serj tankian is best known as frontman of the heavy metal band system of a down.also an arch advocate for his family's homeland, armenia. his passionate views on genocide, war and corrupt governance have won him millions of fans and numerous enemies too. which matters more to him — the politics or the music? serj tankian in los angeles, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, stephen. thanks for having me on. it's a pleasure to have you on the show. i don't want to start in a downbeat way, but i can't help noticing that you recently described the last year as the worst of your life. i guess we can all imagine why that might be, butjust spell it out for me. well, i mean, covid obviously is a huge part of it, but also i had other health issues. my back, i got back surgery recently, and recovering from that. and so that's been challenging. and there's also the invasion of nagorno—karabakh by azerbaijan and turkey, with syrian mercenaries, that really, you know, created a humanitarian catastrophe within armenia. so that's been really, you know, very tough. it's been a very to