Happy 48th Birthday to System of a Down’s Serj Tankian

Serj Tankian turns 48 today. Best known as lead vocalist for System of a Down, he was born in Beirut, Lebanon on August 21, 1967.

At age five, Tankian arrived in the States with his parents, settling in California. He was 30 when System of a Down released their self-titled debut album in 1998. Their second album, Toxicity is the one that blew the doors open.  It debuted at #1 in the U.S. and featured the singles, "Chop Suey!", "Toxicity" and "Aerials".  After the September 11th terrorist attacks, the radio station I worked for pulled "Chop Suey!" out of rotation.  The song was a big hit at the time, but a lot of Program Directors decided to protect their audience from hearing lyrics about "self righteous suicide".

System of a Down's final two albums to date, 2005's Mezmerize and Hypnotize were both big successes, but the band decided to go on hiatus by the end of 2006.  In 2011, the band reformed and returned to the stage.  They've continued to tour occasionally and there have been rumblings of another album from the band sometime in the future.

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