Serj Tankian is a thoughtful, erudite man -- especially for a wild-man rock singer -- but sometimes he's simply overwhelmed by an impulse. His decision to quit studying for law school and become a musician came so suddenly that he literally hit the brakes on his Jeep Wrangler one night in the early 1990s.
And in 2005 he was accepting a European MTV Award with his band, System of a Down, when something came over him.
"In my mind something just sprung up and went, 'You have to say this,' " Tankian says. "And I'm like, 'Thank you very much, but what I really want to say is civilization is over.'
"I said, 'Let's find a way to work through this peacefully with each other all together with love and understanding.' And I'm going to my seat and I go, 'What . . . did I just say?' It was what was percolating out of me. And since then I've been thinking about that and what it means."
Tankian's engagement with this disquieting thesis -- that greed, nationalism and indifference to the environment have taken civilization past the point of no return -- sets the tone for much of his new solo album, "Elect the Dead." Released this week, the collection is the first work from a System member since the popular and acclaimed Los Angeles quartet formalized an "indefinite hiatus" earlier this year.
"Nature-based beings will survive apocalyptic days of now . . . nature will survive us human dogs after all," he sings in the song "Honking Antelope," his eccentric, twangy warble and jumpy cadences as distinctive in his work as they are in System of a Down.
Tankian, 40, is taking the apocalypse well. Sitting in his living room, he almost seems to look forward to the transition.
"We're all addicted to civilization, myself included, because we can't imagine life without it," he says. "If we were able to imagine life without it, like the 0.1% of indigenous population on this planet, it wouldn't be scary at all, it would just be like, 'Well, it's not going to be this way, it'll be another way.'
"I have hope," he adds. "I'm a very hopeful, optimistic person. I smile every day, and I don't go around going, 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling.' If I do, I'll probably be thinking, 'The sky is falling. I hope I can see it -- that'll be such a trip.' "
'Indefinite hiatus'?
