It’s no secret that System of a Down‘s Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan strongly disagree when it comes to politics.
But in a recent interview with Forbes, Tankian, a liberal, revisited the topic and expressed his frustration about his bandmate and brother-in-law.
“He’s my brother-in-law and my drummer,” he told Forbes. “Is it frustrating being politically opposite to your own drummer and brother-in-law? F*** yeah. Of course it’s frustrating. But that’s having to do with American politics. When it comes to Armenian issues we’re on the same exact page. We know what injustice is happening, we work together. We’re doing different auction activities and working together on many fronts. The Armenian nation is united, whether you voted for Republican, Democrat or neither.”
He continued, “But, I was a Bernie [Sanders] supporter, I still am. I feel like he still would’ve been the best choice going forward. But I’m okay with Biden. I’m happy that they’ve made that statement. The elections are coming up and normally I’m very vocal, but this war and the daily death toll has really taken up my full spectrum of focus.”
Their polar opposite views might make for some awkward family dinner conversations, but Dolmayan isn’t surprised by his and Tankian’s politics.
“I have a lot of respect for Serj and his opinions, although I don’t agree with them very often these days,” Dolmayan said in an Instagram video back in June. “And that’s okay. We expand each other’s horizons — I like to think that he learns from me and I learn from him.”
Tankian echoed that point in a post by saying, “Remember irrespective of the stance, only artists that truly care and are impassioned will risk alienating their base for what they consider the truth.”
While both Tankian and Dolmayan agree to disagree, they both have been known to blast others who aren’t part of their political camp.
Dolmayan has called democrats “true fascists” and even called out a customer who criticized his comic book store because he’s a Trump supporter.
Meanwhile, Tankian has called Trump supporters “hypocrites” and continues to encourage activism as he does in the new doc, Truth to Power.
