File under "Unlikely Pairings Making Solid Music." Cesar Gueikian, President & CEO of Gibson Brands, has teamed up with System Of A Down vocalist Serj Tankian and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi for a brand new single called "Deconstruction" under the Gibson Band banner. The Gibson Band features a revolving collective of Gibson artists and "Deconstruction" is their first single, featuring cover art by Tankian himself named "Our Mountains".
Gibson Records, Gueikian, Tankian and Iommi will donate all proceeds from "Deconstruction", the auction of "Our Mountains", and a unique Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar customized with the "Our Mountains" artwork, to the Armenia Fund's Artsakh Refugee Initiative. You can bid here.
"We asked ourselves how to use this song to bring awareness to Armenia and the Armenian situation and raise funds for Armenia," said Gueikian. "In addition to making music, Serj is an activist in service to Armenia, and Tony has ties to Armenia because many years ago, he was part of a group that funded a music school there. So the three of us have pledged any income the song makes to go to Armenia through the Armenia Fund."
"I thought it was really cool. It sounded like a very Sabbathy kind of song, like an old-school, classic-rock vibe," added Tankian. "When he said, ‘I want you to sing on this,' it was like, 'Okay, I'm in.'
"The funny thing was as I was singing it, I got the Layne Staley vibe, like Alice In Chains — that really deep, dark thing with harmonies like Jerry Cantrell's," he continued. "There's a certain aspect of what I did that reminded me of [Layne], almost like paying him homage, because it's slow but hard. And then the second part was more trippy, almost poetry. But Cesar liked it.'"
