Serj Tankian Says What SYSTEM OF A DOWN Does for Mainstream
Serj Tankian talks about what the SYSTEM OF A DOWN does for the mainstream. A month ago, SOAD released “Protect The Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz”. And this is their first new song in 15 years.
The song “Protect The Land” written by Daron Malakian for the new album. Also, “Genocidal Humanoidz” was penned three or four years ago when bassist Shavo Odadjian, Daron Malakian, and drummer John Dolmayan. They also produced several songs, but Serj Tankian can’t join them.
After the first week for their release, “Protect The Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz” landed at positions No. 1 and No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. Protect The Land” topped the chart with 2.7 million U.S. streams in the week ending November 12, while “Humanoidz” reached 1.8 million streams.
He also recently mentioned that the upcoming album is “Elasticity.”
During an appearance on NBC’s “Ksee 24”, Serj Tankian says what SYSTEM OF A DOWN does to charming to a mainstream audience:
“I’ll tell you this: we’ve never tried to appeal to a mainstream audience. If we were, we wouldn’t be writing the type of music we did from day one — very left of center, nutty and comical and deadly serious at the same time.
Music has many amazing purposes — from making us feel good and entertaining us and whatnot — but part of the music that I really pay attention to are ones that move me beyond and really, really challenge my senses for finding justice and doing things with the music outside of just the entertainment aspect of it.
And those are the artists that I really appreciated over the years. So that’s been a huge part of what SYSTEM OF A DOWN does, needless to say, and our fans, I think, appreciate that.”
The band also is planning to shoot and release a music video for “Genocidal Humanoidz” in December. You can watch the entire interview below!