Hi I'm Serj Tankian, I'm at Amoeba, and this is what is in my basket.
Alright, first one up is Philip Glass: Symphony #3.
I'm a huge fan of Glass and his compositions
his arpeggiated string arrangements have been very influential
but there's something really spellbinding about his music, for me
and powerful, and obviously he's also known as a great film composer, so...
Philip Glass. One of my favorites.
We go from there to Ennio Morricone
This is Mike Patton's label Ipecac. Mike's a friend of mine
and we've toured together on numerous of his projects
and I guess he put this out.
Kyle actually pointed this out to me, it's called...
'Crime and...' covered by sticker
'Crime and Dissonance.' Yeah.
I'm a huge fan of Morricone's music. I saw him perform
a couple of years back in Piazza del Popolo in Roma.
with a string quartet and it was just incredible
and one of the original amazing film composers, all the spaghetti westerns, Sergio Leone films
So, I mean, y'know, this is the god, y'know? of that world...
What is it that you like about film music that's different from other types of music?
There's something very emotive about film music.
Different genres express different emotions for an artist, I think
so if you do a jazz record, you can express certain
I don't know, anything from sexy to kind of a whole colorful world of stuff that you can do
With rock, I think, the power and intention of
the music coming through with the lyrics could be really
moving and inspiring; it's, y'know, the music of revolt in some ways.
And with classical you can get to the tenderest point of existence
aptly and in the best possible way, more than any other type of music
I think the range of emotions.
and I've been working with an orchestra for a number of years
I did 'Elect The Dead Symphony' with Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
I've worked with 12 different orchestras in Europe doing live shows
and it's an amazing experience, live experience
as a musician as a composer, to be on stage performing with an orchestra
there is nothing better in the world, honestly.
Ali Farka Toure. 'Radio Mali'
I don't have this record but I have a number of his other records and
his guitar playing and kind of blues, African blues style whatever you want to call that
is just incredible.
And a couple of modern ones
I just saw Ministry: The Very Best Of Fixes and Remixes
I love Ministry because Al Jorgenson is absolutely nuts
and y'know, his music is very unique
and I just recently saw a film called 'Fix'
about his life on tour and what not
and my music is actually influenced by it
The new record that I just put out, 'Harakiri', has a song called 'Figure It Out'
it's got this one kind of double, really fast, crazy section that's total Ministry influnced
The first time I saw Ministry live was at
Lollapalooza, I want to say...
early nineties, I guess, would be the time
and, yeah, I was just blown away, I was like, 'what the fuck is this?' Y'know?
They played right after the Chili Peppers, I think, or something like that,and I was like
'Jesus Built My Hotrod,' one of my favorite songs, anyway
Speaking of Patton, I didn't have this record 'Mondo Cane'
this is a record that he did with an Italian orchestra
of Italian music and
I had seen some clips live, but I'd never gotten the records, so...
Do you prefer improvisation or do you like it when it's more structured and plotted out
Y'know, for live performance, I like bringing in certain elements of improvisation
Y'know, you tour and everyday
becomes Groundhog's Day if you play the same material. So bringing in a little improvisation
with the band that you're playing with or the ensemble you're playing with
it definitely adds to creating something brand new right there on the spot, and it's exciting
for both the musicians and the audience, I think.
As far as composition, I mean that's all very structured for me.
I prefer to know exactly what I'm doing from beginning to end obviously in the studio or
when writing for orchestra
When you're playing with an orchestra, there isn't really room for improvisation, I would imagine.
No, unless you're... y'know that's something I'd like to really play around with
In other words, when you're playing with an established orchestra there's no room for improvisation but
if you put together an ensemble of orchestral players and some jazz players and some other
then I think you can kind of Zappa your way through it
know what I mean? If you have the right musicians and set up some kind of
small loop-oriented things that you can do and arrange in different formats
I think you could do that kind of stuff, and I want to try that one day. That would be interesting.
We look forward to hearing it.
Thank you, yeah, I look forward to doing it.
Thank you very much for talking with us today.
My pleasure, thank you guys.