World Party!

Where Gogol Bordello’s Concerned, the Good Old Days Are Here and Now

The music of Gogol Bordello is an instant party. An instant world party. The nine-piece ensemble from New York City is a multicultural carnival of colorful characters whose current membership boasts ethnic backgrounds ranging from Russia, Israel and Ecuador to Thailand, China and Ethiopia. Plus a drummer from Florida.

They’re all led by a crazed, tale-spinning, mustachioed Ukrainian immigrant who goes by the name Eugene Hutz, a man dedicated to keeping the gypsy music of his homeland alive by infusing it with comical, culture-clashing lyrics, punk-inspired energy and a frenzied spectacle of a live show – in some respects it’s sorta akin to what The Pogues did with their bastardizing of Irish folk music with English punk. Given Gogol’s (and Hutz’s in particular) wacky, exaggerated persona, it could be expected that they would end up a mere cartoonish novelty in the pop culture scheme of things, but in fact they’re one of the most vital bands going right now. The outstanding musical fusion they pull off is undeniable, and Hutz slam-dunks it with his songs, which can be silly or humorous but not dumb – in fact they’re honest, often quite touching and sincerely optimistic. A gem like “Ultimate,” which kicks off their fifth and newest album, Super Taranta! (SideOneDummy), with a rousing, floor-stomping, hand-smacking reminder that “There was never any good old days/ They are today, they are tomorrow/ It’s a stupid thing we say/ Cursing tomorrow with sorrow,” is the sort of celebratory blast that prompted veteran critic Robert Christgau to declare Super Taranta! “the best rock album of the decade. Period.”

In conversation, 35-year-old Hutz – who’s also found work as an actor in films such as Everything is Illuminated and Madonna’s upcoming short, Filth and Wisdom – is no cartoon. He’s smart, funny and thoughtful. Our discussion eventually found its way to some fascinating accounts of his childhood in Kiev, his discovery of punk rock and gypsy music, and the circumstances that led to his family fleeing as refugees. But we started out by discussing his ever-expanding band of eight years…

Stomp and Stammer: Gogol Bordello is astonishingly multicultural. How did you accumulate such a varied bunch?

Eugene Hutz: Well, actually, it was a long process. It was a matter of meeting people all on the same frequencies, with the same radical lives. You don’t meet nine people like that at the same party. So that’s why it took basically eight years to accumulate. On the first record it was only four people. Second one was six, now it’s nine people. And we’re still toying around with the idea of adding a horn section. But the thing is, at some point, we have to stop adding people, because it just becomes terribly expensive.

How much of their own cultural backgrounds do the other members bring to the band?

Man, if you get on the tour bus, you’ll see it’s just constant fight and mayhem, and people like “Get your fucking Russian bullshit out of here!” Heh heh! What I’m saying is, I write songs about very Eastern European-rooted [topics], because that’s where I came from, and that’s my musical language. But it is through working with the band that it acquires that universal language that makes it appeal to so many different people. And I myself, just from making calculated arrangements, probably still would miss out on a lot of details that are coming authentically, spontaneously through, say, Thomas [Gobena] playing on a bass, because he has a completely different language of his. Being from Ethiopia and being a reggae musician, he has insights that I wouldn’t possibly have had on building the bass lines. And so does everybody else. Everyone has some special insight of their own. And that’s what makes the sound of the band really translate so far. ’Cause you literally could put a finger on a map where our music is coming from. It’s from Carpaty, the mountains between Ukraine and Romania. But to give it universal sound takes a special band. I think we got that.