System of a Down

In a wide-ranging interview, two members of multi-million-selling and Grammy-award-winning metal band System of a Down talk to 5 live’s Dotun Adebayo about their music, their political views, their personal lives and why the 1915 genocide of over one million Armenians is still such an important event for the Armenian community around the world. The four members of the band are all American-Armenians, and in a career lasting over 20 years they’ve sold over forty million records. They’re now embarking on a tour that will culminate in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. The Armenian massacres – which the Turkish government refuses to call a genocide – occurred when the Ottoman Empire systematically exterminated over 1 million Armenians in order to remove them from their traditional homeland within modern-day Turkey. System of a Down’s singer Serj Tankian and drummer John Dolmayan spoke to Dotun Adebayo.