Serart

Spontaneous and compelling. Those are the sort of words System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian uses when talking about his brand new project Serart, which he recently co-founded with fellow Armenian musician Arto Tuncboyaciyan.

Unlike many other projects by famous hard rock frontmen such as Maynard James Keenan's A Perfect Circle or Corey Taylor's Stone Sour, Serart wasn't something that was years in the making. In fact, Tankian says it was all the result of his meeting up with one man who had a very unique way of approaching music.

"It was one of those things where, you know, I saw Arto [Tuncboyaciyan] and he's such a compelling artist, and he's such an amazing person [that] he compelled me to do something with him. It wasn't something that I thought of, 'Hey, I want to do this record,' or anything like that. It was just that he was so compelling that I was like, 'God, I've got to do something with this guy in the studio and we just did a spontaneous, six-days-in-the-studio creation which turned out to be Serart."

Tuncboyaciyan, who was born in Constantinople, Turkey, is a multi-instrumentalist who had previously played on over 200 records in Europe before moving to the United States, where he went on to work with such jazz legends as Chet Baker, Al DiMeola, and Joe Zawinul. He has also done a semi-regular stint playing with Paul Winter and the Earth Band and now currently fronts his own group called the Armenian Navy Band.

Tankian is, of course, best known for his work with heavy metal band System of a Down, which he created in Los Angeles with guitarist Darron Malakian, drummer John Dolmayan, and bassist Shavo Odadjian. The band has released three albums to date (1998's self-titled, 2001's Toxicity and 2002's B-sides collection entitled Steal This Album!) and has sold over five million copies worldwide of Toxicity alone. Some of the band's biggest hits, including "Chop Suey!" "Toxicity," "Aerials" and "Sugar," helped land the group select spots on several top tours; System of a Down has played on three out of the last five Ozzfests and launched its own co-headlining tour with Slipknot in 2001 entitled the Pledge of Allegiance tour. Yet it remains the band's ability to blend its Armenian musical background with ferocious heavy metal experimentation, striking sonic song structures and an unprecedented loud/soft dynamic that have earned it a special place in the hearts of its loyal fans.

Just looking at the name of Tankian's new project, Serart - a combination of equal parts of both members' first names - it is immediately apparent that this project is not just the sort of side-project put together to ride high on the now-soaring success of System of a Down. Instead it is a sincere artistic achievement pushed forward by two likeminded musicians with a strong desire to see what happens when their unique talents are combined.

"I didn't have [any] particular intentions, purposes or guidelines," Tankian said about how he approached heading into the studio to record Serart. "It was just, you know, when I see amazing artists that are really at the top of their game I always want to do something with them to see how what I do mixes in with what they do, and Arto is a prime example of that."

Like System of a Down, Serart is based strongly on the two artists' shared Armenian heritage and multicultural musical backgrounds, which include a love for Middle Eastern melodies and Pan-African rhythms.

"I saw him performing at the Armenian Music Awards in the year two thousand and he got onstage playing like a Coke bottle and a tambourine, making it sound like a drum and bass kind of thing with a microphone in front of him," Tankian said about how he was first drawn to working with Tuncboyaciyan. "He was making so many different odd sounds, I was like, 'This guy doesn't have like regular instruments on him, he's just playing a bottle and he sounds so amazing.' And that grabbed my attention and I invited him to work on the Toxicity sessions with System. He did the outro (following directly after the close of "Aerials") and some other small parts for songs and then we became friends and then one day when I had the opportunity, I called him into the studio."

While Tankian himself is a longtime political activist seeking to draw attention to numerous social issues - including the Armenian genocide of 1915, as well as Axis of Justice, an organization working towards positive political change, which he co-founded with Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello - he says Serart is not about politics or any other specific sort of message.

"I don't necessarily intend to have any messages for people to take away from Serart in any way," he said. "It's just a spontaneous creation of what we were up to at the time and whatever [the listeners] take is something that would be congruent to whatever life experiences cumulative that they've earned and followed. So I think everyone approaches things based on their own past and experiences and the way that they hear things and see things."

So what inspires Tankian to make the music he has made with Serart?

"Life. Every aspect of it, every visual of it, every taste of it," he said. "Everything that impacts me as a person impacts me as an artist. So the world that I live in, that we live in, is very instrumental in whatever expression that comes out - even if it's not direct, it could be indirect. Everything affects me, I know that, and somehow [it] translates through even if it's not a direct correlation."

When asked who some of his heroes were, Tankian laughed and replied, "People who have overthrown governments," then quickly adding, "Heroes is kind of a funny word. I don't really have any. There're a lot of good artists that I appreciate, but I don't consider them heroes and a lot of different artists from different genres of music past and present."

Since forming System of a Down, not only has the band's popularity risen dramatically, helping to alter the face of hard rock music, but Tankian himself has become a reputable producer of his own merit. He co-produced Toxicity with legendary American Records founder Rick Rubin and most recently founded his own label, Serjical Strike Records, earlier this year. Serart, the duo's self-titled debut release, which hit shelves late last month via a distribution by Columbia Records, is the first release from Serjical Strike, a label which now features three other acts.

"I'm in the studio with one of them right now producing them," Tankian said. "They're called Slow Motion Reign, and they're like a very beautiful Beatlesque rock band - two singer/songwriters and [a] very European sound. You know, kind of like Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Coldplay, that kind of world. There [are] two other bands - one's called Kittens For Christian and we finished their record this year. It's going to be out in September. They're kind of like an eighties rock band. Their sound is pretty modern but they have gargey elements as well, kind of reminiscent of The Birthday Party and The Jesus Lizard and The Cure, [with] minimalist lyrics. And finally there's Bad Acid Trip, which is a very creative thrash-core band that my guitarist [System of a Down's] Darren [Malakian] is producing. I'm intricately involved in all of the projects and I know all of the people really well and it's been a very gratifying experience."

And even though System of a Down's summer is not as wrought with touring as it has been in the past few years - the band has the Leeds and Reading Festivals in August scheduled as its only performance dates so far - Tankian said he is still very, very busy working.

"It's a lot of hard work to be honest with you," Tankian said about what it has been like trying to start up his own label, "both in the business end and also in the artistic end, kind of making things come together. And I'm learning a lot and it's really, really interesting. Right now I'm just going to get this done and then work on some System stuff after that and go one at a time and see how things go." -- Eric Mitts

June 2003