Tankian is jovially tight-lipped about the reunion, citing a band agreement to only speak of their activity through their Web site. However, it’s clear that he doesn’t plan on packing up his solo ambitions to throw in with System of a Down as before. “Basically,” he says, “I’m going to go, musically, to as many different places as I am allowed to go — I need to not repeat myself.”

S.T. - We’re so focused on this last 10,000 years, but man has been on this planet according to archaeologists for millions of years. So this last 10,000 years compared to millions of years is like this last five minutes of our interview. Imagine if we based our whole life on these last five minutes—whole life, just on these last five minutes. Nothing we know before: That’s exactly how we’re living our lives. We’ve lost the intuitive kind of strength and achievements of our indigenous times and have reveled in our left brain—reason, logic, science, technology—and have taken that to its height. But one without the other is like the yin without the yang; the positive without the negative; the female without the male. It’s only half. So we’ll never figure out who God is by using our minds.

N.B.—So you believe there’s a God?

S.T.—I prefer to use the term “spirit that moves through all things.” “God” is too easily interchanged with “dog.” I’ve never liked the word “god.” Plus, it’s been abused and wars and this-that.