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The living ideas of the dead are more powerful and effective than the dead ideas of the living.

Serj Tankian

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Serj Tankian
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: August 21
Bassist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Guitarist
Keyboardist
Lyricist
Peace Activist
Pianist
Poet
Record Producer
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Living
Ideas
Effective
Dead
Powerful

More quotes by Serj Tankian

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When I was younger, I was listening to a lot of Armenian music, you know, revolutionary music about freedom and protest. In the 70s I was listening to soul and the Bee Gees and ABBA, and funk.
Serj Tankian
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I've always thought of the sky as, like, an open canvas. When I was a kid and I looked at the sky, I always remember being able to daydream, just looking at the sky, being creative, being able to design things. What would happen if we had no sky? Where would we be? Well, obviously, scientifically, without an atmosphere, we'd all be dead.
Serj Tankian
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People get so attached to a position which they identify themselves with that they just spurt it out, but they can't really give you a viable reason why they feel that way.
Serj Tankian
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Touring and putting out records is fun and cool, but I've been doing it for a long time.
Serj Tankian
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'Elect the Dead' is a rock record that takes you on a journey with different types of genres integrated, different lyrical themes digested, and many fun and colorful moments to enjoy.
Serj Tankian
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Sometimes a good love song can change the world and create positive energy more than any political song can.
Serj Tankian
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We [americans] self-regulate ourselves, we self-censor ourselves a lot in this country instead of having someone else censor us so we can blame them. That's not good, either.
Serj Tankian
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We have the power to change our lives, and the world around us.
Serj Tankian
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Political statements are usually more direct, and it works with the upbeat music as well, for some reason, the directness of your statements.
Serj Tankian
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Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence...faith.
Serj Tankian
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Sometimes it's better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest.
Serj Tankian
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My two interests are spirituality and politics. I would mesh them in some way maybe try to figure out the politics of spirituality, or the spirituality of politics. Or maybe come up with this really crazy naive solution for the end of civilization.
Serj Tankian
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I think as consumers Europeans are a lot more artist loyal irrespective of the genre of music or the type of project or the collaborative effort, and Americans are more media-loyal, because they need to be fed that media to know what's going on, because we're so inundated with promotion and marketing and everything that's going on - advertising.
Serj Tankian
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Life is that perfect fine line between ironies.
Serj Tankian
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I think every artist should follow their vision, their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for.
Serj Tankian
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People always ask me 'do you think there should be more bands doing political music?' and I say 'absolutely not.'
Serj Tankian
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What does civilization mean to you, and what would its ending bring to the world?
Serj Tankian
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We're addicted to this concept of civilization - we can't imagine living outside of it because we've had it for 10,000 years, all of what we call history. But according to archaeologists, humanity has been on this planet for millions of years in indigenous form.
Serj Tankian
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I don't want to spend all my time working as an activist. I don't get satisfaction out of it. I'd rather be doing something else. I'm a musician.
Serj Tankian
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If you're using live bass versus orchestral bass, you've got to make sure that you're not stepping on the toes of the other elements, so you've got to balance it out.
Serj Tankian