Serj Tankian: Imagine Dragons

The System of a Down singer slams the pop-rock band for playing a show in Azerbaijan

June 18, 2024 | 5:34pm ET

Last year, Serj Tankian called out Imagine Dragons for their planned concert in Azerbaijan. Now that the pop-rock band went ahead and played the show, the System of a Down singer says they’re “not good human beings.”

Tankian had penned an open letter to Imagine Dragons, asking them not to play Azerbaijan, accusing the country of “crimes against humanity” for their military actions which he described as a looming “genocide.”

When asked by Metal Hammer about his feelings after Imagine Dragona still played the concert in Baku, Azerbaijan, last September, Tankian responded, “I don’t know these guys, but who are these people? I don’t understand that type of thinking. Very close thereafter, Azerbaijan attacked the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and 120,000 people left their historical homes.”

He continued, “Look, I’m not a judge for people to tell bands where to play, or where not to play. You have other artists playing in very questionable kingdoms, run by one person, where people don’t have a lot of human rights, and I get that they’re doing it for money, that they’re artists, that they’re entertaining, all of that. But when there’s a government that’s about to commit ethnic cleansing, when Azerbaijan was starving the 120,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, and not allowing any food or medicine in… you know, as an artist, if I found that out, there is no fucking way I could have gone and played that show. But some artists do. And I don’t know what to say about those artists. I don’t respect them as human beings. Fuck their art, they’re not good human beings, as far as I’m concerned.

Tankian concluded, “If you are that blind to justice that you will go play a show in a country that’s starving another country, illegally, according to the International Court of Justice, according to what Amnesty International is saying, what Human Rights Watch is saying… If you still go and play that country, I don’t know what to say about you as a fucking human being. I don’t even care about your music. If you’re a bad human being, I don’t give a fuck. So that’s where I’m at with that. I have zero respect for those guys.”

Tankian and System of a Down have long spoken out against Azerbaijan. In fact, they released their new first songs in 15 years back in 2020 in order to raise money for  the “serious war being perpetrated upon our cultural homelands of Artsakh and Armenia” by Azerbaijan.