Serj Tankian Says He Respects John Dolmayan "Irrespective Of Our Extremely Polarised Political Commentary"
System Of A Down's Serj Tankian stands up against the "online hate and stupidity" that both he and his bandmate John Dolmayan have faced recently regarding their opposing political stances.
The differing political opinions with System Of A Down have become more apparent than ever over the past couple of weeks, with frontman Serj Tankian calling for Donald Trump’s regime to resign, and drummer John Dolmayan praising the president for being “the greatest friend to minorities”. One thing they are on the same page about, however, is standing up “against the online hate and stupidity” they have both faced since.
Frontman Serj took to Instagram to post a photo of the musicians together to show fans their solidarity, writing that he both loves and respects John “irrespective of our extremely polarised political commentary”.
Read this: Every System Of A Down album ranked from worst to best
Serj also calls the drummer his “stalwart ally in efforts for recognition of the Armenian genocide within SOAD”, adding: “The amount of online hate and stupidity against him and I are unjustifiable: social media has created an erroneous digital society that partially thrives on this reality.”
He continues: “Remember irrespective of the stance, only artists that truly care and are impassioned will risk alienating their base for what they consider the truth. Our dilemma and possible fallacy is that we have two in one band. Some may consider that a weakness but the artistic, political and social dichotomy if not quadrichotomy (not a word) has made System Of A Down what it is today.
“Thank you all for reading,” Serj concludes. “We should all do more non-online reading.”
Serj's latest post comes just a couple of weeks after John addressed the “differing opinions in System Of A Down,” but added, “…You’d be surprised at how civil our conversations are, especially between me and Serj, who seem to have the most diverging opinions on things.
“I have a lot of respect for Serj and his opinions, although I don’t agree with them very often these days. And that’s okay. We expand each other’s horizons – I like to think that he learns from me and I learn from him.”