Serj Tankian Quotes

I love being in the studio, and I am a huge fan of live music. Without writing good stuff in the studio, you have nothing to play live.

When I listen to a record, or when I'm making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble.

Normally when I work with bands I'm trying to refine and improve what's already there.

You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even working on an older song that might complete that picture.

When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.

I think it's his perception of knowing how to make a record build, keeping the integrity of the song in the music and really adding a lot of musical elements to compliment my voice and to compliment the song.

I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.

When you're making a record, you try to achieve stylistically what fits on you. Like a good old coat, you know what I mean?

I pay such close attention of the record making process that most people would assume are very little and wouldn't be that big of a deal; the packaging, the title, and the harmonies, I think, are arguably as important as the lead vocals.

I want to make an album with just great beats and big vocals and just amazing lyrics.

We'll set up a demo session and try to knock out eight or ten songs and make them sound as close as we can to a record with the money and time we have.

I write the songs, go in and record them, then I listen to everything and decide how it all fits together.

The records I make, I'm there from the writing of the first note through the click tracks to the miking of the drums to the editing of everything to the production to the vocals to the artwork.

A great song has to stand on its own, just singing and playing, and the rest is frosting. But you have to pay attention to the frosting.

Putting together a hit record is like putting together a puzzle.

Usually, I write the music and am involved in the production.

When we record a song, like 'Bedside Manner,' it's important that the next time I write a somber, mid-tempo song that we don't treat it the same way.

Making an album is always a puzzle: you start by seeing a lot of different pieces, and they all need to come together into one picture.

In recording, you're trying to make something work sonically - getting the right inflection on the right guitar sound - and maybe a part that would be musically great doesn't sound as cool. On paper, though, it's all stripped back. The musical idea is the one that wins.

I've got my own studio, so I sit in my studio writing and if I get a great take, that's the take.

When I walked into the studio, the chorus of 'Nobody Love' was already set. For me, the challenge was to make it have depth.

Plus, we spend most of our time writing music. Most of the time is spent in the studio in my house.

There are seven songs finished and on par with any that are on Siren's.

So I'll set a cycle in motion and pop it into record and I'll lay down a drum pattern, a bass line, a keyboard and guitar part, and once the groove is going I launch into the song and sing my song over the top.

I had 25 or 30 songs. Sequencing the record, I left that to the producer. I'm not into doing that stuff.