Serj Tankian accuses Imagine Dragons of supporting “ethnic cleansing and genocide” with Azerbaijan show
System of a Down singer Serj Tankian has escalated his feud with Imagine Dragons after the pop-rock group played a show in Azerbaijan despite the ongoing conflict in the country.
Tankian, who is of Azerbaijani heritage, warned Imagine Dragons last August to not go ahead with their planned concert in the region. Despite the rock vocalist sharing an open letter, the ‘Radioactive’ group chose to go ahead with the performance at the Olympic Stadium in Baku on September 2nd, 2023.
In the document, Tankian discussed the “humanitarian catastrophe” occurring in their “petro-oligarchic dictatorial regime”. Initially, the letter was supposed to be private but after claiming to receive no response, the System of a Down singer decided to take the matter public.
He said of their decision: “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.”
Furthermore, recently, Tankian told Metal Hammer that “there is no fucking way I could have gone and played that show”, however, he understood that not all artists share his belief system. “I don’t respect them as human beings. Fuck their art, they’re not good human beings, as far as I’m concerned,” he added.
After previously ignoring Tankian’s comments, Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds has now responded in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I don’t believe in depriving our fans who want to see us play because of the acts of their leaders and their governments,” the singer said.
Reynolds also claimed it’s a “slippery slope” because “there’s corrupt leaders and warmongers all over the world” which made him question “where do you draw the line?”
While Reynolds was forthright in his defence of Imagine Dragons’ decision, Tankian, has taken to social media to further explain his position on the matter. Notably, in 2020, System of a Down released ‘Protect the Land’ and ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’ in 2020 to raise awareness of the ongoing situation in Azerbaijan.
Now, Tankian has said to Reynolds, “Respectfully, I draw the line at ethnic cleansing and genocide. Azerbaijan’s dictatorship with popular support was already into a 9 month starvation blockade of Nagorno-Karabagh qualified as Genocide by former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo when they decided to play Baku.”
The System of a Down frontman then questioned whether Imagine Dragons would perform in “Nazi Germany” and asked “why don’t they want to play in Russia?” before asking if it’s because the country is “not popular”.
He concluded: “They support Ukraine but not Armenians of Artsakh? The only ‘slippery slope’ is the farce moral equivalency at the heart of this hypocritical attitude. I have nothing against this guy nor his band. I just hate artists being taken advantage of to whitewash Genocidal dictatorships.”
Reynolds is yet to respond to Tankian’s latest remarks.
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