GRAMMY winner Serj Tankian is an accidental rock star. 

When he was 7 years old, his Armenian family fled the Lebanese Civil War and relocated to L.A. to start life anew. He dealt with some childhood bullying, then because he had a better grasp of English, he became an unintended legal aide to his father when his former business partner sued him. The singer’s childhood was defined by adult matters, and he did not discover an interest in music until he acquired a Casio keyboard at age 19.

By the time he was 24, Tankian ran a successful software company, but then he met younger guitarist Daron Malakian, and their musical union birthed System Of A Down with bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan. The heavy metal band had an incredibly successful five-album run between 1998 and 2005, andbecame international superstars with their 2001 sophomore album, Toxicity. That album sold 5 million copies domestically and lead single "Chop Suey!" was nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Metal Performance; a year later "Aerials" was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance. In 2006, the group took home the golden gramophone for Best Hard Rock Performance for "B.Y.O.B."

System’s music has not been the only driving force in Tankian’s life. Throughout his career, he has merged activism with art, as explored in his 2020 documentary Truth To Power. He has been outspoken on many issues — particularly that of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, which to this day Turkey still has not done. He's proud of his heritage. He's proud of his music. And he has always lived life on his own terms.

"I was an activist before becoming an artist," Tankian tells GRAMMY.com "That and making a positive impact on the world was a part of what the band did."

Tankian originally intended his new book, Down With The System: A Memoir (Of Sorts), to be a philosophical tome about the intersection of justice and spirituality. And while he does hit those notes, the book could also be considered a life manual. Tankian shares his life story and musical odyssey, and we get the wisdom and insight of someone who never really planned for the life that he has had. The book arrived on May 14, and Tankian will do a short promotional book tour.

"Everything's written with complete brutal honesty, but love and compassion and understanding and self-responsibility throughout the situation," Tankian says.

Tankian applies that frankness to discussing his bandmates, with whom he hasn’t always seen eye to eye. System went on hiatus in 2006, returning intermittently to tour and play select festivals, including last month’s Sick New World Festival in Las Vegas. But they have released only two new songs in the last 18 years. 

Members of System have done other projects, including AcHoZeN, These Grey Men, and Daron Malakian and Scars On Broadway, who have released two albums. Meanwhile, Tankian has embarked on numerous solo endeavors. His projects include orchestral and acid jazz work, as well as a rock musical with Tony-winning playwright and lyricist Steven Sater called "Prometheus Bound." 

The singer and composer sat down with GRAMMY.com to discuss the compelling life story he chronicles in Down With The System. Tankian’s latest solo song "A.F. Day" hits on May 17, and his new solo Foundations EP arrives later this year featuring mostly archival songs pulled from the vaults with a few tweaks made. 

This conversation has been edited for clarity.

You're almost contrarian in a lot of ways, and you've been successful because of it. You’ve even made decisions that many people would not have, prioritizing principles over money.

I think it's worked to my benefit at the chagrin of my band members, in some ways. I should say our benefit.

I never came from the "school of rock," if you will, in my teens. The bridge to music was a very long battle for me. Whereas for young people, their parents get them a drum and they start playing at seven or eight years old. They know that's what they want to do their whole life, they want to be on stage. I never even thought of [the] stage. Even when I played music, I never thought of performance. I never thought of doing press. I never thought of making videos. I never thought of writing publicity things, quotes or whatever. So for me, the whole industry became an interesting new industry, among many that I was into.

You had a very intense childhood. Do you think that the Dada-esque and Frank Zappa-ish humor that you've brought into a lot of music, especially System, is your way of tapping into and releasing things that didn’t come out in your childhood?

That's spot on. But it's also my dad; he's a very humorous guy, and he always cracks jokes and lightens the situation. His mom, my grandmother, was like that, too. They're just really light-hearted people. On my mom's side they're serious as hell, but in a good way — very strong gravitas, good morals, good intentions. 

Maybe there is an aspect of lost childhood lived with lightness of heart. You meet a comic or someone that impresses you with their lightness of being, and you realize that you're taking life too seriously. You bring that at the back of your head: I need to integrate this everyday. I need to crack more jokes. I need to say stupid s—. Because if you take life seriously, you're doomed, right? We know that. It's not worth it.

You've had to be a politician most of your life — with your friends, with family, with the band, with your activism. And yet, there's a moment you describe in the book where you're sitting on a tour bus tripping on shrooms, and the world is just rolling by. At the same time that you're this leader, you're also a passenger. It seems like you've really had to play things on the fly.

I feel like these strange, contrarian things are always happening to me; like these strange tests where I have to make a moral decision, even when you're not expecting it. 

Years ago, I signed a band called Fair to Midland [to his Serjical Strike Records label], and I tell the story about Ahmet Ertegun who founded Atlantic Records. It put me in this really strange conundrum where I happen to meet Ahmet Ertegun, and I realized that this guy has helped funnel money into campaigns to deny the Armenian Genocide in the United States of America, like think tanks, and congressional committees. Now I have to face this and deal with it properly, and it's not really easy. Just when you're not expecting it, you're faced with these things, and that's why I wrote about them because it's those stories that really, really help shape [you].

It's very easy as an artist to keep a big audience, to not give a f—, and to cater to the many. It's very difficult to make rational, moral decisions based on what you truly believe, and possibly piss off half your base. I see many entertainers that are amazing musicians around me that will never speak truth to power or anything. They won't speak about any political issues, and that's fine. I think making music for the sake of music itself is also culturally relevant.

I was an activist before becoming an artist; I can't separate one from the other. The artists that I have treasured — including Frank Zappa, Bob Marley, John Lennon — are ones that were honest with themselves and the world around them. To them, that honesty and that truth was more important than someone liking them and their music.

Has your experience with transcendental meditation helped you compose more contemplative works, like your orchestral suites 'Orca' and 'Invocations?'

With Orca, I remember I was writing my second solo record at the time for Warner which came out as Imperfect Harmonies. I had a conversation earlier with my friend, David Farrier, who is a New Zealand journalist and filmmaker now. I said, "These other tracks I can't even sing on. They're long and orchestral." And he goes, "I think you're writing your first symphony." 

With Invocations, I was just writing, and I don't know how involved meditation would be involved in those moments, but the music is so moody with Invocations that there is that contemplative, ambient being. You're hearing long, drawn-out phrases. The inspiration behind Invocations was, How do I couple voices that never belonged with each other? How I do have a tenor, an alto, a world singer, and a death metal singer? It's like putting in white noise with a beautiful violin playing. So that idea made me write Invocations and put the whole project together.

Your new song "A.F. Day" is much more aggressive and punk rock. System has a punkish mentality in some songs.

It does. That song would have actually been great with System and was written very early on, I don't even know when. I'm actually wondering why that was never even a System song. Just raw, punk rock, balls to the walls, and my voice in it is so old. I kept my original demo voice because my voice has changed over 25 [or] 30 years. I can't sing like that, so I kept it. 

The book allowed me a record retrospective look at my life, including my musical life. And in a way the Foundations EP mirrors that with certain songs from 25 years ago, a song from 15 years ago, that kind of a thing that I put together in this small EP collection.

September 2001 and a few months after that had a very big impact on you. A week prior to 9/11, there was the unintended riot due to the police shutting down an unexpectedly overcrowded, free outdoor show in Hollywood. There were also people misunderstanding the meaning of "Chop Suey!", and then Howard Stern grilled you about your political views and questioned your love for America after you wrote the essay "Understanding Oil." It seems like that was when you realized you didn't want to play the game that others want you to. 

I don't recommend it for everyone. If you're trying to make music, saying things that will piss off millions of people will probably not work well for your career. But it somehow worked for me. 

I was more interested in the truth, ultimately, than my own career or our music. The guys would always be like,"You're putting everything above the band, and the band should be more important." I would always deny it, because obviously I love my band. It's a part of who I am, and I write some of those songs. But in a way, I did because I was an activist before becoming an artist. That and making a positive impact on the world was a part of what the band did. If I couldn't do it in a strong way with my words, whether it's "Understanding Oil," the essay I wrote on Sept. 12, or our music for that matter or our lyrics, then what's the f—ing point?

[After] releasing Toxicity, those couple of years were probably the most stressful times in my life. And it's not because of stardom, or people loving the band, or what people go through or the changes that happened with the band. F— all that. I was f—ing scared. 

There was a lot of s— going on, from the riots when we had that free show, to 9/11 and the band's music being basically banned by Clear Channel along with a lot of music. Then from there on other threads, a few years later having to do with Turkish intelligence [shadowing Serj], and many other things having to do with congressional people like Dennis Hastert [who killed off a proposed resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide]. My career has been this junction of music, politics, all sorts of crazy s—. It's just mayhem in some ways… and I become a recluse. And I say, Why can't I just play music?

One of the reasons I love [film] scoring is because I'm shutting the f— up and singing, literally. I sit down with the director, I sit down with the producer, we figure out the tone of a film or a TV series. And I work on it mostly by myself, and back and forth, and we finish this thing. You're in the background. I f—ing love it. Because when I'm in the foreground, I'm a disrupter, whether I like it or not.

Have you met fans from over the years even more recently that were inspired by your art and your activism? Have you found people that have been motivated to exploring their own causes?

We get a lot of System people coming up and saying that "I didn't know about the Armenian genocide. Because of you, we learned a lot more." 

But there's also that element of becoming an activist and creating a spark for someone to fight their own injustice. I think that is huge. I think that's one of the most important function of the arts — just being an entertainer is not good enough.

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