System Of A Down vocalist Serj Tankian has publicly slammed Imagine Dragons over the past year or so, following the aforementioned multi-diamond-certified pop rockers’ decision to perform live in Baku, Azerbaijan last September. In August, ahead of that concert, Tankian launched a change.org petition in an attempt to sway the band away from playing a show in Azerbaijan, stating via his Instagram at the time:
“Now it has to be said.
A few months ago, it came to my attention that @imaginedragons had planned a show on Sept 2nd in Baku Azerbaijan. I was sure they were unaware that Azerbaijan’s petro-oligarchic dictatorial regime was starving 120k people in Nagorno-Karabagh which is now being called a Genocide by the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo.
So through representatives, I sent them a kind letter urging them to reconsider playing their show in Azerbaijan as it would help whitewash the dictatorial regime’s image there. I included various articles including one by Amnesty Int’l who I was told they have worked with in the past. There was no response. No answer, no response.
As the humanitarian crisis worsens in Nagorno-Karabagh with starvation already being recorded I am forced to publicize this letter and their disregard for this humanitarian catastrophe. Maybe they felt they had a legal liability to play the show, maybe they just don’t care. My whole life I have been an advocate for genocide recognition and have always said there has to be a price to pay for Genocidal regimes or deniers. Another genocide is looming by Azerbaijan and while this happens they get to enjoy an American band from LV. Fuck that!
That’s not right.Go to my profile to sign a petition to the band on change.org if you care to sign and you can see my letter to the band on my Facebook page.
Thanks for reading. Serj“
That petition generated 19,412 signatures, but was disregarded by Imagine Dragons, who played their show as planned at the Baku Olympic Stadium. Tankian wasn’t alone in condemning Imagine Dragons for playing the show, with Roger Waters, Brian Eno and Thurston Moore among those urging the band to withdraw from the event.
Discussing the matter earlier this year with Metal Hammer, Tankian voiced his disappointment in Imagine Dragons for their actions, offering:
“I don’t know these guys, but who are these people? “I don’t understand that type of thinking.
Very close thereafter, Azerbaijan attacked the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and 120,000 people left their historical homes.
Look, I’m not a judge for people to tell bands where to play, or where not to play. You have other artists playing in very questionable kingdoms, run by one person, where people don’t have a lot of human rights, and I get that they’re doing it for money, that they’re artists, that they’re entertaining, all of that.
But when there’s a government that’s about to commit ethnic cleansing, when Azerbaijan was starving the 120,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, and not allowing any food or medicine in… you know, as an artist, if I found that out, there is no fucking way I could have gone and played that show. But some artists do. And I don’t know what to say about those artists. I don’t respect them as human beings. Fuck their art, they’re not good human beings, as far as I’m concerned.
If you are that blind to justice that you will go play a show in a country that’s starving another country, illegally, according to the International Court of Justice, according to what Amnesty International is saying, what Human Rights Watch is saying… If you still go and play that country, I don’t know what to say about you as a fucking human being. I don’t even care about your music. If you’re a bad human being, I don’t give a fuck. So that’s where I’m at with that. I have zero respect for those guys.”
Tankian continued:
“It’s not about my ego. I just wanted to make positive change. I wanted those guys to know that what they’re about to do is going to have bad repercussions. I was warning them for their own sake, for their own morality.
I’ve been warning different organisations against using Azerbaijan as a venue because, again, if you allow them to have international links in a way where they feel like they’re legitimate, they’re going to continue their bad behaviour.
You have a dictator who is doing ethnic cleansing, and he’s getting more contracts, Formula 1 racing and rock shows, then he’s going to think that it’s okay to kill people. That’s not okay. So you’ve got to break that link, you’ve got to let people know.”
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Imagine Dragons founder/vocalist Dan Reynolds addressed the backlash over that show and a separate concert they performed in Tel Aviv, Israel last August. When asked if they had any regrets over playing those two shows, he responded:
“No. I don’t believe in depriving our fans who want to see us play because of the acts of their leaders and their governments. I think that’s a really slippery slope. I think the second you start to do that, there’s corrupt leaders and warmongers all over the world, and where do you draw the line?”
When it was pointed out that Serj Tankian took to condemning the band after for playing Azerbaijan, and if he had any response to his comments about them regarding that, Reynolds responded:
“I think I just said it. It’s a slippery slope, and I’m never going to deprive our fans of playing for them.”
