A good song should make you wanna tap your foot and get with your girl. A great song should destroy cop cars and set fire to the suburbs. I'm only interested in writing great songs.
...And it made me realize - it confirmed my convictions that progressive change in this country does not come from above. Whether it's been women's right to vote, workers getting an eight-hour day, desegregation of lunch counters, all of those major events have happened because people whose names we don't read about in the history books organized and stood up for their rights where they live, where they go to school, where they go to work, in their communities. And that's how I think change happens.
Axis of Justice is a nonprofit political organization formed by Serj Tankian, the singer for System of a Down, and myself. It’s been in existence for about six or seven years now, and the idea is to bring fans of music, progressive-minded musicians and local grassroots organizations together to fight for social justice.
I always hated when people would say in guitar magazines that guitar playing was doomed, that it’s all been done. If only I had a dollar fifty for every time I read it in a guitar magazine. I remember not too long ago when synthesizer technology was developing rapidly, they were predicting guitars would soon be outdated, I, being the arrogant college student, said, "I’ll show them. I’ll make the synthesizer outdated by emulating the keyboard." Then, I had similar bravado when hip-hop was coming on strong, and DJs were gonna make guitars outdated. They could sample the guitar, they said, rendering it useless. So I said, "Okay, I’ll make the turntable outdated!" I’ve always been on a personal mission to save the guitar.
I am enormously proud to be an American. I would say that the things our corporate-controlled government has done at best are shameful, and at worst, genocidal. But there's an incredible and a permanent culture of resistance in this country that I'm very proud to be a part of. It's not the tradition of slave-owning founding fathers. It's the tradition of the Frederick Douglasses, the Underground Railroads, the Chief Josephs, the Joe Hills, and the Huey P. Newtons. There's so much that's hidden from you. The incredible courage and bravery of the union organizers in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds: that's amazing. People often get tricked into going overseas and fighting Uncle Sam's Wall Street wars, but these are people who knew what they were fighting for here at home. I think that that's so much more courageous and brave.
The only bad "f-word" is FCC.
The more I'm tear gassed, the more I know I am doing the right thing.
To me it seems pretty straightforward. There are two opinions one can have about freedom of speech, you're for it or against it.
With Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave, the idea was to play music that was gonna create big mosh pits in arenas. The idea with The Nightwatchman and One Man Revolution, was to create little mosh pits in people's minds. - During interview with MSG Network
