Serj Tankian Artist Quotations

I think the gift of music is it's intuitive capability. I think music is a powerful medium because it co-inspires. It inspires the artist who then inspires the listener, and it's a back-and-forth process. Because it's intuitive, the truth has to be defined intuitively. It can't be preached, it can't be pushed. It's got to normally go across organically and make someone feel something, and that's the power of music.

You listen to Bob Dylan and you can't help but think of the 60s, it's very relational and if artists are true artists and not just mere musicians they need to be truthful because the music doesn't come from them it comes from the universe and it's to be shared. At best, we're skilled presenters, and I say that at best.

I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.

As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.

It's important for all people, and not just people in bands, to speak out on social justice issues. That means journalists or plumbers have just as much of a responsibility to do that as artists.

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.

I think every artist should follow their vision, their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for.

I think music is a powerful medium because it co-inspires. It inspires the artist who then inspires the listener, and it's a back-and-forth process.

I've had people come up to me with the strangest interpretations of what lyrics might mean, and I'm like, 'You go! I never thought of that, but that works,' ... I think true art is a universal reflection, and true artists are just messengers of that reflection - or, at best, skilled presenters.