Singer, songwriter and producer Serj Tankian is celebrating his birthday today !!!
(Photo: pxfuel.com)
= He was born in Beirut on August 21, 1967, to an Armenian family.
= In 1975 he emigrated with his family to the United States, where they settled in Los Angeles.
= He attended the Armenian school "Rose and Alex Pilibos" in Los Angeles, where his future "System Of A Down" friends also studied, bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian.
= Guitarist Daron Malakian also attended the same school, but he was a few years younger than Tankian and due to age differences they did not meet.
= Serj and Darron eventually met in 1992. They were in the same rehearsal room, each with his own band. Daron Malakian played guitar and sang in his band and Serj played keyboards for his.
= The two formed a band called "Soil" together with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino, and with Shavo Odadjian who became their manager and later guitarist.
= After the dissolution of "Soil" Serj, Darron, and Wadajian who moved to play bass guitar, founded "System of a Down".
= The band's first album was released in June 1998 and was produced by Rick Rubin. All but one of the song lyrics on the album were written by Serj, who also composed some of them. Tankian was also responsible for playing the keyboards and samples.
= The band's big break was with the release of their second album "Toxicity" which became the first album to be released in America after the events of September 11th.
= In addition to playing the keyboards, Tankian was also responsible for strings arrangments on this album and also played guitar on the song "Aerials".
= In parallel with his activities in "System of a Down", Serj served as vocalist with other ensembles and/or artists such as: "Mushroom Cult", "Hed PE", Tony Iommi, "Deftones" and more.
= Serj also has a solo career in which he has released four studio albums that range between different musical styles including even jazz and symphony.
= He also has two collaborative albums, the first from 2003 with musician Arto Tunçboyacıyan and the second from 2020 with singer Jimmy Urine from the electro-punk band "Mindless Self Indulgence".
= He also wrote soundtracks for 7 movies and computer games and recorded a special rendition of the song "Rains of Castamere" in honor of the last season of "Game of Thrones".
= Serj is also an album producer and among others produced Buckethead's album "Enter the Chicken", in which he is also featured in singing.
= Tankian is also the owner of "Serjical Strike Records", which gives artists who have been rejected by the big companies the opportunity to release albums.
= Serj is the brother-in-law of John Dolmayan the drummer of "SOAD". Serj's wife and John's wife are sisters.