Do we like them?Do we like Serj Tankian?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decades of putting his name to human rights causes and real charity work, held back by a thin record on LGBTQ+ issues and a very blunt streak.
Serj Tankian is the voice of System of a Down, and the thing he is best known for off stage is a lifelong push for recognition of the Armenian genocide. The band's own history is wrapped up in that cause, and he has spent years turning gig platforms into campaigning platforms. By 2024 he had also put out a memoir and a solo single, "A.F. Day".
His biggest public stoush lately wasn't with a politician but with Imagine Dragons. Tankian publicly asked the band to cancel a show in Azerbaijan, arguing that playing there lends the government legitimacy, and pointed to the 2020 war, a blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh and what he called ethnic cleansing of Armenians. When they went ahead anyway, he told Metal Hammer, “Fuck their art, they're not good human beings, as far as I'm concerned.”
Blunt, yes, and you can see Dan Reynolds' side of it if you think artists should play to fans wherever they are. Tankian came back with a line that tells you where he draws his own: he would not play for a government accused of ethnic cleansing. Where you land depends on whether you read it as a moral stand or as a public pile-on, and he doubled down rather than backed off.
On the harm check, the record is clean in what he has said and done. In 2020 he told Trump to “run into your bunker” after reports Trump went to a bunker during the George Floyd protests, and he fell out publicly with his own drummer, who posted a pro-Trump message. Tankian later said he loves and respects that bandmate “irrespective of our extremely polarized political commentary and differences”, and criticised the online abuse aimed at them both.
What I couldn't find is anything from him specifically on LGBTQ+ or trans rights, for or against, so that stays a gap rather than a tick. There was also no sign of him chasing grievance, conspiracy theories or the culture-war grift, and no court findings or serious allegations against him turned up in the sources I could open. Nothing new on him lately that I could confirm, either.
The good stuff is real. In 2023 he teamed up with Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi and Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian as The Gibson Band on "Deconstruction", with proceeds going to the Armenia Fund's Artsakh Refugee Initiative. He also told Spin that only artists who truly care will risk alienating their fanbase over what they see as the truth, and he has walked that talk with the bandmate he disagrees with most.