Serj Tankian announces memoir, ‘Down with the System’

System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian has announced his new memoir Down with the System, set to be released next year.

Tankian revealed the memoir with a post on his social media, writing, “Boom! – I wrote a new book. I had a blast working on this accidentally hatched philosophical memoir as it’s given me the unique opportunity to deep dive into my family history, my own motivations from a young age and lessons I didn’t know I had learned.”

The memoir is set to be released on May 14 next year via Hachette Books, with the publisher’s website promising that Tankian’s memoir will be “far more than just a rock ‘n’ roll fable”.

Describing the tome as “an immigrant’s tale, it’s an activist’s awakening, and it’s a spiritual journey from darkness toward light”. Pre-orders are now available at $30.00 for the hardcover edition, with digital and audiobook editions available as well.

Earlier this year in August, Tankian called upon American rock band Imagine Dragons to cancel their September concert in Baku, Azerbaijan. Taking to social media, Tankian pointed out that “Azerbaijan’s petro-oligarchic dictatorial regime was starving 120k people in Nagorno-Karabagh,” adding that a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court had described the situation as “genocide”.

Tankian revealed that he had sent a plea privately to the band, but had been ignored. “As the humanitarian crisis worsens in Nagorno-Karabagh with starvation already being recorded I am forced to publicise 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,” he wrote.