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Gogol Bordello is bringing their \u201cmusical super collider\u201d of influences to San Antonio\u2019s Paper Tiger Friday, March 13. Credit: Emanuela Giurano<\/p>\nGogol Bordello is bringing their \u201cmusical super collider\u201d of influences to San Antonio\u2019s Paper Tiger Friday, March 13. Credit: Emanuela Giurano<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s Gogol Bordello is known for blending Gypsy music and punk, but its latest album, We Mean It, Man!, is a solid reminder that the group\u2019s influences are even more eclectic than that.<\/p>\n
The band, known for its raucous live performances, will perform a sold-out show at San Antonio\u2019s Paper Tiger on Friday, March 13, with support from labelmates Puzzled Panther and Boris and the Joy. Gogol Bordello also will play Austin\u2019s SXSW on Thursday, March 12, as part of a showcase for its label, Casa Gogol \u2014 though frontman and ringleader Eugene H\u00fctz hates the word \u201cshowcase,\u201d which he calls \u201ctoo industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
That semantic unease illustrates Gogol Bordello\u2019s interesting position as a punk band created by and for underdogs that\u2019s since found international fame and \u2014 to a degree \u2014 industry acceptance, precisely because of its uncompromising vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But as H\u00fctz told the Current during a recent phone conversation, the definition of punk has always been malleable. Few have stretched it to extremes and taken it around the world quite like Gogol Bordello.<\/p>\n
Your new album, We Mean It, Man!, released in February, is named for a line in the Sex Pistols\u2019 \u201cGod Save the Queen.\u201d How is this album different from your previous work?<\/p>\n
This is our post-punk revenge, so to speak. Meaning revenge against ourselves for being possibly a little bit standoffish in terms of kind of cutting our ties with a lot of the musical world for a long time and just kind of doing our own thing \u2014 to the point where some people stopped seeing the connection between us and our roots. Our roots like gypsy music and punk rock are well-pronounced, of course, but the larger picture of it is that Gogol Bordello was a very post-punk, post-hardcore, post-industrial, post-everything project, which kind of was thriving on all those things while moving forward. And so this album just kind of encapsulates more of our influences and more of our roots in terms of music like Joy Division and The Cure and something that is so deeply ingrained in what we do, and yet some of our fans somehow fail to see, maybe because of our own utterly ambitious presentation of our project. But now we have a bunch of albums out, the idea of Gogol Bordello \u2014 our vision \u2014 is pretty well established. It\u2019s time to tell the larger story.<\/p>\n
I think some people, if they\u2019re not really entrenched in all the different influences you have named over the years, might be surprised by some of them. You have mentioned Jimi Hendrix, Parliament-Funkadelic, Gang of Four. I know you have also given shout-outs to Sonic Youth. I think it\u2019s pretty obvious that the Pogues are an influence that really comes through with the combination of folk and punk. And you have also mentioned Manu Chao and Nick Cave. This is a wide range of influences. How do all of these come into play in your sound and in your performance onstage?<\/p>\n
Well, for us, they come naturally and, you know, for us, they have always been there as normal part of our musical supercollider. Especially Nick Cave, Jimi Hendrix for me personally, Sonic Youth, the Pogues and Fela Kuti. Interestingly enough, since you bring up the Pogues. The Pogues is of course a fundamental influence on Gogol Bordello, but when I met Shane MacGowan, which I was lucky to experience several times, Shane told me that his inspiration for the Pogues was Fela Kuti.<\/p>\n
The vision of Fela Kuti, taking the music of the roots of Nigeria and making something absolutely modern out of it was exactly the [motive] behind the creation of the Pogues.<\/p>\n
If somebody just simply sounds like somebody, that\u2019s not influence, that\u2019s emulation. Influences is receiving the frequency of a particular kind and doing something entirely your own with it. Therefore, I particularly enjoy baffling people by exposing our lesser-known influences like Alan Vega and Suicide and Gang of Four and Nick Cave and Joy Division, precisely because of this. It\u2019s like, those are my influences. I mean, I\u2019m the one who knows what my influences are! And I\u2019m telling you, that\u2019s why I started playing music, and that\u2019s why I continue to play music.<\/p>\n
You have called punk \u201curban folk music.\u201d Do you think that punk is meeting the moment right now under American fascism? Or do you think the music industry has kind of changed that?<\/p>\n
I think that it\u2019s quite debatable what is punk. And it\u2019s always been debatable since the very beginning of punk. There [were] people who were doing it for authentic reasons and people [who] were doing it for commercial reasons.<\/p>\n
From the beginning, there were tons of punk bands who had their first record out on [a] major label, including Sex Pistols. And so that debate has been going on forever. However, there are things that are just an undeniably dignified kind of punk, such as Fugazi for an example.<\/p>\n
Bands like that are hard to find and they are always few. But those bands\u2019 legacy is so crucial and important. It\u2019s powerful enough to carry on the torch in a way that overrides the pseudo-punk around it.<\/p>\n
And that mechanism is something that we certainly celebrate: the idea that Fugazi might no longer be around in its original form, but their body of work is still out there. And it\u2019s still doing its work and it\u2019s still getting that punk job done. It\u2019s still there stimulating consciousness and independence and fighting every possible fascist tendency in the world.<\/p>\n
Who are some newer punk bands that you admire?<\/p>\n
Actually, the band that I\u2019ve really liked since their inception is Viagra Boys. That, to me, is a kind of art-punk that I can really relate to, because they\u2019re just as multilayered as Gogol Bordello. And there\u2019s a lot to find out in that band. To me that\u2019s like the Butthole Surfers meets Devo meets The Stooges. And there is a great humor about that, and there is a great way of confronting everything with a really radical irony about it. Another band I really like is Amyl and the Sniffers. Needless to say, Idles. Another band I like is Shame, also from the UK, from London. It could be probably be described more accurately as post-punk, you know, but that I would say is a kind of a pretty good [knuckle punch] of bands that are vital at the moment.<\/p>\n
Another band that I really, really like is Bad Nerves.<\/p>\n
What was it like working with Rick Rubin for Transcontinental Hustle? He\u2019s known to bring this more polished studio sound as opposed to someone more aligned with what I imagine your DIY punk ethos would be, someone like Steve Albini. What was it like working with those two very different people?<\/p>\n
Well, actually, in terms of meticulousness, it wasn\u2019t that different. The difference is in methodology and the taste and angles of capturing the sound. But every producer we work with [is] very precise. And DIY doesn\u2019t mean that something is going to be necessarily more rowdy and abrasive. That\u2019s not really my idea of music, actually. I always found true magic to be in kind of capturing the raw energy but in fairly polished sounds.<\/p>\n
Fun House from the Stooges is masterfully produced. It\u2019s all mythology how people go in a studio and freak out for two days and they\u2019re all high and then [a] masterpiece happens. That never fucking happens. People [are] happy to believe in mythology. But you know, it\u2019s a science to deliver records.<\/p>\n
And Rick Rubin, Steve Albini or Victor Van Vugt, who we worked with on Super Taranta!, who is known for his work with Nick Cave, or [on] the last record, Nick Launay. Speaking of meticulous producers, here we go again. It\u2019s like being under microscope. And the band shares that idea. What really unifies this experience is that we\u2019re kind of a band that invites a producer into being basically a temporary member of the band.<\/p>\n
So, with that open attitude, we managed to pretty much have a joyous experience with all the recordings as different as they were, and definitely had a blast with Nick Launay, who is, as you mentioned, Gang of Four and all the post punk bands I mentioned before. Nick Launay started off those bands on that sound. You know, the post-punk was basically meticulously woven as a concept very much with Nick Launey having his hand in it from the early days with PIL, Gang of Four, Killing Joke, Midnight Oil, later on with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nick Cave, Idles and Gogol Bordello now.<\/p>\n
I want to shift gears here and talk about Roma stuff. Do you think that Eastern Europe has gotten better or worse towards the Roma people?<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s gotten better. Negative feedback [from] Romanis is still there, but believe me, there were times when it was more extreme. I mean Hitler\u2019s Final Solution plan was initially developed for Romanis and then applied to the Jewish population later. So, it\u2019s a dark hole of European human rights. I do know that in the last 20 years there has been a major front of Romani-rights awareness and talk between communities and better representation and better delegates and better expression of voices for many people.<\/p>\n
People have different views about the word \u201cGypsy.\u201d Some consider it a slur, while others like the Gypsy Kings \u2014 who are actually Gitano \u2014 embrace the term. How do you feel about it?<\/p>\n
I feel alright about it. I mean [the] Gypsy Kings example is probably the best one. There\u2019s nothing not to embrace. And [just] because somebody who has no idea about [the] etymology of [the] word \u201cGypsy\u201d is appalled by it \u2026 Who gives a fuck?<\/p>\n
The etymology of where Gypsy comes from [is] a mistaken belief of Europeans that Gypsies come from Egypt, meaning Egyptian. Like what kind of [an] insult is it being Egyptian? It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
Semantics is a chameleon kind of department. Just because some word is going through scrutiny, it doesn\u2019t mean that that\u2019s its ultimate state of affairs. If Gypsy Kings are picking that name, they are Romanis and they know what they\u2019re doing. So I would take cues from there.<\/p>\n
You have been very outspoken about the Ukrainian resistance against Russia\u2019s aggression. You still have family in Kyiv. What are your thoughts on the current state of the war there?<\/p>\n
Well, needless to say, it\u2019s a tragedy. And I know that because of the coverage and the ongoing, like, madness of it, you know, people worldwide sort of lose their initial sensitivity towards it, which is expectable. That\u2019s what happens. It\u2019s people\u2019s defense mechanism against stress. But considering how catastrophic that is, I think it\u2019s worth[while] for anyone to keep up with that subject, and because the bigger picture of it is that it\u2019s not going on somewhere on the outskirts of the world.<\/p>\n
And just because people didn\u2019t know where Ukraine is until now, it doesn\u2019t make it any less of a Central European country. And by meaning Central European, I actually mean precisely that it\u2019s geographically [in the] center of Europe.<\/p>\n
And its overall history and significance as the birth of one of the most powerful pockets of civilization in Europe. From the ancient times, from Scythians and onto the first proto-Slavic tribes and the general formation of the Ukrainian nation, it remains there. One of the positive outcomes, if I may say so, [is that] it uncovers Ukraine. For people who thought it was some kind of obscure territory in the middle of nowhere, it\u2019s right there. It\u2019s in your face.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s large. And I think that, needless to say, Ukrainian people showed the world what they\u2019re capable of, way beyond any kind of hype. You know, I think that Ukraine is going to transcend this catastrophic difficulty and come up on the top 100%. Anybody who knows Ukrainian people will tell you that right away [laughs], and the rest of the world is going to catch up sooner or later.<\/p>\n
You collaborated with Les Claypool of Primus on the song \u201cMan with the Iron Balls\u201d about Zelensky. So I take it you approve of his leadership?<\/p>\n
One-thousand percent. Zelenskyy is an absolute hero. Any scrutiny that he may undergo for invented or real criticism, it all basically gets overridden by his stance. And his stance alone is significant enough to basically call him a great example of perseverance and the unifying quality.<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s your take on the United States roping Ukraine into the conflict in Iran?<\/p>\n
I think that you\u2019re roping me into some interview that we\u2019re actually not really supposed to be having. I don\u2019t run a political column to discuss the latest events of the day, because the latest events of the day is not my department. And no, I haven\u2019t been following the events. I\u2019ve been on tour, sleeping for two hours here and one hour there and crossing the border and getting the sound check and then doing an interview, then doing a show. Yeah, that\u2019s really not my way. I\u2019m more of a political philosopher.<\/p>\n
Sold out, 8 p.m. Friday, March 13, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary\u2019s St., papertigersatx.com.<\/p>\n
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