Serj Tankian (born August 21, 1967, Beirut, Lebanon) is an American musician of Armenian origin, songwriter, vocalist, keyboardist, and occasional rhythm guitarist for the band System of a Down, founder of the solo project Serj Tankian.
At the age of 8, together with his parents and younger brother Sevak, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began to study music at the Rose & Alex Philibosi Armenian School, while studying marketing.
In Los Angeles, he joined the large Armenian community. He has his own label, Serjical Strike Records, and has also published his book of poetry, Cool Gardens. Serge paid for the first editions of the book through his small software company, Ultimate Solutions.
In 1993, Tankian met Daron Malakian, together they organized the System of a Down group, which also included drummer Andy (Andranik) Khachaturian, who later left the group due to disagreements. Subsequently, Tankian and Malakian met Shavo Odadjian, who at that time worked in a bank and studied at the same music school as Tankian. He temporarily became their manager, but later quit his job and became a bass player. Thus was the creation of the group System of a Down, which also included drummer John Dolmayan.
Serj Tankian's solo project was his debut album Elect The Dead, released on October 23, 2007 and consisting of both old songs, for one reason or another, not included in the System Of A Down repertoire, and completely new material. For a concert tour in support of his album, Tankian assembled a line-up called Serj Tankian And The F.C.C. The tour in support of the album began on October 12, 2007 in Chicago.
Serj Tankian was featured on Bill Laswell's Praxis album Profanation, released in 2008.
On November 26, 2009, Serzh and his father Khachatur Tankian performed Aleksey Hekimian's song in Armenian on live air on Armenian television.
In early 2010, Tankian released his first song with a symphony orchestra. The debut was the song "Empty Walls", which is the flagship in his album Elect the Dead. On March 9, 2010, Tankian released an album with a symphony orchestra.
At the end of February 2011, Serj Tankian released a musical about Prometheus. On September 21, 2010 his new album Imperfect Harmonies was released. The musician later released the EP Imperfect Remixes (2011), which is a collection of remixes of songs from the album Imperfect Harmonies.
On August 12, 2011, Tankian, before his next concert in Yerevan, was awarded the medal of the Prime Minister of Armenia for his contribution to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and for the promotion of Armenian music.
On July 10, 2012, Tankian released the album Harakiri, which he himself described in an interview as "an ordinary rock album that is very similar to the work of System of a Down".
In early 2013, Tankian announced his collaboration with hip-hop artist Tech N9ne and his intention to take part in the recording of his album Something Else.
Taylor has released a Serj Tankian Signature Model T5 (STSM-T5) signature guitar featuring the emblem of his mascot, which he found while touring with System of a Down in Europe.
In 2017, together with the soloist of the IOWA group Ekaterina Ivanchikova, Serj Tankian starred in the video for the song A Fine Morning To Die, which became the soundtrack of the film The Legend of Kolovrat.
He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Creative Technologies "Tumo".
On February 5, 2021, Serj Tankian released the song Elasticity, a single from the mini-album of the same name, which was released on March 19, 2021.