Serj Tankian Talks Toxicity and Activism

System of a Down’s classic Rick Rubin-produced album, Toxicity, turns 20 this year. Released in 2001 one week before 9/11, the politically charged and wildly bizarre album provided the perfect soundtrack for a world descending into chaos. Serj Tankian, the lead singer of System, is no stranger to conflict. His family is Armenian and migrated to Los Angeles from Lebanon to escape a civil war when Serj was seven years-old. Today we’ll hear Rick Rubin talk to his good friend Serj about how hearing bombs drop outside his childhood bedroom turned him into a lifelong activist. Serj also explains how a funny line about a tapeworm almost caused System to break up, and why the first time Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine heard System play, he called it music for crazy people.

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Check out a playlist of our favorite System of a Down songs HERE . And hear a playlist Serj put together of his favorite tracks HERE.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, System of a Down's classic Rick Rubin produced album
Toxicity turns twenty this year. Released in two thousand and one,
one week before nine eleven, the politically charged and wildly

(00:36):
bizarre nature of Toxicity provided the perfect soundtrack for a
world descending into chaos and the river and water after
the swimming through the mine, we hear the word search Tonkin,

(01:06):
the lead singer System, is no stranger to conflict. His
families Armenian and migrated to la from Lebanon to escape
a civil war when Surge was seven years old. In
Los Angeles, he grew up in a tight knit Armenian
community along with the rest of his younger System bandmates.
As Surgeon's star began to rise in the late nineties,

(01:27):
his activism intensified, and to this day, he continues to
raise awareness around the Armenian genocide and the impact of
corporate greed. Last month, he released the documentary Truth to Power,
which documents the intersection of Serge's work as a musician
and an activist. Today we'll hear Rick Ruman talked to
his good friend's Surge about how hearing bombs drop outside

(01:50):
his childhood bedroom turned him into a lifelong activist. Surge
also explains how a pretty odd and funny line about
a tapeworm almost caused System of a Down to break up,
and why the first time Tomorello of Rage against the
Machine hurt System Play. He called it music for crazy people.

(02:11):
This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin and searche Tonkian. Maybe
we start by talking about the movie. How did the
movie come about? So the idea originally was in twenty eleven.

(02:31):
We're you know, two elevens, the year that System of
a Down started touring again after years of hiatus, and
I knew I was going to have an incredibly busy
professional year. I was touring with System of a Down,
touring with my backup BANDFCC, doing orchestral shows with different
orchestras around the world, going to Armenia protest movements like,
doing all this crazy. That year I knew was going

(02:54):
to be insane in terms of work. So I thought,
you know what, I should put on a camera on
my head like a GoPro and spyglasses and have someone
following me the whole time, and let's record everything. And
I did but I realized watching the footage after a
while that, you know, the idea of a POV film
of an artist looking behind the scenes is interesting if

(03:15):
the artists can keep their heads still. But my head
was like a bird like. It was impossible to watch
and what is the meaning of all these experiences? Anyway?
There was no narrative, no written theme or script or
anything like that. So a friend of mine and I
were discussing this, and I had the drives of all
the footage, and he's like, what are we really trying

(03:35):
to say? What do you what's the story you want
to tell? And after discussing, you know, system of a
down music art and all of this, it turned out,
I mean, to me, the most interesting story was that
of the activist in me, and how before music and
before the success of the band, no small thanks to you,
you know, I had a smaller voice, and then with

(03:58):
the success of the band, my voice became more pronounced,
and that had its ramifications as well as the fruits
of that labors in terms of seeing things come into fruition.
When did you first feel the desire to participate in
the culture in this way as an activist? I was
a teenager Rick and my grandfather, all my grandparents were

(04:21):
survivors of the Armenian genocide, and their stories were very powerful,
you know, how they saw their family parish and how
they survived, and yet the US government hadn't formally recognized
the Armenian Genocide. And for me, it was like, why
are we living with this hypocrisy in a democracy where
the government hasn't properly recognized the truth of history of

(04:45):
what's happened to my people. And to me, that instantly
made me an activist because I realized that there are
so many other truths out there that are being denied
for political expediency, economic purposes, or for whatever reason. That's
what it was, So I was an activist before becoming
an artist. Yeah, it's an interesting way in and the

(05:06):
point you make about so much of what we're told
it's not true. You know, it's like there's always a
narrative that's for our whole lives. We've been presented these
series of narratives and the history books that we were
given as kids, probably you know, ninety percent of what's
in them is not really true. It's a crazy revelation

(05:28):
to have. Yeah, but it's interesting that you took that
information and wanted to do something about it. I almost
have the opposite feeling. It's like I don't want to
do anything, like I just I accept that we're not
being told what's going on. That's that's very interesting. And
I have that feeling too sometimes, Rick, because you get overwhelmed,

(05:49):
you know, on that end, and when you do, you're
just like, I just want a musical project to jump
into so I can lose myself in it and not
think about all these worldly things, so I could just
be an artist and be free again, and then I
can gain that battery energy and love energy and then
come back and fight a good fight. Beautiful. It's interesting

(06:10):
because also I feel like the fact that you're taking
action there is some belief in you that you can
change something. And that's awesome, thanks brother. But you've changed
a lot of things yourself, you know, in different ways though,
and not on purpose, you know. Never it has never
happened through wanting to change anything. It's always happened just

(06:30):
through wanting to make something good and then something changes
in reaction to it. But it's never been the goal
to change anything, I don't think. But isn't that what
it is? Like your vision, whatever that vision is, and
you're following it properly, and you're you're you're being in
tune with it, which I know you've always been, at
least as far as I know. On you makes that change,

(06:51):
whether it's music or or having artists that you work
with feeling incredibly comfortable to create the best of what
they create. I mean, that's it's a very unique gift
that you know that I'm grateful that you've shared with us. Yeah,
cool man, Let's talk about music a little bit. First
varience of music in your life? What do you remember?
First experience of music in my life would be my

(07:13):
dad singing in the house. My dad had a wonderful,
beautiful voice, still does, and loved singing musician, but not professionally,
and because his dad died when he was really young,
and he didn't think he could make a living doing music,
and so he became a designer, shoe designer and studied

(07:34):
in Milan and got into that business. But he would
sing at home a lot. And in fact, the song
that we show in the film that I sing with
my dad, the song about the Stork, is a song
that could be the first song I ever heard when
I was really young and him singing it, and I
would try to harmonize with him and sing with him.
But I think that's the first musical memory that I

(07:56):
have as a kid. Did your family speak Armenian in
the house or English predominantly Armenian? Interesting, So would you
say Armenian would be your first language? Sort of wow,
I never knew that. Yeah. So I was born in Lebanon,
and I was seven when we came over during the
Lebanese Civil War and still spoke Armenian. Went to a

(08:20):
private Armenian school here in Hollywood. I knew a little
English when I was a kid, but you know, I
learned it mostly in Los Angeles. And it's funny because
when you're bilingual or multilingual, I think you always think
in your first language, and that can change over time.
So now when I speak Armenian, I'm actually thinking in
English and speaking in Armenian, whereas before I used to

(08:41):
think in Armenian and speak in English when I was younger.
Really interesting. It also makes sense for some of your
lyrical choices have always been While it's always poetic, sometimes
the choice of the order of some of the words
is like it's it's unusual, and I'm wondering if that
comes from it being a second language. Very likely. Yeah, yeah,

(09:02):
that reminds me. I remember people because when we were
doing our first record, you were talking to me about
certain miracle stanzas and don't ever get like, don't ever
get stuck in this sky. And you told me, well,
whatever you're on, whether it's pot or whatever, aren't you
supposed to be in this? Guy Like you were like
going yeah, But I'm like, yeah, but the way I

(09:24):
see it is don't ever get stuck in the sky
because it's too good, like that kind of a thing.
And so yeah, I know what you're saying. It's a
kind of different way of seeing things. It's a different perspective,
I guess. Interesting. So cool. It's fascinating because we know
each other so well to talk about this stuff. Just
really interesting, it is. Do you remember your first experience

(09:46):
of Western music of like popular music. I don't remember
what's the first popular or Western music, but I do
remember the first records that I ever bought, and I
was probably seven or eight years old. Columbia House had
the you know, the club where you could join and
you get like five or six finals for free and
then you had to buy one a year or two

(10:07):
a year. I forgot what it was, and I remember
being really excited about it and getting those first five records,
you know, I want to say. I mean it was
seventy probably seventy six or seventy seven, right, So Rick
James was in there, which was also at the time
Barbara Streisan and Barry Gibb Guilty. Like I think about

(10:27):
seven eight records that first year. What else was in there?
Not a lot of rock, maybe Chuck Mangione or something
like that, trumpet player, just different things whatever as a
kid that I had heard from my uncle or someone play.
My uncle really loves Stevie Wonder. He would play stev
Wonder when we were living with them when we first
came to the States. And a lot of soul. I

(10:48):
remember a lot of soul from the seventies and disco obviously. Yeah.
Do you remember living in Lebanon as a kid. I
have specific visual memories, almost like snapshots, because I was young.
So I remember my grandparents house where that was our house,
and our little backyard where we used to play. I

(11:09):
remember my school, our school that we went to, and
a couple of others like the beach and a couple
of sceneries, and then I remember the war, and what
I remember about the war is in the war I
just started. I remember ducking in our bedroom with my
brother because of the bombs falling, and school was closed,
and that really made a huge impression on me as

(11:29):
a child, which translated into my activism as an adult,
because you know, when we were making that song Boom
and Michael Moore directed the video. If you remember, I
still can't get the feeling out that dropping bombs is
literally on the other side of being If hearing those
bombs drops, it's a terrorizing feeling. Hearing bombs drop. They

(11:49):
feel random and they terrorize the population. And if you've
ever been in that situation of hearing bombs drop, you'd
be very reluctant to order your own government or anyone
to do that to anyone else. How quickly were you
able to leave when that started? Your family? We were lucky.
My dad was already planning on us migrating to the

(12:11):
to the US and had done paperwork ahead of time,
so we weren't We didn't know obviously before the war started,
and so we were lucky. We were We got out
pretty early. How long does that process take typically, I
wouldn't know years, I would assume because he yeah, he
had a brother in the you know, my uncle lived
in New York and so I think he came visited him,

(12:33):
started our paperwork in terms of you know, immigration, and
then and then the war broke out. It became more difficult,
and you know, it just my dad had to come
six months after us. We had to come here with
our mom and my dad followed us six months after.
Was it only Ourmenians that were targeted? Oh no, No,

(12:54):
I mean Ourmenians weren't specifically targeted. It was a whole
civil war between you know, there were the Christian Phalunge movement,
there were the Shiite movement, and there were the Sunnis.
And it was just complete sectarian war, each supported by
different you know, proxy nations from outside. And it was

(13:15):
it was a mess and it's still a mess now
after that huge bomb that went off last year. And
I have a friend there, and the banking system is
all frozen up. I mean, people with money can't even
get you know, they can only get a thousand dollars
a month out of their bank account, even if they
have a lot of money. I mean, there's a lot
of you know, COVID's bad and you know from what

(13:35):
I hear, I've only been to Lebanon once since we
left as a kid in twenty eleven, the year that
I decided to shoot everything that I was you know, experiencing,
and I took my parents back and they were older
when they moved. You know, my brother and I were
like four and seven, but they were in their thirties
when they moved. So for them it was a very
prolific kind of you know, experience going back. How don't

(14:00):
I don't know whether the word is tight or cohesive?
Was the Armenian experience in Los Angeles. There are a
lot of Armenians in Los Angeles, probably the second largest
diasporan community outside of Armenia. Russia would probably be the first,
but it's quite close. Those are the two largest UM
communities UM. And that's very interesting to you politically for me,

(14:21):
because you've got you know, a lot of Armenians in
the Russian sphere and then you've got a lot of
Armenians here on polar opposite side of the political spectrum,
you know, between those two nations. But the community, it
got bigger over the years. When I came there, there
were there were a number of Armenians. It wasn't as
big as there is now, like Glendale or Hollywood, but

(14:42):
it was nice, you know, having the you know, especially
when you're just learning the language. It's nice having people
from your culture around to kind of guide you and
you know, especially as a kid. But at the same time,
we were in mainstream you know, American culture and growing
up in Los Angeles with all all that. I remember.

(15:03):
I remember we lived in Hollywood in the mid seventies, right,
and we used to walk to school in Hollywood, you
colorful Hollywood pimps and hookers and all this stuff happening
in My parents they didn't even, you know, wonder whether
we were safe or not. They're like, yeah, grab your
brother's hand and walked to school. I was like seven
to eight. He was like fun. And now I'm thinking

(15:24):
I would never let my kid walk up the street
in Hollywood, you know or whatever. But like at the
time it was it was more laxed, I guess, and
maybe the violence wasn't as pronounced as it is now. Yeah,
does California feel like home? Like if you think of
home California. Look, majority of my friends and family are

(15:45):
in Los Angeles, so you know, I feel comfortable here,
but it does feel more like an office than a
home to me. I remember hearing you talk to Ferrell
on the show. I'm a fan of the you Know
Broken Record podcast and I've been listening to it for
a while and that really hit home for me because
I feel more at home in New Zealand, lived there

(16:07):
part of the year, got residency years ago, have a
nice place there I'm thankful for and but and here
I feel like it's more I do have a lot
of friends and family, but it feels more of a
rat race it is. You know, would you say that
politics were part of system of a down from the beginning?

(16:27):
I guess so. I mean, you know, a band is
you know a good band. I think that creates interesting
music is always going to be a push and pull
of different personalities and different agendas. I think when you
have everyone on one page doing one thing, that's cool
because that makes things simpler. But I think the music
is probably is not as interesting. And our band is

(16:50):
like that. We're we're for distinct personalities with distinct ways
of doing things, and the political was more my thing
because I was an activist before becoming an artist, and
luckily I had these guys in my band that would
kind of make me go, Okay, you're going too far.
And that's good because, you know, unless the whole thing's
got to be political like rage, which is awesome because

(17:12):
that's what they agreed upon, and I think that's amazing.
But System was never just political, as you well know,
but it was always there, you know. And and it's
not just me, to be honest, the specifically there and
I think also has a lot of ideas more social
than necessarily political, but also challenging the social fabric of

(17:33):
society some of the hypocrisies that are, you know. So
I think it was definitely in our DNA as a
band from the beginning. We'll be right back with more
from Surge Tonkian and Rick Rubin. After a quick break,
we're back with more from Searge Tonkian. What was the
scene that System was born into, Like, what was going

(17:56):
on in LA at the time that you guys started
when we started radio wasn't playing our kind of music? Definitely,
we kind of We're in this warehouse in North Hollywood
doing our own thing. Not knowing what was going on
in the musical world outside of us. It was very
incubated in that sense. And when we first started playing

(18:16):
on the scene, like the Rocksy and Whiskey were primarily
opening up for you know, anything from an industrial band
to other heavy bands out of Los Angeles or Santa Barbara.
We had this band Snot that we used to play
around town with a lot, and you know, they were

(18:36):
very much hardcore slash punk kind of band, and we
gravitated because we have definitely a lot of punk ethos
to our metally type of rock music and it kind
of really fit. But we didn't know what scene we
were a part of until later we were like, oh,
there's Corn and Deft Tones, there's this new metal scene
coming out of Los Angeles. And then lucky for us,

(18:59):
as we started working together, radio switched formats like literally
at that time. I always say, as hard as you
work and as creative as you can try to be,
there's definitely a matter of a little matter of luck
as well to kind of land in the right place
at the right time. Absolutely, and so that's what was
going on. Ki Rock wasn't playing our type of music
when we started they switched right when we were about

(19:21):
to get that second record out. Not only was ki
Rock not playing your sort of music after they switched,
and after they were playing hard music. The program director said,
when hearing System were down, this is a band that
we will never play on our station ever. I remember

(19:42):
that when the first album came out, Yeah, we will
never play this band. And then one year later, System
was the number one requested band on the station. Isn't
that amazing? And look, I you know again, I'm not
on your show to do wax poetic on you, but honestly,
like you know, if it wasn't for your support in
those first years of being out there was no radio

(20:05):
support and touring opening for Slayer, one of your it
was amazing, like just building that, you know, foundation for
a band, going on tour, playing Europe, getting shit thrown
at from this layer crowd and learning how to handle
an audience and boot camp, you know, proper boot camp
as as as artists on the road, and that really
built us so that when the second record came and

(20:28):
we did and radio did switch format, so we were
ready and we actually had a base, So it wasn't
some radio band you're introducing into you know, the community.
You know, instead you had this plethora of fans wanting
to hear the music, and that was that really kicked
in properly. Yeah, and it really all happened naturally. We
can't say any of that was actually planned. The only

(20:50):
plan was to make something really good and stick to it,
you know, like make something great. And whoever was interested
in this great thing we made, we wanted them to
find out about it. I don't think there was ever
the idea of converting people who don't like it to
like it. I remember, you know, our friend Tamarrella. The
first time I played it for him, He's like, this

(21:10):
is crazy person's music. This is music for crazy people.
It's like it was just so on the fringe at
the time. And still I feel like, still it holds
up in how extreme and ridiculous it is, but we
get more used to it because it's gotten popular. If
you if you took away the popularity, it's it's really crazy.

(21:35):
It is, it really is. Tom said he was with
you that first day you saw us at the Viper room.
I didn't know that. Yeah, Tom was with us. I
didn't remember that. And when I was talking to him,
recently he was like, oh yeah, I was there, and
I told Greg, this is nuts, this is crazy. But
it was really fun. And I just as as I've
told you before, I just remember laughing the whole show.

(21:56):
You were laughing. I remember seeing you sitting on one
of those booths, you know, up on top of the
booth because there were so many heads in the audience
and viper rooms a tiny place, and I just remember
seeing you laughing and I and it's a positive encouragement that,
you know, it's like, that's cool. It was super power.
I mean, it was a positive It's a funny thing

(22:17):
doing you know, kind of screaming somewhat questionable lyrics and
how that can be interpreted as this positive like unity experience.
And it was, you know, it really was. It felt
like there was great solidarity in the audience. People were
getting what they needed at that show, and the band

(22:38):
was just great. That was fun. I remember talking to
you after we went outside and we were so enthused
that you were there, bro, like so excited. If you
look at System of a Down it's an established band
now and whatnot. But like you said, it was this
crazy man's music just going off and these weird lyrics.
I might have even had a distortion pedal feeding back

(22:59):
on stage, which is like, who the fuck wants to
sign that? Right? Like you know, and here you are
checking us out And I remember, oh, guy Siri Ambino
were friends. So guy at called saying, oh, Rick's coming,
but we're running late or something, and we're like, we
looked at we gotta we gotta delay the show, like
we gotta Were you guys wearing paint? I don't remember

(23:21):
were we I don't. I can't remember either. It's it's
all a blur, but I mean i've seen you guys
wear When did when did that start? The uh the paint?
That's a good question. It was early on obviously, um
and and it was very much Darren and Shovel were
huge Kiss fans, and they were really into the whole
makeup and craziness and colorfulness of that and uh, you know,

(23:43):
so I that was their influence completely, And it was
pretty early on. I don't know if it was from
the first show or not, I mean first you know,
uh run of shows on the strip or not. It
felt more tribal than it did like Kiss, like what
I saw mine tribal. Yeah, but I remember also like

(24:04):
the what looked like Armenian folk dancing while playing these
essentially heavy metal songs. Yeah, I mean that's what it is.
I mean, that's that's kind of the sound of System
of a down that it brings our kind of filtered
Armenian experience into heavy music in a way that doesn't

(24:25):
copy either and just kind of becomes its own thing.
That includes rhythms that includes weird solos and whatnot, and harmonies.
I feel like the harmonies really feel like they're rooted
in They don't sound like the harmonies that you hear
in any other hard music. It does feel like it's
rooted in an ancient folk. Yeah, a lot of thirds

(24:47):
like Greek and Armenian Mediterranean harmonies. Yeah, Darren and I
for sure. And in our voice really match. Our ranges
and our voice really match in a very unique way.
And that's that was from day one. You know, before System,
we used to have a band called Soil, which was
way more progressive and nutty, like just kind of how
can it be way more progressive? What does that sound like?

(25:10):
Almost unlistenable? Like no, not unlistenable, but it was it
was just think of every System song but being more
just crazier, like not crazier, but how do I say it?
Less pop format? Right? In terms of the format, it
was just go on and on. But it was a
good learning experience. It was the first time I had
ever sang in a band, and that was eight months.

(25:31):
The whole band was just around. We had one show
where Darren fell off the stage and he struck and
he still does that, so, uh, you know, it was
It was interesting, but that was good experience because I
didn't know what I was doing as a vocalist. I mean,
for me, it was always trying to make a sound
with my voice. To me, singing was two different separate things,

(25:55):
trying to get the words in there, and sometimes there
were a lot of words, and I had to get
him in there because as a as a as someone
who wrote poetry, it was important to get the words
in there. So I wasn't thinking does this sound right
to someone singing. I was more like, I gotta get
the words in there. It doesn't matter how fast I
go with right and two to try to make sounds

(26:16):
with a voice like it's a guitar or a synth
or something like that. Very dada as kind of interpretation. Um,
and also create relationships between things that don't have a
pre existing relationship with each other, whether it's musical parts
going from one part to another, or lyrical words that
don't belong together. Terracotta pie, you know, banana terracotta pi?

(26:36):
What the fuck is that? Right? Um, we still don't
know what that is? But how did I talk about
banana terracotta pie? You had to get the words in?
Tell me how did you decide those are the words
you had to get in? I don't remember. I remember
writing the song on acoustic guitar and just kind of
playing it fast and and just trying to you know,

(26:57):
I was trying to sing whatever I was playing, and
I was just like banana. But we turned out to
be banana terracotta Da da da da da terracotta terracota pi.
And I remember, dude, I remember our first reaction when
we were working on that song. On the demos of
that song, You're just like, what is that like? It
was like, it wasn't a compliment. You were just like,

(27:19):
I don't know what this is like. But once we
were done with it, you're like, yeah, this is really good.
We have to keep it. This is really and I
found that to be interesting because it's challenging. Some of
it is challenging. I think you know all of it.
I mean, I feel like I learned so much about
music working with you guys, because it was so far

(27:40):
out and broke so many accepted rules, and the mission
was okay, taking into account it's going to break these rules,
how do we still achieve What's something that we could
listen to and have this like I don't want to
call it accessibility because it's not. It's by nature it's

(28:01):
not understandable. So how can we present it where it's
the most understandable while retaining that it never be understood.
That was like there was like a quantum theory formula
right there. It was that was our work. That was
our work. But I also learned a lot from you.

(28:21):
I still to this day brow when I do vocals,
I hear you in my head going pronounce it better,
pronounce it better. It's like, don't you those words? Pronounce
it better? I mean there's times where you want to
throw away words, you know. But yeah, a lot a
lot in terms of how you hear things. And I
love how you basically eat music and then interpret it

(28:44):
from almost a fans' perspective as a producer, really get
into it and love it, love it, love it, and
then know what the best thing about it is kind
of you narrow it down to that one strong foundation
and then you want to hear that more or or
you give ideas where that's more pronounced, and I think
that's really special. Yeah, it's I definitely into the idea

(29:07):
of like putting a focus on the thing that speaks
the most, and because it can, it can get lost.
So the job is to like think about where the
spotlight is shining while all these things are going on
at the same time. How do we keep this this
one aspect and focus when we need to, and then
how to and when to switch the focus to this

(29:30):
other thing to focus on and giving everything its turn.
Talk about the the the vocal phrasing in the verses
of Chop Suey, wake up Greg, you know, just kind
of going with that neurotic kind of you know, attacky
music and stop the it's the pauses that make it interesting,

(29:51):
and it's it's it's hard to do live because I
literally have to listen to John so I could be
syncopated with him, and he looks at my body motion,
so I try to go left and right so he
knows like it's kind of like we have to be
on the same page. I don't know. I don't know
how that came about. It's it's probably my naivete going
I don't know what to do. He or so I'm

(30:12):
gonna do exactly what the guitars are doing. But how
did you and I remember us talking about it and
I didn't understand it at the time, about you doing
like the responses also, yeah, the whispered responses, yes, which
sounds so creepy. Yeah, I don't know. I you know, again,

(30:34):
I don't remember. It's you know, it's been quite a
number of years, a couple of decades, right, but hey,
congratulations because toxicity or I want to say, was it Chopsuy?
I think Chopsuy was voted by Metal Hammer best Metal
song of the twentieth century. Wow. Yeah that's good, big accolade.
Wow Yeah, yeah, incredible. I never studied singing. I had

(30:54):
no idea what I was doing. So for me, it
was a sound and if the guitars can do it,
then my voice can do it, you know. So I
was trying to match that, which is irregular. I mean,
someone who's learned how to sing is never gonna do
that knowing they can't properly repeat it every day, every night,
which is a pain in the butt, right. But I
think that's what's beautiful about art and about exploration, about

(31:18):
not being a you know, walking into something and just
being creative, not knowing, not having previous experiences of it,
because I think that exploratory nature can really lead to
something new. It's the reason I started painting a number
of years ago, because again I didn't know what I
was doing. I got into it, and I feel that

(31:39):
same kind of feeling of lost and losing time and
just doing something without knowing what the results are going
to be, and that kind of what I felt when
I first started doing music. Amazing. I want to talk
a little more about lyrics, just because it's such a
interesting part of what you do. I love the way

(31:59):
you sing, but the lyrics of this whole other thing,
it's like, it's radical. Do you remember the drama over
the tapeworm song? Yes? How can I? How can I
forget that? Okay? So originally the song the chorus was

(32:22):
pulled a tapeworm out of my ass right as I recall, yes,
Darren in Shabo didn't like my ass right. They were like, no, no, no,
that doesn't sound cool, that sounds bad, that sounds vulnerable
or whatever it was, you know, whatever word you want
to use as an adjective. And I'm like, you know,
what I'm trying to say is philosophical, like, you know,

(32:44):
take this negativity out of me or whatever at the
time I was trying to portray, and they're like, no, no, no, no,
that's not cool. We don't want to be in a
band where it's your you know, Like it seemed like
the band could have broke up over the lyric, like
it was so extreme. Yeah, but it talked. It speaks
to the passion in the band, like there's real passion.

(33:09):
It's amazing. I mean, the fact that a lyric, an insignificant,
one word and arguably comical line totally is enough to
potentially break up a band or or discard a great song.
There was another possibility. It's like, well that song just
goes away and all we have to do is change

(33:31):
it to your out of your ass, it might became
your And then in the middle part where I'm singing
nicely pull the taproom out of me. They were okay
with that. Yeah, And it's really beautiful. When you get
to that, it's like you're you're part of the you
become part of the community. It's like it goes from
this ass taproom community. Yeah, it's like like you you, you, you, you,

(33:56):
and then me. Well, I'm curious from your point of view,
since you were there and you saw that, like, what
was your reaction? You probably thought these guys are fucking
nuts there. It's like number one is one word, and
what the why are they arguing over this? It wasn't
obvious that it was one word. That was like when
when that got decoded, when we realized it wasn't pull

(34:21):
the tapeworm ass problem. When we realized it was pulled
the tapeworm out of my ass problem, and that when
you said my ass, it represented everybody in the band's ass,
and everybody wasn't comfortable with that. And now you know
you could essentially be saying pull the tapeworm out of

(34:41):
your ass to the rest of the band, right, and
they're okay with it. It's fascinating. I don't think you've
done any Broken Record podcasts and use the word ass
in so many minutes at all. We broke a record today.
But yeah, that's that's funny. I mean with all of

(35:03):
the like you know, prison song with like all that
stuff that's written and very kind of essay form. And
we didn't have any arguments about that, but that one
tape where you know it's and it's funny. The other
thing about it is that it's clearly funny. We were
all pretty stout and you are laughing the whole time.
So yeah, it was funny. But yes, it does have

(35:24):
like a bigger meaning I understand, but they weren't upset
with the bigger meaning. It was purely the language and
it's and it was a very funny line. It's kind
of funny because I think it's the metal attitude versus
the non metal attitude as well. So for me, I
like showing vulnerability in our music and whatever I do.
I don't mind showing it because I think as an artist,

(35:46):
you're vulnerable either way, you either show it or you don't. Yeah,
you know, but the metal attitude, there is no way, dude, like,
you know, no way we're metal, right, you know, you
can't show a vulnerability, you know. That kind of a thing.
I think That's what it was. More than anything else.
I feel like there's a way in the future to
lean into exactly what you're saying and the fact that

(36:07):
there's that difference. And when I think of the example
you talk about prison song and the way the chorus works,
pushing little children with their fully automatics semi automatic, that's
that's not the prison song. The prison song is they
tried to build a prison. Confused pushing little child. I
never know titles ever, I forget myself. What are the lines?

(36:30):
Pushing little children with their fully automatics. They like to
push the week around? Right, So you're singing that from
this place of compassion or your compassion makes you angry.
And Darren's character joins in for pushed a week around
and he so he's doing the authoritarian side of the story.

(36:58):
And like you said earlier, the thing that makes a
band great is those difference. It's not it's not everybody
unified on the same message. It's those different messages and
how they bump up against each other to make something
really interesting. I'd never thought of it this way before
until we were having this conversation, But it's an interesting dichotomy.

(37:20):
The reason you said prison song. Is that same thing
exists in there because Darren comes in with what was it,
I buy my crack, I smack my bitch right here
in Hollywood, which is playing into the negativity, yes, where
the lyrics are talking about the injustice of the you know,
three strike law, the prison system, the racist policies that endure,

(37:40):
and he comes in as the guy like, yes he
doesn't the foil, Yeah, blast off, you know, it's party time.
We don't live in a fascist nation whatever. Like it's
it's a character kind of portrayal back and forth, which
is interesting. I never even thought of it this way
until you just brought it up right now. Yeah, same,
The same thing existed in Public Enemy, where Chuck d

(38:02):
was always really serious and Flavor. Flavor was the foil,
and sometimes he was the comic foil. But sometimes it
was like a different point of view, like calm down, Chuck,
you know, like sometime it was it was just like
another perspective. Yeah, and together it was It's like, I

(38:22):
don't know that Public Enemy would have done what it
did without the foil. It made it less finger shaking,
you know, totally, and people people don't like having finger
shakeed at them nobody, even if even if they like
what you're saying, they don't like that. No, you know,
I think you either have to make them dance, you

(38:44):
have to make them laugh. I've realized this doing this
for a few decades or so, is you have to
entertain while you get that message out, because otherwise, you know,
you're just giving a speech and that's not very exciting
and it's not going to get very far. I say
it in the movie. It's like in the twenty fifteen
when we played Armenia for the first time, those words

(39:05):
came out of me where I said what I needed
to say politically on stage age and then I said,
we're here to tell you the truth and rock you
at the same time. And I think that's the magic. Yeah,
it's interesting also how you could lyrically have deadly serious
lyrics right next to really zany wacky lyrics and make
it work. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, it's the other esque Verry

(39:28):
Zappo esque, and you know it is cool again. I
like that kind of I think Darren does too. I
think that's where we get along creatively, is finding relationships
between things that don't have a common relationship, Like wow,
if we can make these two things work together. We've
never heard that before. That's really interesting experiment and take

(39:49):
it to the next level. I'm gonna take a quick break,
but we're back with more from Searge Donkian. We're back
with the rest of Rick's conversation with Searge Tonkian. Let's
talk about the three years between the first album and Toxicity.
What that ride was like, touring, touring, touring. I remember

(40:12):
the only radio we even had on the first record
was Jed the Fish played Sugar on his specialty show
and I got to hear it in the car and
I was like, Wow, dream come true. I heard our
song on the radio kind of thing. But there was
not a lot of radio on the first record, and
it was a lot of touring. We were on tour
with Slayer in Europe and then the US, and then

(40:35):
we did a bunch of os Fests shows and a
bunch of other shows, small, you know shows, and just
getting out there for people to really experience our music,
opening for bands and kind of doing the dou That's
that's the foundation, and I remember those those days. They
were not easy because you know, we're traveling in you

(40:55):
know ur vs that broke down that in the middle
of the night, we had to climb fences and find
a phone. There were no cell phones at the time,
and there were a lot of tough times, but we
remember them fondly because that was the beginning of this
whole incredible experience. I remember at one point, you know,
we were we were in an RV and John would
drive a lot because he was responsible. You didn't want

(41:18):
Darren driving. Shaba would drive. He was he was good. Um,
but I remember Darren and I were sleeping on this
RV bed and I guess we were about to hit
something and John must have slammed on the brakes and
I remember Darren grabbing me. I was flying in the air,
he just grabbing me. You know, there's just these incredible
experienced experiences that you can't forget. Funny ones, crazy ones

(41:42):
talk about Slayer's audience a little bit. What was Slayer's audience, Like,
oh my god, so I know that Alison Chains is
opened for Slayer. All these bands have opened for Slayer,
and their their audience just hate everyone but Slayer. Right, everyone,
it doesn't matter whether you're rock or And that was

(42:02):
the phase where we were like makeup. Darren had his
little like glam toys on him, and it was it
was the worst thing you could do to Slayer fans.
It was like it was just like you were getting
ready for them to kill you. I remember at one
point we started we started a show with Sweepee, which
is a heavy song but funny and funky. We got

(42:25):
booed and I remember Darren going, oh, you liked that song,
We're gonna play it again, and we played it again.
It was like we were learning how to take the
attitude and and you know, not to get upset and
have fun with it. I remember playing in Poland and
we were being killed by these coins. They were throwing
coins at us as we were performing because because there

(42:49):
was another band, the Polish death metal band that played
after us, and we were the direct support. Who are
these fucking clowns to, you know, get a better position
and you know, before Slayer than And of course we
were on tour with Slayer the whole time, and so
we were getting pelted and at one point, and this
is like must have been ninety nine, so it wasn't

(43:11):
far back that Poland was part of the Soviet Union
and they were like Swasti because there was like shit
going on right, like crazy shit, like they were threatening
us and all this stuff, pelting us. And at one
point I got so angry I told the lighting guy
to turn the lights on the audience. I saw the
guy that pelted me last, and I just started cussing
at him and yelling at him. With the lights on
the audience, Rick, you could have heard a pin drop.

(43:35):
Everyone went silent. It's the scariest thing I've ever seen
on tour because I exercised authority. Wow, and authority was
something that they had just gotten out of. And when
I exercised that authority from stage, they froze and it's
scared the shit at him. Me and I go okay,
I think we're done, guys, and we walked out just

(43:57):
feeling really weird. Just just interesting stuff that you learn
playing in different countries with different cultures. You know, I've
toured with different orchestras around the world. For example, no
orchestra plays the same. Every orchestra plays based on their
cultural idioms, based on how they see Italians, for example,
best soloists in the world together. It's just the culture.

(44:21):
It's just the culture. Russians play like broom when when
the conductor does this, it's down like all at the
same time. It's just it's so interesting seeing cultures play
the same piece of music completely differently. How different are
the audiences. The audiences are quite diverse, you know, both
for System and my own solo stuff. That the orchestral

(44:43):
shows are interesting because you'll see older people and you'll
see you know, people in a system of down t
shirt in their twenties and wanting to rock. You know,
it's like this weird combination. And I think with System
there's a little more male the demographic i'd say, than female.
But um, you know, it's it's quite interesting. But but
the age is quite what you see kids and dad's

(45:06):
going together to concerts. I love seeing that. I really
really love saying that. Okay, so today's the first day.
I'm driving my son to our relative's house and I decided,
I'm like, have you listened to you know, death metal?
And he's like, what's that? And I'm like, oh good.
So I played him Slayer for the first time today.

(45:26):
I played him the band death and he really loved it.
Was just you know, and I'm like, it's just so
so interesting, you know, the energy. Yeah, it's just an energy. Yeah,
I can feel it. And I asked, what do you
like about this? Do you like the drums? Do you
like the guitars? Like you said, I like both. You know,

(45:47):
I play him Tom Waite's I play him everything obviously,
because you know, it's like food. If they learn from
a young age to eat everything, they won't want mac
and cheese for the rest of their life. It's interesting
before you talked about how the luck and the improbability
of things that either work for you or against you.
What are the odds that Toxicity came out week of

(46:09):
September eleventh. How is that possible? And to have the
number one album in the country when that happened, It's
just surreal. It's incredibly surreal, you know, with a song
whose chorus was trust in myself righteous suicide. I cry
when Angels deserve to die. You know, it's like completely surreal.

(46:31):
When people talk about the record, I mean, I remember
our recording sessions and stuff, but the majority of my
memories have to do with the stress of the release
because right before we released it, we held a First
of all, we held a free show in Hollywood right
behind the Roosevelt Hotel. You remember, we were expecting three
to four thousand people, and fifteen twenty thousand people showed

(46:54):
up and it became you know, fire Marshall came down
and said you can't play the show. They closed the show.
Police threatened to arrest us if we got on stage
to play a song because there were no specific entries,
the barriers were incorrect or whatever, and it was so tenuous.
It was so stressful. And I don't know if you
know this, but I gathered the guys that day and

(47:16):
I'm like, let's get arrested, will be perfect, Let's go
for it. And then and then our lawyer goes overheard
and said everyone here is going to sue you if
you go up there and the fire marshal is closed it,
whether they arrest you or not, Like don't you know,
He's like don't. And it was just crazy. And then
there was the riot, you know, like there was an

(47:38):
LA riot before the release of Toxicity because the show
that we were supposed to play. We even said, like,
let us go play one song and just announced, well,
redo the show because obviously there's too many people. This
is not you know, they wouldn't let us. I mean,
it was so myopic in retrospect. It was of LAPD
and not allowing us to at least calm down the crowd.

(48:00):
They're canceling the show made everybody go crazy. They made
everyone go crazy. They attacked our crew and equipment went everywhere,
and police came in with horses and it's just a mess.
And then watching all of that on the news and feeling,
you know, even though we did all we could, but
those were our fans, those are people that wanted to
hear our music. It was wrong, you know that that

(48:20):
happened anyway, So toxicitys really started with that. Then, of
course September eleven. On September twelve, I posted an essay
called Understanding Oil, which was my way of understanding how
something like this couldn't happen, and it spoke about fifty
years of US foreign policy the need for multilateralism in

(48:41):
terms of how we deal with this issue, not unilateralism
like it was with going after Iraq, a country that,
for example, nothing to do with ninety eleven, but at
the time they were making these ties and a lot
of people felt that it was wrong, and we had
the protests before the Iraq War, the Michael Moore video.
All I remember is this incredible stress? Oh, we were

(49:04):
on I had to defend myselves on the Howard Stern Show.
Remember that. I remember I remember calling Howard before because
Howard was ready to really attack. Yeah, and I called
them and I said, these are good guys, and keep
in mind you're getting one side of a story. Their

(49:27):
intentions are good, they mean good. You know. It was
really like a positive call. And he's like, okay, I'm
you know, I'll listen to what he says. But it
was it really could have it could have gone the
other way, you know, like I really could have. Oh.
We had calls, you know, coming in and death threats
and all sorts of stuff with the band. I remember,
and mind you were on tour the week after September

(49:49):
eleven with all those additional you know, red and and
and and orange like danger there might be more terrorist attacks,
and we're in front of fifteen twenty thousand people a night.
You know. Scary, man, It was really really scary and stressful.
I remember the band got me in a room and
they're like, what are you doing? Are you trying to

(50:09):
get us killed? I'm like, but it's the truth, and
they're like, yeah, so what you know, you know, like
you're a smart guy. What are you doing? You know?
And I always say I was naive to think that
the truth being the truth was the most important thing.
And I'm still that naive. In other words, I haven't changed,

(50:31):
It's just who I am. Have any of your ideas
or beliefs or thoughts changed over the course of your life,
like something that you really believed firmly in and that
now you might think differently or opposite. I don't know
if I think of anything that's completely opposite, but I
definitely have changed, you know, over time, what's evolved? What's

(50:55):
think of something that's really evolved. Let's say, so my worldview,
I think I came from a very small community, or
I mean, I mean in population of the planet is
six million people, seven million people, right, And so I
came from the small kind of idea and community and
caring for that community. And then seeing over time over

(51:16):
these last twenty number whatever years traveling the world, would
you know, due to touring and and seeing that we're
all living that same experience, right that injustice is everywhere.
Corruption is everywhere, whether it's hidden between an oligarchic regime
or with k Street lobbying firms in Washington, DC, you know,

(51:40):
which is legalized corruption. It's everywhere. So seeing some of
the same common denominators around the world and at the
same time people's good will around the world. That I
think that's what's changed the most about me, is developing
from an ethnocentric artist, activist to a universal kind of

(52:02):
Probably I've never even thought about this, but I guess
that would be it. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, I tend
to think of people being good and systems being bad.
That's a perfect way of putting it. Yeah, did you
talked about growing up in this small community. Did all
of the band members have a similar experience growing up?
Would you say similar? I'm sure it's quite a little different,

(52:27):
but yeah, I mean growing up. We all grew up
in Los Angeles. John's originally from Toronto, born in Lebanon.
Chabo was the only one of us that were born
in Armenia, but he was really young. I think he
was three when his migrated to the US. So we
all grew up in the community. We went to different schools,
but at one point three out of four of us
went to the same Armenian private school that's in the film,

(52:49):
and they were younger than Michevo and Darren, so they
remember me. I don't remember them from that time, but
obviously later. So there are these interesting pre system of
a down experiences that we can all relate to, like
teachers that three out of four of us knew and
would laugh at just you know, mentioning, like these interesting

(53:10):
common experiences. I think being in the community definitely somehow
brought us together as artists who had different musical experiences,
but a very common community experience. It's interesting also that
living in Los Angeles and making music, you could conceivably
play with anyone, and you all chose to do it

(53:32):
within this community. It's just interesting. It's interesting. It feels
like it limited your choices in terms of who to
play with. Right Well, it's funny. The way it happened
is I was playing keyboards in this one band that
we did, like kind of alternative music in our Meenian
and English, and we were rehearsing in Burbank or North

(53:53):
Hollywood somewhere, and I was just their keys guy. And
there was another band that was sharing the studio with us,
and it was a number of our meaning guys and
non our meaning guys as well. Actually was a combination,
and they just got Darren to come in as their guitarist,
like they needed a good guitar, so they got there,
and he was young, it was like sixteen or seventeen,

(54:14):
so we started playing with them, and him and I
I remember, okay, so remember Waco, Texas when David Koresh
had the whole thing right? How can we forget that right?
So when that happened, I helped write a song that
Darren contributed to called Waco Jesus. And it's the first
time I ever sang on a recording. So here I

(54:35):
am from this band, but I wrote the song for
our singer and that band to sing and he wasn't around,
so I ended up singing it myself and Darren contributed
as well and played on it. That's when him and
I really met and started kind of playing around with ideas,
musical ideas, and we realized a lot of the guys
were jamming with they were like, you know, into girls

(54:55):
and drinking and having fun, and him and I were
really like into more philosophical ideas of music and understanding things,
and he was serious. We were both somehow we connected
as lifers as they say, right, Yeah, And I remember
Darren playing acoustic guitar and us singing our first harmony,
and like you said, something was special about that. And

(55:17):
I don't even know if that song was ever became
a song or whatever. It was just something and that's
how that's how we started. And then Shovel was a
friend of Darren's, and Shovel came in to manage us,
you know, and he was a guitarist, not a bassist,
but he's you know, Darren was like, this guy really
understands my musical mind, and I think he should work
with us kind of thing. And so Shovel became our bassist.

(55:40):
And yeah, it was like it was all natural. Although
we're all from the same community, but there was something
very organic that led each other to each other. And
in twenty fifteen, when we played Armenia for the first time, Man,
I'm telling you, I remember right before the show, when
we did our little band huddle, I was really calm.

(56:01):
It felt like the band was created to play that
one show, and everything we had experienced in the middle
was designed so that we could be there. That it
felt like this culmination of history coming bringing us to
that point. It felt so special, incredible. And it's not
just your history or the band history, but it's the culture.

(56:22):
It's the history of that culture coming together. Yeah, and
and coming back from the other side of the world
to fly a flag of art to bring people together.
I feel start crying talking about it. It's just unbelievable.
It's unbelievable. Yeah, man, it was unbelievable and and it

(56:45):
felt incredible. Honestly, I am really really grateful for you
being on this road with us, this journey. It's meant
the world to me. And and you know, learning from
you and being your friend, and so I'm I'm I'm
extremely grateful for where where we're at. It is my
honor to be in service to you, sir. Thank you.

(57:08):
I'll talk to you and I'm gonna go West. I'm
gonna go. Great seeing you man, Great to see you.
Thanks to Surge, Tonky and for talking music and activism
with Rick. To hear a playlist of our favorite songs
from Surge and System of a Down, head to Broken

(57:28):
record podcast dot com, where you can also find a
playlist Surge put together as some of his favorite tunes.
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find
extended cuts of new and old episodes. You can follow
us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Records produced help
from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and

(57:52):
Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee. Our executive
producer is me a Little. Broken Record is a production
of Pushkin Industries, and if you liked the show, please
remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast
app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,
Pace four