Members of System of a Down have posted strong reactions to the protests and rioting going on in response to the death of George Floyd. Singer Serj Tankian focuses his anger on President Trump, while drummer John Dolmayan is calling out celebrities for supporting looters and violent rioters.
Multiple cities are experiencing daily protests, riots, and looting in reaction to Floyd’s death under custody of the Minneapolis police officers, and reports have come out that President Trump took shelter in a White House bunker while violence erupted in Washington, D.C.
Seeing those headlines, Tankian took to Instagram to ridicule the president and express his feelings on the protests:
“Run Donny run into your bunker. You may be the first US President to do so out of fear of your own citizens. A real leader would address the nation properly and a real man would go face the protestors on the streets in person. But like other corrupt undemocratic leaders in the past, you’ve realized they are not your people as you are not really our President. These protests are not just over race but over institutional injustices beginning with the slave era electoral college that put you in power, K Street lobbying firms, superdelegates of a two party duopolistic Neo-liberal corporatocracy whose day has come. You make antifa a terrorist organization but not the KKK? The lessons of the 2018 peaceful successful revolution in Armenia can be applied in the US and elsewhere in the world. Coordinate online and block every street everywhere and force the regime to resign. The time has come. Your time has come @realdonaldtrump”
Dolmayan, who has expressed views in the past that have differentiated from the left-leaning positions of his System of a Down bandmates, used his platform to support peaceful protestors while admonishing violent looters and the celebrities who are directly or indirectly supporting them:
“For those of you peacefully protesting please continue to do so, the only way to institute the moral change we all want is to do so peaceably and with the voices of the masses merging into a single voice that can not be denied. To the famous people lending financial support to Antifa members incarcerated during these looting sprees perhaps your efforts would be better served by helping the thousands of small businesses these people are destroying. It’s easy to be sucked in by the narrative, be more substantive, there are people out there who actually think you know something they don’t and while you hide in your secure compounds and safe places they are on the streets suffering. I pledge to help those small businesses destroyed by these awful riots, I pledge to make my voice heard to seek justice for George Floyd and to help insure this doesn’t happen again by any means necessary. I also support the tens of thousands of good intentioned police men and women nationwide who go to work everyday to help keep us safe.”
In other news, Tankian recently teamed up with the Prime Minister of Armenia for a new song called “Hayastene”, with proceeds benefitting COVID-19 relief efforts. Dolmayan, meanwhile, released a new covers album earlier this year, taking on classics by David Bowie, Radiohead, and more. The LP, These Grey Men, features guest spots from Tankian, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, and Avenged Sevenfold singer M. Shadows, among others
System of a Down’s John Dolmayan on Covering David Bowie, Radiohead, and Madonna: Interview + Stream
System of a Down were set to play two shows in Los Angeles with Faith No More and Korn last month, but they have been rescheduled for May 2021 due to the pandemic.
See the aforementioned Instagram posts from Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan below.