It's an instrumental. You know how anal I am about that word. [I hate] when people call classical music 'songs.' They are not songs. You've got to sing for a song. Music is instrumentals. It's important to me. It's not a jam either, because jams are improvised.

Music is an emotion, and I put it out there.

When we were a club band, we always used to say, 'Man, if we ever see success, we'd like to open doors for other people, to push the boundaries and fully contribute something to art, to music, that is going to help it evolve instead of doing stuff for the sake of money or doing stuff for the sake of being popular.

Back in the day, when the emperor or the king or whatever waged war, they went to war, too. But that's been lost in time.

System of a Down is the music that I wanted to buy but couldn't find at the store. It's the band I wanted to be a fan of.

A lot of times, I don't feel responsible for the songs myself. But that's my job or my place in life: to keep my search and catch the ideas before they pass me by.