You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today was born in

Beirut and moved to California as a child, but in many ways his

worldview was formed in the country his family fled from in the early 20th century, Armenia.

Serge Tankian's grandparents were survivors of the mass killing perpetrated by the Turkish

Ottoman Empire in 1915, 16. More than a million people

died, murdered or starved. Armenians call it a genocide. Much of the world agrees. As a child

raised in California, Serge promised his grandfather he would work tirelessly to have Armenian

suffering acknowledged and the truth told. The vehicle for his activism, heavy metal music. In the

1990s, Serge formed a band with three other Armenian Americans. They were raw and loud, and they

called themselves system of a down. By 2001,

they had a number one album on their hands. They had notoriety, too, after Serge responded to the

9-11 attacks by publicly condemning U.S. foreign policy. But Serge Tangkeyan remained determined to use his music

to promote ideas and causes he believed in. International justice, clean government, people power.

It didn't always make for easy relations with his bandmates, but it did make him a hero to many

Armenians. He publicly backed the popular protest, which eventually

toppled Armenia's autocratic leader in 2018. These days, he mixes activism with music and painting.

So which matters most, his politics or his creativity? Well, he joins me now on the line from Los Angeles. Welcome to

Hard Talk. Thank you, Stephen. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to have you on the show.

I don't want to start in a downbeat way, but I can't help noticing that you recently described

the last year as the worst of your life. I guess we can all imagine why that might be,

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