System of a Down’s Serj Tankian Says Pandemic Has Been “Devastating” for Him

System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian has made the most of the pandemic, taking advantage of the forced downtime by readying a solo EP and participating in the first new System of a Down songs in 15 years.

Despite all that, Serj is just like the rest of us in that the pandemic has brought on a ton of disappointment and hardship.

Speaking with Shelli Sonstein of Q104.3’s “Sonstein Sunday,” Tankian described all the projects he’s had to postpone due to Covid-19, explaining:

“We live between New Zealand and the U.S. I’m in the U.S. now, but we were in New Zealand the majority of the time during the pandemic in 2020. The New Zealand government handed it incredibly well, and therefore it was pretty much back to normal in a few months there. They’re having a small recurrence now with a few cases, but they know what they’re doing. Then [we] came back to L.A. later in the year last year.

“The pandemic, like everyone else, it was devastating [for me] in many ways. I had 22 concerts with System, two film openings, two art installation openings — all got canceled. But I used the time to finish new music, which was good, as an artist. So we’re releasing this EP called ‘Elasticity’ with five rock songs on March 19th as part of that. And I have some other music coming up later in the year down the line.”

Serj’s upcoming solo EP, Elasticity, consists of a group of “rock songs” Tankian was working on by himself at least as far back as 2018, saying at the time they were originally written for System but that he now planned to release them as part of a solo EP in light of the creative differences that continue to keep System of a Down from making a new album.

Meanwhile, Serj recently revealed he has another entire EP already written.

Elasticity comes out on March 19 via Alchemy Recordings/BMG; pre-order here.