SYSTEM OF A DOWN's SERJ TANKIAN Reflects On His Most Embarrassing Onstage Moment

In a new interview with Revolver magazine, SYSTEM OF A DOWN frontman Serj Tankian was asked to name his most embarrassing onstage moment. He replied: "On one of my birthdays, we were in Pittsburgh playing a show. In the early days of SYSTEM, I'd have a drink or a smoke before going onstage — it would loosen me up and I'd be fine. Then I stopped smoking pot for a long period of time. On that birthday, Daron [Malakian, SYSTEM OF A DOWN guitarist] called me onto his bus and said, 'Bro, let's have a bong hit together before the show.' He regrets that bong hit forever at this point, because I got really stoned. I got so stoned that I heard all of our music as dance music when we got onstage."

He continued: "I couldn't decipher the songs from each other, so therefore I didn't know the lyrics to any of the songs. It was the fucking most embarrassing show ever. They'd be playing a ballad and I'd be screaming. Then they'd play a heavy song and I'd be mumbling — to the point where the audience were asking me to please not forget the lyrics to the next song. And anytime I would go to one of the guys for help with the lyrics, I'd see them mouthing the lyrics but not hear them — and then I'd just start laughing. But I was so stoned that I didn't give a shit. Afterward, I felt bad for the band and the crowd. The band had never been so disappointed."

This past July, Serj released the official music video for his solo single "Justice Will Shine On". The track is taken from Tankian's upcoming solo EP, "Foundations", which is due on September 27 via Gibson Records.

The 57-year-old Lebanese-born Armenian-American musician and songwriter, who spent the last few months promoting his autobiography "Down With The System", told Metal Hammer magazine about the EP: "The reason I'm putting it out is that archival nature of writing a book made me look into songs from different periods of time. So one of the songs is from early SYSTEM days, for example, that I've never put out, that I'd never worked with SYSTEM on. A couple of the songs are from my early 2007-2008 solo record period, but didn't fit the record ['Elect The Dead', released in October 2007].

"It's an interesting retrospective of rock music that I've never released from different times, and it's called 'Foundations' basically because it's the founding of my musical life," Serj added. "They're very interesting songs, very different from each other: one is really heavy, one is like, really progressive, there's just different elements to each of them. But I think they work in tandem."

The first single from "Foundations" , a song called "A.F. Day", was made available on May 17 digitally everywhere via Gibson Records.

"Down With The System" was released on May 14 via Hachette Books.

Tankian is best known as the lead singer of the Grammy Award-winning rock band SYSTEM OF A DOWN, but he is also a solo artist, composer, activist, painter, poet, and filmmaker. Since launching on to the rock scene in 1993, he's performed for millions of fans and sold more than 42 million albums worldwide. He's also a proud Armenian-American and a dedicated activist; along with Tom Morello, Tankian co-founded the non-profit organization Axis Of Justice, which strived to bring together musicians, music fans, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice. He has composed scores for many films and television series, had his paintings exhibited in galleries in the U.S. and New Zealand, and released two books of his own poetry. He has also been an executive producer on multiple documentaries, including "I Am Not Alone", which tells the story of Armenia's 2018 revolution and which won awards at the Toronto International Film Festival, DOC NYC, American Film Institute Festival, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival, among others. Tankian lives with his wife and his son, splitting their time between Los Angeles and New Zealand.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN has toured intermittently since ending its hiatus in 2011, but has only managed to record two songs in the last 19 years, "Protect The Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz". Released in November 2020, the tracks were motivated by the conflict between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, with all proceeds supporting humanitarian efforts in SYSTEM OF A DOWN's ancestral homeland of Armenia. Along with other donations from fans on their social pages, they raised over $600,000.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN co-headlined a one-off concert with DEFTONES at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California on August 17.