LOS ANGELES (System Of A Down Official Website) - If ever there were a time in our young country's history when
System of a Down's song "BOOM!" was appropriate, it's right now, today, with
America and the world on the brink of war.
System of a Down has joined forces with director Michael Moore and the crew from "Bowling for Columbine" to make the video for "BOOM!"
"The strangest thing about this impending war is that the people - the REAL majority who make up the population of this country and the world - do not truly want to go to war," said Michael Moore. "Watching the news, you would never know that millions have been out there proposing a different solution - one that does not involve the slaughter of innocents. It is these people whom we will give voice to in 'BOOM!'"
Much of "BOOM!" was shot by independent media activists and local guerilla filmmakers at the various marches that took place across the globe over the weekend of February 15 - Presidents' Day weekend - Berlin, Cape Town, Rome, Paris, Tokyo, Washington, D.C., London, Chicago, Oslo, Rio de Janeiro, Croatia, St. Louis, Los Angeles - and Iraq - to mention just a few of the 40+ locales where footage was incorporated from.
The video opens with a blistering array of images that show just how massive and overwhelming the desire for peace is throughout America and the world. Testimonies from marchers - fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, aunts and uncles, grandparents - are heard: "We don't believe the lies that are being fed through the media," or "I don't understand why dropping bombs on children is the best way to achieve peace."
The video "BOOM!" is a life-affirming video that rallies people to visualize, and then create, the world they want to live in. "BOOM!" looks to empower people with the knowledge that war is ultimately their choice, not the media's nor the government's.
"The possibility of the U.S. going to war with Iraq is an extremely personal issue for me because I have family who live there," said System of a Down's guitarist Daron Malakian. "I visited Iraq when I was a teenager, and I can tell you first-hand that the people who I met there are really nice, ordinary people who don't want war with us or with anyone. So, we'd like to have the 'BOOM!' video help change the way people think about the solution to our global problems. We want to make the idea of dropping bombs, of waging war seem as antiquated and ridiculous as it is today for an Afro-American to have to sit at the back of the bus."
"We'd like the 'BOOM!' video to represent the importance and the beauty of humanity, the desire people have to live in a world without fear, without war or the rumours of war," explained Serj Tankian, vocalist for System.
The members of System of a Down - Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian, Shavo Odadjian, and John Dolmayan - armed with their own digital cameras, were filmed at the Los Angeles pro-peace march. Satirical animation that features George W., Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Osama bin Laden riding rockets over a city has also been incorporated into the video.
"Like Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan," added Moore, "System of a Down has crafted a true protest song for the new millennium with 'BOOM!' I think it will be a powerful, moving music video that will speak to the desires of the millions who will see it - and it will let them know that they, the people of peace, are not alone."
