During a recent appearance “Side Jams With Bryan Reesman” podcast, System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian was asked how he reconciles in his mind the fact that some fans of his band’s music may not agree with his political views.
He replied: “I don’t. I’ve always explained music like pizza — some people like the crust, some people like the cheese, some people like the topping. “So when I get people on my socials that are, ‘I love your music, but I don’t wanna hear your political ideas,’ that’s fair enough — if they’re nice enough, it’s fair enough, but sometimes they’re really mean. 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 f—king 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?’ And that’s okay, too, obviously — people just like hard music; they wanna listen to hard music. They never even thought that [the System of a Down song] ‘B.Y.O.B.’ is anti-f—king-imperialist — maybe. I don’t know — I don’t know how you can, but I guess maybe. So it’s very interesting to me, seeing that.
“The only thing I can say about that is that we need to spend more on public education,” he added. “One of the few things that could be a great solution to our long-term environmental possible self-destruction and all of that, and the easiest way to start fixing it is first fixing us — we have to fix us first.”
Last week, Tankian has blasted President Donald Trump for failing to making a formal address to the nation as cities across the country continue to protest the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man.
On May 31st, Tankian took to social media to share The Guardian article headlined “Trump Fled To Bunker As Protests Over George Floyd Raged Outside White House” and he included the following message: “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,” he continued. “But like other corrupt undemocratic leaders in the past, you’ve realized they are not your people as you are not really our President.
“These protests are not just over race but over institutional injustices beginning with the slave era electoral college that put you in power, K Street lobbying firms, superdelegates of a two party duopolistic Neo-liberal corporatocracy whose day has come.
“You make antifa a terrorist organization but not the KKK?