I don't want to spend all my time working as an activist. I don't get satisfaction out of it. I'd rather be doing something else. I'm a musician.

As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.

I think that the memory of Armenia's genocide opened my eyes at an early age to the existence of political cynicism.

We're addicted to this concept of civilization - we can't imagine living outside of it because we've had it for 10,000 years, all of what we call history. But according to archaeologists, humanity has been on this planet for millions of years in indigenous form.

Touring and putting out records is fun and cool, but I've been doing it for a long time.

In America, there's more of the question, should music be political or should it just be for entertainment purposes, whereas around the world that's not even an issue. I think people just assume that music should be everything.

Political statements are usually more direct, and it works with the upbeat music as well, for some reason, the directness of your statements.