How System of a Down Got into Politics

Despite Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan’s public beef over the latter’s political leanings, despite Tankian and Daron Malakian’s statements against one another’s desire and motivations to create another album, System of a Down came together to record two brand new songs in support of the Artsakh troops fighting against Azerbaijan and Turkey in 2020.

It got me thinking. Why and how did the members of System of a Down get into politics and activism? And since it became clear that not all of the members see eye to eye on politics, I wanted to know who believed what and why.

And while politics may be the least sexy thing about music much less life, we have to acknowledge that it is largely due to politics that System even exists, why they wrote the ground-breaking songs that they did and the fact that they opened the eyes of a lot of us growing up on the evils of the world.

Lacking Innervision (My Bad)

System of a Down’s sophomore album, Toxicity, was released on September 4, 2001 — a literal week before 9/11 — and given the political climate at the time and the political themes that emerge on various tracks, the youth began to ask questions.

Or if you were like me it went right over your head.