Serj Tankian, the System of a Down frontman, has questioned whether fans of the band are really listening to their lyrics.
Speaking on the Side Jams With Bryan Reesman podcast, Tankian was in disbelief as to how System of a Down’s fans could not understand the messages in the band’s lyrics after listening to them for 20 years.
“I get people on my socials that are, ‘I love your music, but I don’t wanna hear your political ideas,’” he says. “That’s fair enough — if they’re nice enough, it’s fair enough … But what I don’t understand, and a lot of other people that follow the music say the same thing. They’re, like, ‘Have you not listened to the fucking words in 20 years? He’s been saying all this stuff through his music all this time. What are you, just dancing to it because it’s groovy? You’re not really getting the message?”
Had a great chat with @BryanReesman on music, politics, Covid, activism, the environment and many other things for his podcast @SideJams . https://t.co/fFxY46wlij
— Serj Tankian (@serjtankian) June 5, 2020
The comments come after Tankian posted a statement on Instagram calling for US citizens to force President Trump and his regime to resign.
Mocking the President, Tankian wrote: “Run Donny run into your bunker. You may be the first US President to do so out of fear of your own citizens. A real leader would address the nation properly and a real man would go face the protestors on the streets in person. But like other corrupt undemocratic leaders in the past, you’ve realized they are not your people as you are not really our President.”
Love Classic Rock?
Get the latest Classic Rock news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
As for his music, Tankian recently announced that he’s planning on releasing a solo EP, featuring tracks that were originally made for System of a Down. “Originally I had these songs in mind for a System record if we were to end up doing a System record,” he told Spin. “But as we could not really see eye to eye on how to go forward with that I decided to finish them off myself and release them as an EP.”
Check out ‘Harakiri’ by Serj Tankian:
