage, doesn't seem to give a fuck about Buster.
Marc:Sammy's just trying to figure out how to get a sense of depth perception, how to jump off a chair, how to eat solid food, how to trot around, how to respond to things that are moving.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, of course, Buster hisses, and Sammy doesn't even acknowledge it.
Marc:But I remember when Buster was a strange little kitten and he lived around my old cats for years.
Marc:Most of Buster's wife he spent as the kitten among the old cats.
Marc:And now he's the older cat with the kitten.
Marc:But certainly Sammy doesn't seem to even notice Buster.
Marc:Buster seems irritated but not hostile.
Marc:I think it's going to work out.
Marc:And I was petting Sammy.
Marc:Little Sammy.
Marc:Little Red Sammy.
Marc:Sammy Red.
Marc:On my chest and he began to shit.
Marc:So I think that brought us together.
Marc:He began to to shit on my shirt and we got him off of me.
Marc:But I I see that as a bonding moment.
Marc:I don't know if Sammy will remember it, but not unlike monkey used to do when he shit on the rug.
Marc:He was looking directly at me.
Marc:Nothing better than a cat looking at you as he shits on your stuff.
Marc:Even on your being.
Marc:Cats.
Marc:Don't you love cats?
Marc:Do they like you?
Marc:Probably not.
Marc:Do you think they do?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:Do you love them?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So Sammy the cat, Sammy the kitten, will be here tomorrow if all works well.
Marc:He seems healthy.
Marc:He's got a couple of his shots already.
Marc:Got to get the rest of the shots, get them checked out.
Marc:Make sure he's not a faulty tyke.
Marc:But now, you know, I'm already attached, and now, like, if he's fucked up, I'm going to have to ride that out.
Marc:I just, you know, it's tough with the pets.
Marc:It's been a rough year for me with pets and people passing.
Marc:I certainly didn't expect one.
Marc:But with the pets, you kind of know it.
Marc:So now, like, there's part of me, it's like, oh, kitten, great.
Marc:Now I get to watch him die if I'm lucky.
Marc:If I live that long.
Marc:Is that a bad way to look at it?
Marc:It feels like it.
Marc:Isn't it?
Marc:It is, right?
Marc:I really, on a day-to-day basis, don't know whether we actually do survive as a democracy or as a country.
Marc:And when things happen, like what happened in Atlanta the day before yesterday, a racist massacre by a radicalized, mentally ill person,
Marc:who probably sees himself as a martyr and will be seen as somebody who inspires racial violence.
Marc:And the fact that that is escalating is not going in the right direction.
Marc:But hopefully in the next few years, we can really get a clear assessment of
Marc:Of how much of that momentum is happening.
Marc:God knows the last four years, we all know which members of our family are part of it.
Marc:And how big the voting block is for.
Marc:Anti-democratic thinking.
Marc:And shameless fascism.
Marc:But this violence.
Marc:The terrorist arm.
Marc:Of the radicalization.
Marc:Of mentally ill people.
Marc:And people filled with hate.
Marc:Is a.
Marc:Definitely happening.
Marc:And it was interesting for me to talk to Serge, who, you know, I don't know how active any of you are, how active we all are.
Marc:You know, we I guess most of us want to do our part.
Marc:And, you know, some people would consider me not as progressive as I should be or not as active as I should be or not doing enough.
Marc:But I do what I can.
Marc:I try to give voice to things.
Marc:But when you're an American and you look at yourself in relation to that and what you can do and what you're willing to do with your life, it's big questions.
Marc:And also, what information are you reacting to?
Marc:But Serge had a very specific action and a hereditary action and an action that goes back to where his family comes from.
Marc:He sought to fight for...
Marc:the recognition of the armenian genocide by the world by the united states government he also fought to protect his helm land from an ongoing kind of oligarchical corrupt governmental structure and uh inspired a new generation
Marc:Of political radicalization through nonviolent means, mostly in Armenia.
Marc:And that was and he's an American Armenian.
Marc:It was inspiring.
Marc:Made me feel like I don't do enough.
Marc:But it was certainly a trip talking to him.
Marc:There's a new documentary about his life called Truth to Power.
Marc:It's available on demand and in virtual cinemas worldwide.
Marc:This is me talking to Serge Tankian.
Thank you.
Marc:oh my god hello search yeah it sounded like you were just having sex i was just like wow this is exciting yeah it's a good way to start good start yeah i'm almost finished just just hang out a minute oh good good yeah yeah yeah i'm just trying to get set up i'm glad you finished yeah why do you want to be rude and be doing that in the middle of everything why is everything tangled up hold on oh my god jesus christ
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Nice to meet you, man.
Marc:Nice to meet you too, brother.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:How you been?
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:Where are you?
Marc:Which location?
Marc:Which bunker are you in?
Marc:Los Angeles in my studio.
Marc:Oh, you're in the studio?
Marc:Do you live here all the time?
Guest:Part of the year, part of the year in New Zealand.
Guest:See, like, what's that?
Guest:When did you do that New Zealand thing?
Guest:When did you do that?
Guest:First time I went was in 2000 on the Big Day Out tour, fell in love with the place and kept on going back.
Guest:2006, I got residency, got a place there and have been going back and forth playing ping pong every year.
Guest:So we were there during lockdown, which was a whole different experience than being here in L.A.
Guest:Way, way different.
Marc:Well, what compelled you then?
Marc:Was it the same sort of, did you know at that time in 2006?
Marc:Because I know you've been on the pulse of the end of the world for a long time.
Marc:Were you like, we better get to, we want to be in the place where the world ends last.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, there's a certain aspect of the political... New Zealand's a great place in many, many ways, obviously.
Guest:Ecologically, it's not the perfect place, but everything's, you know, the water's still clean as far as fishing, the air is clean.
Guest:Everything's organic and all farming is done locally.
Guest:There's a wholesomeness to New Zealand in that sense, ecologically.
Guest:Politically, it's quite smart and lenient.
Guest:It's a real democracy.
Guest:I'll tell you that.
Guest:They don't have K Street lobbying firms.
Guest:They don't have the Electoral College.
Guest:They don't have super PACs.
Guest:They don't have PAC money.
Guest:That helps.
Guest:And they've had good leadership overall.
Guest:During the pandemic, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, she was very communicative.
Guest:She was very on point.
Guest:She told people not to panic.
Guest:When we had the toilet paper stuff going on in the US and everyone was freaking out grabbing too much toilet paper, she got on television and she said,
Guest:you know, we have a beautiful little toilet paper plant on the South Island.
Guest:We're never going to run out.
Guest:So please don't... Let's not embarrass ourselves as well.
Guest:You know, that kind of thing.
Guest:It was very, very charming, very funny.
Guest:Don't freak out about the toilet paper thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And people...
Guest:People responded.
Guest:But there's also something else that I think explains New Zealand's situation besides the non-porous borders.
Guest:Obviously, it's an island.
Guest:Everyone's like, it's an island, douchebag.
Guest:It's not just that.
Guest:It's also because of personal responsibility.
Guest:There's still some type of collective responsibility and understanding by people saying that, okay, we have to do what's best for the country.
Guest:If that means staying home, then so be it.
Guest:We have to do what's best for the country.
Guest:So if that means putting on a mask, then so be it.
Marc:So you mean there's grownups there.
Marc:There's grownups.
Marc:There's rational adults there who who aren't brain fucked so easily.
Guest:Well put.
Marc:So easily misunderstanding the the idea of liberty and freedom.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But look, man, I mean, I'm glad to talk to you.
Marc:I got to be honest.
Marc:I like in terms of.
Marc:system like i jumped on i would say like the two big records were mesmerized and hypnotized i was like i listened to the hell out of those records but i'm not a metal guy so i wasn't there at the beginning of of that's all right of you we'll take you anyway yeah but i am curious you know and i watch the doc as well but i'm curious like i i think that you are not just uh you know a i think you seem to be a real uh
Marc:A bonafide ambassador to Armenia in some respects.
Marc:You're not just by proxy.
Marc:The prime minister invited you there at the turn of the revolution.
Marc:So I think that means you are an actual ambassador to Armenia.
Guest:A cultural one.
Marc:Yeah, a cultural ambassador.
Marc:Yes, I live amongst your people.
Marc:And I'm mad and upset at myself.
LAUGHTER
Marc:that I don't know more.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:And it's one of those things as an American, an entitled American, I guess, and also as a Jew on some level, that my histories are fairly specific.
Marc:And it seems that lately, in the last few months, there's been quite a crisis in Armenia that, again, I'm not educated about and even reading about it, I'm not entirely clear on, but I do know because of the neighborhood I'm in that there's some trouble.
Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Guest:So last year, and a lot of people don't know this, so it's important to discuss.
Guest:Last year in September, on September 27, the combined forces of Azerbaijan, Turkey, along with Syrian mercenaries that Turkey brought in to Azerbaijan, attacked Artsakh.
Guest:Artsakh is an enclave that was historically Armenian for 2,500 years.
Guest:It was under Russian protection.
Guest:in the 1800s, early 1900s.
Guest:It was given by Stalin in 1920 to Azerbaijan during the Soviet Union.
Guest:But the people lived as an autonomous oblast, which means they ran their own affairs.
Guest:They had their own government.
Guest:They lived there freely.
Guest:There were Azeris living there as well and in surrounding areas.
Guest:Azeris?
Guest:Azeris, like from Azerbaijan.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Azerbaijanis, yeah.
Guest:So in the 90s, when the Soviet Union collapsed,
Guest:all these countries proclaimed independence.
Guest:Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ukraine, like all these former Soviet republics proclaimed independence.
Guest:At that time, these Armenians living there also proclaimed independence.
Guest:Now, 95% of the population there in that area was Armenian.
Guest:So the resolution passed for independence because Azerbaijan controlled the territory.
Guest:they reacted angrily and came down with oppressive measures against Armenians.
Guest:So there were these pogroms and killings and all this stuff, which led to an independence movement.
Guest:In 1994, the Armenian Defense Forces took over Artsakh, along with security buffers in that area.
Guest:So they've been running their own affairs for 27 years.
Guest:And then, lo and behold, during the pandemic, Azerbaijan, with the help of Turkey, a major NATO army,
Guest:attacked that enclave with just, you know, everything they had.
Guest:A lot of people died.
Guest:A lot of people were displaced.
Guest:About 140,000 people were displaced from Artsakh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is a couple of months ago.
Guest:This is a couple of months ago.
Guest:It started in September.
Guest:In early November, a ceasefire was signed and Russian peacekeeping troops entered the area and they've been trying to keep the peace since.
Guest:The ceasefire was basically predicated upon the Armenian leadership, the Armenian prime minister,
Guest:This is your guy, your buddy?
Guest:This is, yeah, this is Nigel Pashinin, who led the revolution, and yeah, a friend.
Guest:These guys were a small defense force fighting, you know, a bigger nation, and then backed up by even a bigger nation and 2,000 Syrian jihadist mercenaries.
Guest:There was no chance.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:So this is a Turkish incentive again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Turks gave...
Guest:Erdogan gave whatever support that the dictatorial president of Azerbaijan wanted, and so they had the backbone to actually do it.
Guest:And they did it during a pandemic.
Guest:They committed war crimes.
Guest:There were banned phosphorus, white phosphorus weapons dropped over people, over nature.
Guest:They were bombarding civilian territories the whole time daily.
Guest:Day in and day out it was it was horrific.
Guest:So as Armenian Americans we all galvanized in trying to raise funds for humanitarian support in trying to get media support because you know when Azerbaijan attacked they didn't just attack with military weapons they attacked with propaganda, disinformation, social media bots as you would these days apparently.
Guest:There was a false kind of equality narrative in the press saying that oh no Armenia attacked us and they were like no I mean you came to us and attacked like we were just there.
Marc:And also here, nobody really knows.
Marc:So, you know, it's a passing story.
Guest:Well, we're going through elections.
Guest:We're going through elections, to be fair, and the pandemic.
Guest:And so, look, they picked a time that they knew that the world was going to be distracted.
Marc:So where's it at now?
Guest:It's pretty horrible because Azerbaijan is still holding POWs, Armenian POWs, even though Armenia has released all Azeri POWs.
Guest:They're using it as a tool of divisiveness and kind of creating chaos within the governing system of Armenia.
Guest:There's protests in Armenia.
Guest:There's a lot of divisiveness, a lot of anger, a lot of grief.
Guest:It's a shame because the 2018 Peaceful Velvet Revolution was a unique thing that, again, most Americans don't really know, that really was incredibly special because not only not a single person died and an oligarchic corrupt system was replaced by a progressive democracy, but also it was the first time that decentralized civil disobedience was used as a tool of revolution.
Marc:Yeah, let's come back around to that because you were sort of an intricate part about both in inspiration and action.
Marc:So it seems to me that when you were younger, and you're still pretty intense, but you're not as intense as I thought you would be immediately.
Marc:For some reason when I met you, I thought like, oh my God, it's going to be intense.
Marc:It's going to be earnest, and it's going to be... Yeah, yeah.
Marc:This is going to be like, I'm just going to have to stay on my toes here.
Guest:I was thinking the same about you.
Guest:Oh, come on.
Guest:Come on, you interviewed Obama.
Guest:Give me a break.
Guest:I have to be on my point.
Marc:Oh, yeah, but he was very casual.
Marc:But your parents are both Armenian, from Armenia.
Guest:Not from Armenia.
Guest:My dad was born in Syria.
Guest:My mom from Lebanon.
Guest:My grandparents were survivors of the genocide.
Guest:So they split.
Guest:They left.
Marc:And they ended up in these different places.
Marc:That was 1915, is it?
Marc:Correct.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where were you born?
Guest:I was born in Lebanon.
Guest:I was born in Beirut.
Guest:Seven years old.
Guest:We migrated to L.A.
Guest:when the Lebanese Civil War started.
Guest:Grew up in Los Angeles.
Marc:Where'd you live when you came?
Marc:In Wilshire area?
Marc:Where was the original Glen, the Armenian enclave?
Guest:Hollywood.
Guest:Hollywood.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Little Armenia, which is Hollywood, main Hollywood area.
Guest:So that's where we first lived, then in the valley, mostly back and forth in different places in the valley.
Marc:Never Glendale?
Guest:I never lived in Glendale, no.
Guest:A couple of my band members lived there, but not myself.
Marc:Someone must have lived in Glendale.
Marc:Some relative.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Someone must have lived there, and then they're like, hey, come to Glendale.
Guest:That became the thing, yeah.
Marc:Well,
Marc:Well, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me not unlike the Jews who came over at different points in time.
Marc:You start off in one place altogether, and then as you gain status or economic status, you move to the suburbs to a degree.
Marc:And I would have to think that's what Glendale was, an aspiration.
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:It started out in Little Hollywood, Little Armenia in Hollywood, and then
Guest:moved out to Glendale, it became a more, you know, suburb kind of living and community.
Guest:And there's still a lot of Armenians in the valley as well, in North Hollywood and all over.
Marc:Yeah, but they all, it seems like many came to Los Angeles area.
Marc:Do you know why that is?
Guest:You know, originally the Armenian community was actually settled in Fresno because of agriculture and also on the east coast in Boston.
Guest:We had a lot of Armenians in Watertown.
Guest:But later, the migrations after the 80s, you know, and when Armenia first became independent in 1991 from the Soviet Union, a lot of people came to Los Angeles area.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And when you got here, you spoke only Armenian?
Guest:When I got here, I spoke...
Guest:Mostly Armenian, a little English and a little Arabic because I was born in Lebanon.
Marc:And then you went to an Armenian school.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:I went to an Armenian private school from third grade till the end of high school.
Guest:Then I went to Cal State Northridge, got my degree from Northridge.
Marc:Now, my question is, what were the expectations?
Marc:Because talking to people that come, first generation, wanting to make a go for themselves in America, what were the expectations from your parents in terms of what they wanted you to do or what you thought you should do?
Marc:How did you develop the original chip on your shoulder, Serge?
Guest:Oh, that's what you mean.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'll get to that.
Guest:As far as my parents, I mean, they were in survival mode when they came, you know, they didn't come with much money at all.
Guest:And they were just trying to make a living and trying to get by.
Guest:They made sure that we got a good education, which was very important to them.
Guest:and that we respected and retained our heritage as well, cultural heritage.
Guest:So that was important to them.
Guest:As far as the chip on my shoulder, as you call it, I became an activist because of the kind of weird taboo position of the Armenian genocide within a well-known democracy like the U.S.
Marc:But when did you become aware of that?
Marc:Because it seems to me that you started with your education, but you were going a different direction.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You didn't start with music.
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:I didn't start with music.
Guest:I started playing music while I was in university.
Guest:Just got a little keyboard and played around as a way of relaxing.
Guest:And then I started getting, you know, joined a band.
Guest:Still not very seriously.
Guest:Graduated university with a bachelor's in marketing.
Guest:Started working in the jewelry industry with my dad.
Guest:I had worked, sorry, with my uncle.
Guest:I had worked with my dad in the shoe industry.
Guest:I created a software company and ran a software company for years.
Guest:I did many interesting things.
Guest:I even ran a car wash while I was in university.
Guest:But at one point, I realized that music is my calling.
Guest:It was a huge awakening, an epiphany, if you will.
Marc:How did that happen?
Guest:Well, I was working in downtown with my uncle in the jewelry industry.
Guest:And at nights, I was taking these Kaplan classes in Long Beach so I can learn how to take the LSAT to get into law school.
Guest:Are you going to be a lawyer?
Guest:Look, I know about...
Guest:Yeah, you could see me as a lawyer, right?
Guest:Yeah, I could.
Guest:But, you know, I'm a left brain, right brain person as you are.
Guest:Like, you know, you can do your logical stuff and be creative at the same time.
Guest:So I thought, yeah, OK, I could do law school.
Guest:I was dealing with a lot of attorneys at the time for my parents' affairs and stuff like that.
Guest:And I hated it.
Guest:Just going to these Kaplan classes and seeing all these people that were enthused about doing law, I just fucking... I always say that I had to go to the outer ends of who I shouldn't be to admit to myself who I really am.
Guest:And that's when I had an epiphany that music was my calling.
Marc:That's like, but it just feels to me that the pressure, you know, on, you know, sort of first generation people to succeed in a way that is acceptable in the community, that is acceptable to your parents, that makes sense on paper to them and to you.
Marc:It seems that a lot of people, you know, do what they think they have to do and they just suck it up.
Marc:And it seems to me that, you know, that to make that decision to follow this calling and like, you know, you talk in the documentary a lot about this Armenian song, the Stork song, you know, that kind of hangs over the whole thing, which I think is sort of beautiful.
Marc:But so you didn't really know, you weren't playing, you know, in a band.
Marc:I mean, you didn't have any indication that music would...
Marc:that go anywhere.
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:I just knew that that was my calling.
Guest:So I dedicated myself wholeheartedly to it and just, just, you know, learned and, and, and, and played and I enjoyed it.
Marc:But who were you, who were your guys?
Marc:I mean, like, what were you listening to?
Marc:I mean, to end up where you did.
Marc:Cause I mean, it turns out that like, you know, system of a down, you're just by nature of the form.
Marc:I mean, metal's one thing and, you know, and how it borders on, on punk is another thing, but, but there's something lyrically, you know,
Guest:uh exotic because of the armenian melodies that are intrinsic to all you guys bravo well put well put yeah there is there is there is that you know flavor that we have that you know whether we're going through a song that you know is a mishmash of punk and whatever it is yeah um we've we've got our own kind of folky kind of
Marc:addition to that from from our heritage that that is definitely a trademark it's kind of wild because i think it seems like it's just in there it doesn't see it seems like there's an it's effortless because like yeah you know we'll get back to the influences but i mean there's a weird beat a different beat like a lot of the metal guys you know try to get away from
Marc:blues based anything so you know you get it you get into this this other type of drive but there is a there's a different rhythm to uh to the music of the region that you come from genetically that's right yeah and i don't know what that rhythm is but i hear it i used to hear it in queens too it's in greece as well i think you like there it is yeah yeah
Marc:Mediterranean.
Marc:Yeah, right, right.
Marc:And it's a rolling rhythm that's completely different than 4-4 or anything that other metal bands were doing.
Marc:And that must be, was that the rhythm you grew up with?
Guest:You know, we all grew up with different types of music besides rock and modern music at the time.
Guest:So yeah, I mean, I grew up with Armenian beats and melodies, Arabic beats and melodies, and European beats and melodies.
Guest:I mean, I was exposed to a lot of stuff.
Guest:Before we even, you know, as a kid, before we even moved to L.A.
Guest:And then in L.A.
Guest:in the 70s, it was, you know, Bee Gees and, you know, disco and so many things.
Guest:And 80s was a different type of music.
Guest:I kind of became a music connoisseur as to what I was listening to.
Guest:My brother was a huge music fan.
Guest:And I wasn't at the time I wasn't a heavy metal music listener, not a big fan of rock.
Guest:My younger brother, actually.
Guest:But he loved like heavy music.
Guest:So he'd played at home and that's how I kind of caught on to heavy music.
Guest:But, you know, I was just into any other types of music.
Guest:You know, it's like it's an interesting thing when you look at a person and their whole life of music listening, that tapestry of what they listen to in each decade is quite interesting based on the kind of characteristics of the music of that decade.
Guest:so i remember at one point mark i was i was for three months i would binge and purge on a specific type of music three months of hip-hop three months only death metal the best of it because like you naturally did it or you forced yourself to do it i didn't force myself to do it it just it was it was almost like i'd get into one band that i really liked and then i'd go i've never really i've never experienced this genre before it's like i've never eaten indian food before what are the best
Marc:Indian restaurants in LA, you know, that kind of a thing with music.
Marc:When do you remember first doing that?
Marc:Like what got you into rap?
Marc:What got you into metal?
Guest:20s, 30s.
Guest:My brother was into metal, so he got me into it first.
Guest:And then my guitarist, Darren, was really into heavy music.
Guest:So he also turned me on to a lot of music.
Guest:Like which bands are your bands?
Guest:God, I mean, you know, we're listening to anything from the band Death, for example, to, you know, Slayer, who we toured with on our first thing to, you know, I mean, heavy, heavy music, a lot of death metal music, but also rock music, you know.
Guest:I mean, I didn't grow up listening to Black Sabbath, for example, or whatever.
Guest:It was in my 20s that I discovered Black Sabbath, not in my teens or whatever, you know, just late in life.
Guest:So I had an early music experience of another kind of
Guest:Mostly world music, what you would call world music and whatnot.
Guest:World music.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:Whatever that means, right?
Guest:But it's a specific type of music.
Guest:I guess it's more folky type of ethnic music would be world music.
Guest:When you started playing, you were primarily a singer?
Guest:No, I was a horrible singer when we first started.
Guest:I primarily played keys and I wrote poetry.
Guest:So I was a word man and, you know, a keyboard man.
Guest:And then I started playing some guitar.
Guest:My first band that I sang in was a precursor to System of a Down called Soil with my guitarist Darren.
Guest:And we had other band members at the time, not the current lineup of System.
Guest:And it was just like this really progressive chorus.
Guest:crazy metal band that served as like the the kind of pot in which System of a Down became, you know, cooked in.
Guest:Yeah, it was the original flavors and System is more kind of refined version of that.
Guest:But that's when I got my first kind of I had my first show as a singer and I had my first experience.
Guest:rehearsing as a singer and starting to develop my voice, which takes a lifetime sometimes.
Marc:And your parents, how did they respond initially?
Guest:Well, my dad, funny enough, was a musician.
Guest:He wasn't a professional musician and he always wanted to do music as his career, but his dad, my grandfather, passed away when he was in second grade.
Guest:And so he couldn't afford to take the risk, so he got into the shoe business and spent his whole life providing for the family, being a responsible person.
Guest:Did he always play, though?
Guest:He always played.
Guest:Yeah, he still plays.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Years ago, we put out his record.
Guest:I produced his record under his name, which was cool.
Guest:Armenian music and well-arranged kind of stuff.
Guest:And he was happy.
Marc:How did that go over in Armenia?
Marc:Did it sell?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So the song, Bari Araqil, that you're referring to, the Crane song, is the one that I do with him.
Guest:And that's how I first published that song is because I sang it on his record with him.
Guest:And that's a song that he used to sing when I was young, and I used to hear him and kind of sing along when I was a young kid.
Guest:And so it does bring back a lot of memories.
Marc:It seems like that was sort of the kind of launching point for your poetic mind.
Marc:I mean, what is that song about?
Marc:It represents something, right?
Guest:It's about missing home.
Guest:It's about being a diasporan.
Guest:It's about having a home that's somewhere else, you know?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:that you always long for, but you're kind of estranged from, and that you always want to return home some way.
Guest:And I don't know if you could or can't.
Guest:It's a beautiful song in that way.
Marc:It's interesting because it's different for me.
Marc:I'm a few generations down from my Polish or Ukrainian or Russian roots.
Marc:I don't know that if I went back...
Guest:as a you know as a jew to to uh to russia to belarus that i'm gonna walk around and go like you know this feels like home to me yeah maybe not yeah maybe not well it's the same feeling i would have probably going to uh eastern turkey which is where my family's from you know we're from central to eastern turkey which was historical armenia so where my family was from
Guest:Wasn't where Armenia is now where my family from is Turkey.
Guest:Yeah, so I've never been back And I don't think I don't know what kind of feelings I would have going to my uncle my grandfather's village that he was You know deported from and put on a pogrom through the desert I don't know what kind of feelings I would have going going all this place is cool Like I get it.
Guest:I get what you feel.
Marc:So are there no Armenians in Turkey?
Guest:There are some, but not, you know, I mean, there were millions of Armenians because they were our historical homelines.
Guest:There's probably, I'm guessing, 30,000, 40,000 in Istanbul, probably based around Istanbul.
Marc:And your awakening, you realized how...
Marc:how the global politics worked in relation to admitting or acknowledging the Armenian genocide or calling it a genocide, that there was global politics involved with defining that, that was being guided by Turkey's denial of it.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:And when did that happen for you?
Marc:When did you be like, well, this is...
Marc:This is fucked up.
Marc:And when did the roots or the experience of your grandparents start to affect you personally?
Guest:I was in my teens, somewhere in my teens.
Guest:I don't remember the exact age, but somewhere in my teens, you know, when I saw that Congress hadn't recognized the genocide and they were playing with this G word.
Guest:And, you know, we knew that Turkey was spending millions of dollars on, you know,
Guest:lobbying firms, K Street lobbying firms trying to not get the Armenian Genocide recognized in the United States Congress.
Guest:And I'm like, how could this be in a democracy?
Guest:Like, how could this be happening?
Guest:And that made me really, you know, look into
Guest:What are the reasons?
Guest:What's the history behind this denial?
Guest:Why is this happening?
Guest:And that made me an activist on many grounds because I thought, shit, if this thing's not recognized for political expediency or economic purposes, because the US wants to sell Apache helicopters to their NATO ally, Turkey,
Guest:Then how many other truths out there that are being denied because someone's profiting from it or or because of foreign policy or whatever, whatever fucked up, you know, thing there is that that made me an activist.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it seems like ultimately it informed almost all of the system records, you know, either specifically or in a broader way.
Marc:You were pushing back against something.
Marc:against you know the sort of like brain the brain fucking and the mind numbing and the hypocrisy and the you know the the murder the bombing the gen like there was not not too light-hearted really and not too thinly veiled and and i think that what i see
Marc:Or what I can pick up is that, you know, there is a general sense of anger in a lot of metal music, but yours was rooted in something historical.
Marc:And it was something historical that also spoke to current conditions everywhere in terms of power and politics.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:No, I mean, our music became, my music became somewhat, not all of it, because, you know, we're not like Rage Against the Machine.
Guest:That's all political because we also have funny songs and songs about love and many things.
Guest:But definitely a part of my music has always been sociopolitical, you know, because there's a certain, the activist in me wants his say through my music, wants his say through the artist in me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also, but the balance is funny songs, love songs.
Marc:I mean, there has to be some aspiration.
Marc:You could do the politics.
Marc:We got to fix everything because look, we can laugh and we can celebrate life and dance.
Marc:But speaking of rage, I mean, you and Tom Morello were, I mean, you somehow found yourself together or you decided to work together on something that seemed to make perfect sense.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:So Tom and I have been friends for a long time.
Guest:And when we first met, there was an action that he wanted to do in Santa Monica where the local businesses had come up with a law that you can't feed the homeless.
Guest:And so we kind of got together on that topic and decided to break the law and invite media to focus on the topic that the city was trying to outlaw feeding homeless people as a way of getting rid of them.
Guest:And so that's when we started our nonprofit organization called Access of Justice that we had for a number of years.
Guest:We had a radio show on KPFK Pacifica Radio Network for years together and really enjoyed working with each other.
Guest:We still do.
Guest:He does his own activism.
Guest:I do my own, but I'm very inspired by
Guest:the amount of dedication he has and hard work that he puts into everything that he does.
Guest:It's incredible.
Marc:Yeah, oh yeah, no, and he's always, it seems like he's always been doing that.
Marc:That, like, yeah, even with the rage.
Marc:Like, from the beginning, it seemed that's what it was about.
Marc:Always true to himself, yeah.
Marc:So...
Marc:I know I didn't know about the situation in Armenia before the new prime minister took over.
Marc:But it was pretty straight up dictatorship, right?
Guest:No, it wasn't a dictatorship, Mark.
Guest:It was actually we had free press from the beginning since 1991.
Guest:It wasn't a dictatorship, but it was more of like gangs of New York in a way, like where a bunch of bodies were oligarchs.
Guest:They held the monopolies.
Guest:They controlled the system.
Guest:From back in the Russian days?
Guest:No, not from back in the Russian days, but...
Guest:Most of those Soviet republics were similar in that sense that you would.
Guest:I mean, sometimes they'd have a dictator that stayed in place like Lukashenko still been there from the Russian days.
Guest:It wasn't like that with them, but they held on.
Guest:I mean, how do I explain this?
Guest:It was all hierarchical.
Guest:I mean, they were they were like a group of people.
Guest:They all had money.
Guest:They all siphoned money away from public policy.
Guest:And you couldn't get a fair shake in the courts because if someone knew someone, then they would have the you know, they would have the up.
Guest:upper hand.
Guest:You could pay off cops, that kind of thing.
Guest:It was basic corruption.
Guest:It was basic, you know, it wasn't legalized corruption like the U.S.
Guest:It was overt corruption.
Marc:But it wasn't Erdogan.
Marc:It wasn't Turkey.
Guest:No, it wasn't Erdogan.
Guest:We've always had a free press.
Guest:Armenians are way too opinionated to be able to withstand any type of dictator.
Guest:But we were living under, you know, an unjust corrupt system and people were leaving because they were looking for work elsewhere.
Guest:They didn't get a fair shake in the country.
Marc:And when did that happen?
Marc:Because, you know, I know that you took some flack, you know, in the aftermath of 9-11 because of the timing of what was it?
Marc:The third album release?
Marc:Second.
Guest:Toxicity.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that, you know, you were you were a political activist then.
Marc:And your reaction, which wasn't incorrect, was just the timing of it, of course, got you the attention that it did, which was who the fuck is this guy?
Marc:Is he one of them?
Guest:yeah right yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly um so yeah in in so you know it's it's kind of funny you're mentioning this because we just got you know metal hammer just just said that toxicity was the best record of best metal record of the 20th century or whatever best rock record which is which is huge but all i can think about is the stress and anguish around that record um
Guest:Because when we released the single Chop Suey from Toxicity, you know, the wake up, grab brush and put a little, that song, right?
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:I mean, the release was on the week of 9-11.
Guest:They took our song off the air, along with a bunch of other songs, Rage Against the Machine songs, you know, all sorts of music.
Guest:And Clear Channel had censored like the whole playlist of music, which is really weird looking back at it now, if you think about it.
Guest:And I had written a piece called Understanding Oil that I posted to the band's website a day after 9-11, trying to understand what was going on, trying to kind of basically saying that, look, as a country, we've propped up dictators in the Middle East in the last 50 years.
Guest:Look who we're supporting, how we're doing it.
Guest:And really asking for multilateralism in terms of going after who's responsible, not being unilateral like George W. Bush,
Guest:we knew was going to be etc etc and you know it's kind of funny because now they're using it for you know a college essay learning like which is like 20 years later you know but at the time it was like it really put us on the edge and the label asked us to take it off the website the band called me in they're like you're a smart guy are you trying to get us killed what the fuck are you doing you know and i'm like but it's the truth
Guest:You must have been a little scared, though, no?
Guest:I was very scared, sure.
Marc:We were getting threats.
Marc:I tell you, man, you definitely got big balls in terms of how you handled that, but I have to assume that you must have been out of your mind.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I'm just, I'm dedicated to the truth in a very naive way.
Guest:And that's all I have to say.
Guest:So for me, it was just like, it's the truth.
Guest:And I've learned since, Mark, that there are many times, it's not the only time in history where you can speak truth and public opinion hasn't caught up to that until later.
Marc:Yeah, I get that.
Guest:And you get flack for that.
Guest:And then later in revisionist history, or whatever you want to call it, you're like, oh yeah, that made sense.
Guest:That totally makes sense, right?
Guest:Right, indeed.
Marc:And if you're lucky, you're alive and you haven't been ruined.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You can appreciate your vindication.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Well, it's never vindication because what happened were, you know, the invasion of Iraq, which literally had nothing to do with 9-11.
Guest:And yet they tried to make that link.
Guest:WMDs, all that stuff, which we now know was non-existent.
Guest:So you never really feel good unless something good happens from it.
Marc:Yeah, but, you know, awareness is not nothing.
Marc:And all of this is building your sort of, you know, personal political and philosophical and activist capital for, you know, what you want to accomplish.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So when it comes down to, you know, stepping up with your home country, with Armenia, like was system of a down popular in Armenia immediately?
Guest:On the first album?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:Nobody knew who we were.
Guest:And I think it was after this, I'm guessing if it was after the second record, but it was also our band's activism having to do with awareness of the genocide that really kind of touched upon the Armenian kind of heart.
Guest:And, you know, if I go to Glendale now, an old lady will come up and hug me, not because she listens to System of a Down, but because she knows that my band and I have been
Guest:working toward the recognition of the genocide for years, right?
Marc:She doesn't love that second album?
Guest:She doesn't love that second album.
Guest:She's not into metal.
Guest:She's like, you know, it's like, right?
Guest:So there's definitely that aspect of it.
Marc:But it seemed like by the time you guys go there the first time, I mean, you know, it would seem to me that Armenians would see your names and be like, look, Armenians.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because it looks like by the time you got there, you know, there were thousands of people that identified with you and the band and the message.
Guest:True.
True.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was, you know, about 20 years after we formed the band and, you know, we'd been asked to go and that was the perfect time for the band to go.
Guest:And it was it was an incredible, incredible feeling.
Guest:That was before the revolution.
Guest:It was three years before the revolution.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was 2015, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and the government invited
Guest:the band to come and play a free show in Republic Square.
Guest:Did he know what he was getting into?
Guest:They did.
Guest:They did because I, you know, in 2013, I had written an open letter to the president at the time, Serge Sarkisian, in kind of basically calling him out on vote rigging and
Guest:You know, you know, basically taking the elections in an undemocratic way.
Guest:And we had letters exchanged back and forth within the press openly.
Guest:So I I challenged them.
Guest:And but they knew that when it came to the genocide and my dedication.
Guest:to my grandfather's history and the importance of the recognition that basically I would, you know, we would play the show and that we would represent our nation having to do with the recognition of the genocide.
Guest:And the 100th anniversary was huge because Germany recognized the genocide.
Guest:The Vatican recognized the genocide officially.
Guest:You know, many other countries came into the recognition sphere.
Guest:But I also had to kind of
Guest:speak truth to power from stage, the truth serum, as we call it.
Guest:And, you know, so when it was time, I actually started, you know, started thinking of my grandparents, both of my grandparents.
Guest:I felt like they were there in spirit with me.
Guest:And I started just talking
Guest:And basically, you know, talking about the fact that Obama had as a candidate, you know, blamed George Bush for not recognizing the Armenian genocide.
Guest:But when he became president because of the NATO links of Turkey and stuff like that, he didn't recognize the genocide properly and talked about the Armenian government at the same time and said, listen, you know,
Guest:You got we got to change this.
Guest:This is this is not right.
Guest:There's injustice.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So this is 2015.
Marc:So this is long.
Marc:I mean, this is years after mesmerize and hypnotize.
Marc:So like I mean, so by this point, all Armenians knew your band.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So like, tell me that story, though, because like I thought that, you know, there was something kind of amazing about your turning away.
Marc:Atlantic Records.
Marc:What year was that?
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:Yeah, that is an interesting story.
Guest:I'm trying to remember the year.
Guest:But you already had a record out, right?
Guest:Year two?
Guest:Yeah, no, we had our records out.
Guest:I had a small imprint, a label, and I had signed this band from Texas called Fair to Midland, really great progressive rock band.
Marc:But it was about your imprint.
Marc:It wasn't about the system records.
Guest:It wasn't about System of a Down, no.
Guest:Yeah, it was about another band.
Guest:And so we signed them to our imprint because we found them really interesting.
Guest:And then we tried to get a distribution deal for them with a major label, which you would do at the time.
Guest:And so there were a number of labels interested, Universal, Atlantic, and a couple of others.
Guest:So they flew us out to New York to kind of present the band and kind of do their pitches, like take them out to dinner, schmooze, do their pitches, right?
Guest:So each company did their pitch.
Guest:Atlantic, you know, had a great pitch, and we had a great meeting with them.
Guest:And Craig Kalman, who's a friend, he's the, you know, he runs the label, still runs the label as far as I know.
Guest:And by the end of our meeting, he said, hey, you want to come in and say hi to the old man?
Guest:And I'm like, old man?
Guest:Oh, Ahmed Erdogan.
Guest:Yeah, the guy that signed, you know, Zeppelin and Ray and, you know, like all these amazing bands.
Guest:Like he was a legend, right?
Guest:I'm like, sure, I'd love to meet him.
Guest:So I went and sit down, 70s office.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I mean, he's the guy, man.
Guest:He's like, he did every, yeah, Ray Charles, he did everybody.
Guest:I know, I know, incredible.
Guest:So I sat down with him, I'm talking to him, and I'm like, I'm so appreciative of what you've done, you know, amazing, I'm so grateful, thank you for meeting me, et cetera, whatever.
Guest:And then somehow it came, I knew he was Turkish, obviously, and I said, by the way, I'm Armenian, and I grew up in Los Angeles and stuff.
Guest:And immediately he goes, oh, the first person we had at our label was Armenian, almost defensively, like, oh, I have a black friend, like that kind of a, you know, response.
Guest:And I just, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to put much into this, whatever.
Guest:So we kept on talking, whatever.
Guest:And then 10 minutes, you know, met with him and left.
Guest:And on my way back, they had internet on the plane.
Guest:And I got on and something was irking me inside.
Guest:And I typed his name, Ahmed Erdogan.
Guest:And then I wrote the word genocide behind it.
Guest:And my jaw dropped.
Guest:When I saw what had happened, you know, his dad apparently was the ambassador of Turkey to the United States way long ago in the 1930s.
Guest:And his dad was instrumental in holding back a film about the Armenian genocide called The 40 Days of Musadal by Franz Werfel.
Guest:Franz Werfel is a Jewish-German author who had written a huge book about the Armenian genocide in the 1930s.
Guest:So he convinced MGM not to put out that movie, his dad, right?
Guest:He himself, Ahmed Erdogan, had paid millions of dollars to U.S.
Guest:think tanks and also university chairs, set up university chairs.
Guest:who had hired authors who denied the Armenian genocide.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then I was in this weird conundrum now.
Guest:I'm trying to sign this deal to a label.
Guest:And I'm like, how did this happen with an American band from Texas?
Guest:How does this happen to me?
Guest:How do I get into these things?
Marc:Now you're on the integrity line again.
Guest:Now on the integrity line again, accidentally, all right?
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:So now I'm like, what do I do?
Guest:And the story is very interesting.
Guest:We don't get into it that much in the film.
Guest:So I told my friend, Craig Kullman, who ran the label, I said, I'm not going to hold this against the label, obviously, because that's not fair.
Guest:But I'm telling you the pros and cons of your label.
Guest:the pros and cons of the other label we're looking at.
Guest:So you're aware that band hasn't made a decision yet.
Guest:I'll get back to you when they do.
Guest:But when our conversation was over, I said, there's one more thing that has nothing to do with business.
Guest:Can I talk to you about it?
Guest:He's like, yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, the old man.
Guest:And he goes, what about the old man?
Guest:I told him what happened.
Guest:I put his name and the word genocide behind it and discovered all these things.
Guest:He goes, let me look into it and call you back.
Guest:I said, no pressure.
Guest:All good.
Guest:You know?
Guest:So apparently he told me later that he went into Ahmed Erdogan's office, typed Ahmed Erdogan genocide on Ahmed Erdogan's computer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then listed all this stuff.
Guest:Because Ahmed basically told Craig, how does he know all this stuff?
Guest:It's the days of the Internet, right?
Guest:It's public, right?
Guest:And so he did that.
Guest:And then he called me and he said, Ahmed wants to speak to you.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, okay, cool.
Guest:Let's talk.
Guest:So he called me.
Guest:He calls me and he's like, oh, you know, that was a long time ago when we started that chair.
Guest:That writer is gone and all that stuff.
Guest:He even said, I believe the Armenian genocide should be recognized.
Guest:I have friends in Turkey.
Guest:I'm friends with the prime minister.
Guest:I have a house in Turkey, all this stuff.
Guest:Let's get together and talk.
Guest:Why don't I fly you in?
Guest:And I thought about it and I said, Ahmed, I said, listen, I'd be happy to meet with you.
Guest:I got no problems in talking to you about it.
Guest:But I said, ultimately, my whole career has been based on telling my grandfather's story and the truth about the Armenian genocide.
Guest:If I'm to work with someone that's, you know, spent money and helped the denial of that genocide, it's going to make me look like a hypocrite.
Guest:So if you want to work with me, I need a letter from you that says, I, Ahmed Erdogan, recognize the Armenian genocide.
Guest:I promise not to publicize it unless I get...
Guest:I turned into an asshole somehow.
Marc:You wanted your, what do you call it?
Marc:You wanted the security deposit.
Guest:Security deposit, right?
Guest:He goes, I can't do that.
Guest:And I said, well, why not?
Guest:He said, because they'll burn my house in Turkey.
Guest:And I said, then don't do it.
Guest:I wouldn't want anything to happen to you or anyone else, like violence-wise and stuff.
Guest:And he goes, let me think about it.
Guest:Maybe there's another way and nothing ever happened of it.
Guest:Now, to my credit, I never told a band this story until after they made a decision.
Guest:And they decided to go with Universal, not Atlantic at the time.
Guest:So I didn't have a problem with that.
Marc:And you didn't even have to tell him that.
Marc:You didn't have to tell him, like, I got this personal problem.
Marc:It's a genocide thing.
Guest:It's just a little genocide thing, right?
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
Guest:Like some of these situations that I've kind of just been thrown in to kind of deal with.
Marc:I mean, but what a beautiful negotiation on some level.
Marc:That, you know, that by doing that and not just, you know, it's a sign of maturity as an activist to not just act reactionary like and say, you know, fuck you.
Marc:Fuck Atlantic Records.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:Right.
Guest:No, because the people at Atlantic Records were great.
Guest:Like they were really they're really a great label.
Marc:But for him to to to meet you where you live and say, well, this is what's up.
Marc:You know, I believe.
Marc:this now, and at the time we did this.
Marc:But then to ultimately say, I can't do that because of the threat to my livelihood or to my liking, I'm not willing to do that.
Marc:But that gave you an out.
Guest:It gave me an out.
Guest:But it's not so much the business thing I was worried about, but
Guest:It also shows what Erdogan's Turkey is, E-R-T-O-G-A-N, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey.
Guest:His Turkey is very, it's dictatorial.
Guest:It's completely dictatorial.
Guest:And he's got hundreds of thousands of people that he's put in jail since the coup, you know, been killing Kurds left and right, right?
Guest:Invading Syria, invading Libya, the Mediterranean, trying to drill in the Mediterranean next to Greece and Cyprus, right?
Guest:Helping...
Guest:Another dictator invade Artsakh with Azerbaijan and bringing in Syrian mercenaries.
Guest:They're using Syrian mercenaries as proxy armies everywhere now, you know.
Guest:And I'm hoping, I'm really hoping that Blinken and Biden put a stop to this once and for all.
Marc:And it seems that, like, you know, in terms of your solo career, that, you know, outside of system...
Marc:And once you sort of, I think, relaxed in your own skin around your activism and actually saw progress in terms of the message and in terms of raising awareness and doing the things that activists do and then ultimately being invited on the eve of revolution.
Guest:uh to armenia to be there for for that success and uh and then you know the prime minister said he sort of credited you right for inspiration he was there in the crowd like yeah when i met him when when i went to armenia he was there in the crowd watching system of a down with his wife and and you know he told me that he thought and we show it in the film that he said look if you can bring 50 000 people out there we should be able to bring some people to the square and change this country for the for the better it gave him hope you know um but
Guest:But honestly, that was an amazing work, the whole revolution, story of the revolution.
Guest:Oh, we got a film coming out, another film I helped co-produce and score called I Am Not Alone.
Guest:It's an award-winning film, and it's a documentary about the 2018 Velvet Revolution in Armenia.
Guest:We're going to put it out this year.
Guest:And it kind of goes through the whole, it shows you how the revolution happened, like from day one and, you know, all the ups and downs, the whole storyline.
Guest:It's really well done.
Guest:Same director who did Truth to Power, Garin Hovanissian, also directed I Am Not Alone.
Marc:And you were talking about earlier about the idea of the soft revolution.
Marc:How did that tactically work?
Guest:The decentralized civil disobedience.
Marc:Yeah, decentralized civil disobedience.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So at first, you know, most revolutions that we know, like we see it in Belarus, Myanmar, elsewhere, everyone gathers in a square, large numbers.
Guest:The police are there.
Guest:It's either violent or nonviolent, right?
Guest:If the police react, there might be violence, a lot of arrests, this, that.
Guest:And that happened in the beginning.
Guest:And Armenians had, you know, were very outspoken people.
Guest:And so we've had a protest almost every year since independence because it's either an issue-based protest or whatever, different things, because people weren't happy.
Guest:But...
Guest:They learned from these former protests that, look, if we all gather in a square, they're going to either arrest us, right?
Guest:Or there's going to be violence.
Guest:And we don't want either.
Guest:Like, we don't want it to be a violent revolution.
Guest:They stuck to their nonviolent, you know, theories very strongly.
Yeah.
Guest:So they and everything they were trying failed.
Guest:Like they were trying to galvanize people, meet in a square.
Guest:Not many people showed up, do this, do that.
Guest:And then they started gaining momentum as soon as they realized that people were watching the current prime minister, who was the revolutionary leader, Niko Pashinyan, on Facebook Live.
Guest:And he's like, shit.
Guest:OK, so he ran and put himself in front of a bus.
Guest:I mean, this is a member of parliament in Armenia.
Guest:OK, he ran and put himself in front of a bus, a public bus in the middle of Central Square in the capital and refused to get up unless, you know, told the bus to run over him if he really needs to go.
Guest:Kids saw him do that and started blocking intersections all over the country, wherever they lived.
Guest:So you don't have to go to the capital, to the central square.
Guest:You want to protest?
Guest:Go block your little street next to you.
Guest:They started doing that.
Guest:The whole country shut down.
Guest:The whole country shut down.
Guest:And then at that point, they had the government's attention.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then they were like, they took it a step further.
Guest:They're like, okay, tomorrow, every bus, every truck driver in the country, wherever you are at noon, stop and honk.
Guest:The loudest noise ever made in Armenia, likely, you know, like the whole, you know, just literally not violent and not chaotic, nonviolent, non chaotic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No, no hurting people.
Guest:If the police, they told them if the police come to you, run, don't get arrested, don't fight, run.
Guest:But then come back and reclose the street because you've got them in numbers.
Guest:They can't overwhelm you.
Guest:The people are always more than the administration.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, you're sort of hoping for a non-fascistic response.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And you.
Guest:And luckily, we had so many protests and so many previous things that the government was also wary of strong crackdowns because they've done that before and it's bit them in the ass, right?
Guest:So they were careful.
Guest:But these people were also like, the police are our brothers and sisters.
Guest:Let's not harm them.
Guest:They took the whole Gandhi approach, the protesters.
Guest:So it was a very unique thing to watch.
Guest:And
Guest:And, you know, as someone who's an activist my whole life, seeing something like this anywhere would be interesting, let alone Armenia, the small country of Armenia.
Guest:And so they did it and it succeeded.
Guest:At one point, the government officials were taking ambulances to go to their offices because they couldn't.
Guest:The airport was closed.
Guest:Everything was closed.
Guest:They couldn't get anywhere.
Guest:They had them on their knees.
Guest:And I'll let you watch the film so that you can learn the whole story.
Guest:But I think there's a lot to learn from...
Guest:from that example that can be replicated elsewhere in the world, whether it's Hong Kong, Belarus, Myanmar, anywhere, because there is a way by just using numbers in a peaceful manner to overwhelm the system.
Guest:Now, obviously, it won't work everywhere.
Guest:Police might be extremely violent.
Guest:They might kill people.
Guest:Obviously, there's no magic formula, but there is something unique in this that could be very useful.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And it worked.
Marc:The people's will was honored.
Marc:And you were invited back for the celebration.
Guest:I was invited back.
Guest:Man, I landed at the airport.
Guest:I remember, Mark, as soon as we got out of the airport, the streets were full of people elated.
Guest:Not smiling, not happy, not rock and real where they're partying, but like beyond that.
Guest:I've never seen elation in my life.
Guest:That was a unique experience.
Guest:It was as if they were freed from indentured servitude of some type, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is a beautiful thing to see.
Guest:Beautiful.
Guest:I bet.
Guest:And just to be a small part of it was extremely exciting and it gave me a decade of extra life, I'm sure.
Guest:And just to see that change occur...
Guest:was really touching, really touching, yeah.
Marc:When did the United States finally acknowledge officially the genocide in Armenia?
Guest:Both houses of Congress recognized it in December 2019.
Guest:Just two years ago?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:104 years after.
Marc:It happened.
Guest:It happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, to fairness to Congress, House of Representatives has in the 1970s and 80s, not Senate, but the House of Representatives had recognized the genocide solely, but not both houses.
Guest:So it never became law, really.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And President Reagan was the only president who's actually ever used the word genocide to talk about what happened to Armenia, you know.
Guest:to Armenians.
Guest:So, yeah, it's quite interesting.
Marc:But now it's on the record.
Guest:Now it's on the record in terms of Congress.
Guest:So we're hoping, like I said, that President Biden takes that as, you know, as official policy.
Guest:And, you know, again, this would have no bearing on Turkey in terms of it doesn't mean they can't do trade with Turkey, the U.S.
Guest:can't do trade or whatever.
Guest:It doesn't have teeth.
Guest:But Turkey is still pissed off because they're still denying that their ancestors committed this atrocity.
Guest:that the whole world knows about.
Guest:European Union, European Parliament, France, the whole world, majority of the world and many countries have recognized the genocide and they are still hanging on to that, that it didn't happen or it was a war, it happened during war, everyone dies, that kind of a thing.
Guest:They said the same thing about the Holocaust, didn't they at first?
Guest:And the difference, Mark, is that there were no Nuremberg trials after the Armenian Genocide.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:No one was held accountable.
Guest:No one was put in place.
Guest:There were tribunals, military tribunals by Turkey itself, who basically condemned the those that committed the atrocities in absentia.
Guest:They had already fleed the country to Germany, mostly Germany, Argentina, that kind that kind of stuff, just like just like after the Holocaust.
Marc:But are the names out there?
Marc:Do people know who they are?
Marc:Is it documented?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:A couple of them were taken out by assassins.
Guest:And, you know, and they were, yeah, they had all fled.
Guest:But then what happened in Turkey, you know, after the war is different than what happened in Germany after World War II.
Guest:Turkey felt...
Guest:because the powers that defeated Turkey, the West basically, were there, they were in Istanbul and now they have to deal with what are the repercussions, what do we do now, right?
Guest:And President Woodrow Wilson of the US, he had a plan that was based on justice rather than based on geopolitical realities and needs of resource acquisition of the United States.
Guest:So he went to the treaty at the time and basically said, we need to set up a League of Nations, which is the precursor of the United Nations.
Guest:He basically said that a part of historical Armenia, which is in Turkey, should be given back to the Armenians, that the United States should act as guarantor of that land and make sure security, that kind of thing, because these people were slaughtered.
Guest:One and a half million Armenians died.
Guest:That was 50% of our population at that time.
Guest:But Congress shot him down because Congress said, everyone's interested in their oil.
Guest:Why are you coming to us with this stuff?
Guest:You know, because the Ottoman Empire covered Iraq, Iran, right?
Guest:All parts of the Middle East, all oil, you know, Saudi Arabia, right?
Guest:Lebanon, Syria, you know, so that was all Ottoman Empire.
Guest:So everyone was more interested in oil than doing a Nuremberg trial type of situation after the genocide and after World War I.
Marc:Yeah, it was a power grab and an oil grab going on.
Guest:It was.
Guest:It was.
Guest:So that explains why that denial was allowed to exist for 100 years.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because everybody was trying to get their piece.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Now, the solo work, it seems like your stuff...
Marc:the way you kind of branched out and the way you kind of like were able to, you know, I mean, you guys have what you do together with the band, but it seemed like you had more orchestral and more, you know, sort of you wanted to push the envelope in a different direction, you know, not the metal direction, but, you know, something more artistic in a more purely artistic way.
Marc:And it reminded me a little bit of Zappa, you know, your personal one.
Guest:I'm a huge Zappa fan.
Marc:You're like, you know, fuck it, man.
Guest:Yeah, fuck it.
Guest:Yeah, I am.
Guest:I am.
Guest:Before his wife Gail died, I had the immense opportunity to go and with my camera guys, because I always had the idea of making a film, but I didn't know what I was making a film about.
Guest:I was just recording interesting experiences.
Guest:But I had done a cover of Yellow Snow for Frank's birthday on iTunes years ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're like, oh, that's so cool.
Guest:Gail wants to say thank you if you ever need anything.
Guest:I'm like, I would love to come by the studio sometime.
Guest:They're like, sure, come on.
Marc:Did you record there?
Guest:No, I didn't record there.
Marc:No, you just took a look around.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I took a look around.
Guest:I had a camera guy with me and we taped the whole thing, which was nice.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Well, Frank was very interesting in terms of, I mean, he talked truth to power to everyone and everything from hypocrisy to politics to, you know, remember him on the Novak show and all the videos.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, man.
Marc:And Alex Winter's doc is pretty good.
Marc:The new doc.
Guest:Oh, I haven't seen it.
Guest:Did you watch it?
Marc:No, I haven't.
Marc:It's pretty good.
Marc:I didn't know what to think.
Marc:But he did a really nice job.
Marc:The interesting thing about Frank that you start to realize is that he was so possessed and inspired orchestrally.
Marc:That it was almost as if like, you know, they, you know, rock and roll, you know, forced him to speak his mind and to do this thing that he didn't necessarily really want to do just to get the freedom to do the thing that he really wanted to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So like he was like, fuck you.
Marc:Pay me for saying fuck you.
Marc:And I'm going to go write this piece of music.
Marc:No one will understand.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Genius.
Guest:Genius.
Guest:Yeah, he did have some amazing orchestra.
Guest:I mean, he was, you know, even with the rock band, he had it more as an ensemble that he was directing.
Guest:And then he was also a badass guitarist, right?
Guest:Totally.
Marc:Yeah, no, he did like it's just like there's just mountains of work.
Marc:I'm not a full zap ahead, but but like, you know, as a person and as a musician, he's totally impressive.
Marc:And especially seeing if you watch the doc and see where it was all sort of came from.
Marc:You know, because him and him and Beefheart were out in Lancaster.
Marc:Like that's like shit down out there in the desert, in the bad desert, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but you worked with an orchestra.
Marc:And I mean, how is that must have been like, do you feel like you've done everything you want to do creatively?
Guest:Never.
Guest:There's always some wall you haven't broken yet.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, I've worked with 24 different orchestras.
Guest:I've done a bunch of at least two dozen orchestral shows around the world.
Guest:I've written a symphony called Orca and I've done a jazz record called Jazz's Christ with a bunch of cool jazz head friends.
Guest:And I'm mostly doing film scores as far as new releases besides the EP.
Guest:I'm doing a lot of film scores.
Guest:So I'm scoring a bunch of films, release them as soundtracks.
Guest:And that's fun because each record is a different ask as far as a type of music.
Guest:It's a different director, a different vibe, a different tone.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that's collaborative.
Marc:And it's a different set of of it's a different type of creativity, you know.
Marc:Correct.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're working to sort of complete someone else's vision.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've met some cool director friends that keep on, you know, giving me more work, which is great.
Guest:And so I enjoy it.
Guest:I enjoy doing that.
Guest:But yeah, my solo work is definitely I mean, there's the rock like I have a few rock records like Harakiri.
Guest:Elasticity is mostly rock.
Guest:My first record.
Guest:The first one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that was rock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And but then I also have orchestral stuff like Imperfect Harmonies and obviously Orca, my symphony and, you know, just just new boundaries, new new fun stuff to try to do.
Marc:And how are you and the fellows from System getting along?
Guest:Really well, really well.
Guest:I mean, we got together last year for, we did two songs.
Guest:When the war started in Artsakh in Armenia, we realized the need for, we realized that there's a false parody in the press.
Guest:Like even BBC and Al Jazeera were not reporting it correctly because no one was sending anyone to go under those bombs at first, you know, and to report the truth.
Guest:They later went, BBC specifically went.
Guest:But at first there was this, it took them a week or two and they were just saying, oh, both sides blame each other for the attacks and bullshit.
Guest:Like it's not both sides blaming, you know, one side attacked, right?
Guest:It's not.
Guest:So, you know, and so we wanted to make it clear that there was disinformation, misinformation out there and that we wanted to show the truth.
Guest:So we put out two songs.
Guest:One is called Protect the Land, the other genocidal humanoids.
Guest:We made videos for them and we released them.
Guest:And it was really, it really felt amazing because, and we donated the proceeds to the Armenia Fund, which is a nonprofit in Armenia dealing with humanitarian aid, et cetera, rehabilitation of soldiers.
Guest:And it felt really good to do something above and beyond ourselves.
Guest:And that made us get together creatively to kind of just, and it wasn't important whether, you know,
Guest:This song is perfectly in this thing or this will sound better.
Guest:It was more like, yeah, dude, you have a song for this.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Let's fucking record it.
Guest:Let's put it out next week.
Guest:Like, let's, you know, is the will the label.
Guest:What do we do?
Guest:Do we have to call the label?
Guest:Yeah, technically we do.
Guest:You know, like, well, tell them we're releasing it with or without them because this is for our people.
Guest:Fuck that.
Guest:You know, so it was one of those were just like, boom, you know, the inertia was so strong that we just had it land.
Guest:It landed really well.
Guest:It landed really well.
Guest:It broke.
Guest:Number one, it broke through some of the disinformation, which we actually have reports from, you know, seeing that kind of stuff.
Guest:And people responded really well.
Guest:And Armenians in Armenia were really enthused because they didn't feel like they were alone, you know, like they felt like people cared, you know, that's a huge thing.
Guest:You know, we raised some funds.
Guest:We raised like 700 grand that we were able to donate.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:So I think that was an incredible effort.
Guest:And I'm really proud of System of a Down, my brothers in System of a Down, that we were able to galvanize and do that.
Marc:Well, good, man.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:You seem great and great work.
Marc:You've led a life of integrity and you've made changes.
Guest:I try, buddy.
Guest:Just like you.
Guest:I try.
Guest:I try.
Marc:Yeah, it's good talking to you, man.
Guest:Thank you for an incredible interview and an incredible talk.
Guest:I look forward to seeing you one day.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Thank you for educating me.
Guest:All right, brother.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Now I know.
Marc:Now I understand more about Armenia, about my neighbors, about the struggle, about a struggle, about what struggle is, about what activism is.
Marc:Are we doing enough?
Marc:Are you doing enough?
Marc:Am I doing enough?
Marc:The documentary about Surge is called Truth to Power.
Marc:It's available on demand and in virtual cinemas.
Marc:Play some dirgy guitar.
guitar solo
guitar solo
guitar solo
Marc:boomer lives monkey lafonda i can see the cat angels flying over the mountains
Guest:Here they come.