Gogol Bordello Want To Educate The Rednecks

It's taken Gogol Bordello up until now to stage their first full Canadian tour. The band will traverse from the west coast to Quebec over the course of the next two weeks, bringing their riotous gypsy punk anthems to the unsuspecting masses.

Moustachioed lead singer Eugene Hutz is a ball of energy on stage, but speaking on the phone on the day Gogol headed out on a U.S. tour with Tegan & Sara and Cake, he's relaxed. And though it's a few weeks off, he's excited that the Canadian tour is stopping in Toronto — the only Canadian city Gogol have ever played.

"It's one of the towns where internationalism is pretty well established," Hutz says from his New York apartment. "When you live in a place like that you take it for granted, but it's a really unique, rare environment. Living in New York, I live it and I love it. Because in reality, London and Paris are also really international, but do you know how racist they are? It's like, there is racial tension everywhere.

"I tell you, from first hand, I must say that New York is nothing like London or Paris, and Toronto is more on that side. It's where internationalism lives and feels at home. A half day in Paris, jumping from cab to cab, I'm always hearing about the 'white assholes' everywhere. I don't get that in New York or Toronto. It's a part of Gogol Bordello's mission to go out there and preach internationalism to rednecks who never heard about it, but it's also sometimes nice to go play in a town and enjoy the fruits of it."

The band are out promoting their recently released effort, Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike, which garnered rave reviews last fall and made them, after years of endless touring, bona fide stars.

There's also the matter of Hutz's burgeoning film career. The Ukraine native spent last summer and fall touring the globe on his own to promote actor Liev Schrieber's directorial debut, Everything Is Illuminated. In it, Hutz plays the co-lead, Alex, a cocky Ukrainian b-boy who has to play tour guide to Elijah Wood's Jonathan.

It was a once in a lifetime opportunity that Gogol Bordello maxed out on. The group are featured briefly in the film (as a marching band) and several of their songs appear on the soundtrack. Hutz isn't oblivious to the movie's impact on their career, but he likes to think that their rise was inevitable.

"Of course, there have been a segment of new fans that learned about us through the movie and its soundtrack, but you got to keep in mind Gogol Bordello's been going six years on its own and it's blowing up regardless. For example, in the U.K., where we're ahead of everything, that's where the band is more developed than anywhere else. And in the U.K., the movie isn't even released yet.

"The truth about Gogol is going on its own, and its roots are in the grassroots. It doesn't come from show business. So there has been a segment added from the movie, but Gogol's cultural presence has been accumulating through our hard work and dedication for years and non-stop touring, which is where 95 per cent of our following and record sales come from. I would never in my life rely on show business for that."

Now that the film promotion is done, Hutz's intense focus is squarely back on his band. Gypsy Punks, produced by Chicago studio wizard Steve Albini, is a fairly biographical old-school punk collection that sees Hutz pushing himself to the limit on every single track.

"Well, I tell you, I gave it all I could," he says. "The question I always dread from interviewers is, 'Is there anything else you want to say to our readers?' It's like, 'What the fuck man? I just said everything I could possibly say. I put my whole self into it.' At the same time, it's personal, but it is really such a commentary on this space and time altogether, with as much lucidity as I could afford.

"I don't take these things lightly. This ain't no fucking vacation in the studio for me. I come back, I'm fucking trashed. It was great to have Steve with us, because, just like us, he is an intellectual, but he's also a savage. I think that's the fucking combo. That's our kind."

It's one thing that Hutz pushes himself as hard as he does in the studio, but things are no different live. If you saw the band's performance on Late Nite With Conan O'Brien, or you've ever seen them live, you'd be forgiven for wondering how in the world the frontman's voice holds up night after night, tour after tour.

"I don't want to sound too indestructible, like some kind of superhero, but in the early days when I was doing stuff with Ukrainian theatre, Ukrainian singing girls taught me so much bullshit about how to take care of your voice — not to eat this or that, not eat bananas, chocolate or nuts, which is all my favourite forms of food," he remembers.

"Tours are grueling and you've gotta have methods to endure, because this is one of the most extreme personality bands that maybe there ever was, probably. The total chaos that is Gogol Bordello, it's not only on stage, it's pretty much what it is.

"We're no sleep, incredible hangovers, incredibly grueling drives, and we do it the hardest way possible, in a van with 10 people. Guys complain if there are four people in a van. So I try these things, but eventually, I disbanded the whole thing because, without taking care of my voice, any care at all, it seems to be doing much better. I have the voice until the last days of the tour.

"Maybe my voice muscles just grew. My whole mechanism of enduring this insanity has strengthened to the point where I can eat chocolate and nuts and bananas right before the show and still sound like a Pavarotti."

Here are Gogol Bordello's Canadian dates. If they're coming to your city, you'd be a fool to miss them:
February 4 Whistler, BC @ Garibaldi Lift Company
February 6 Edmonton, AB @ Sidetrack Cafe
February 8 Calgary, AB @ Liberty Lounge
February 9 Saskatoon, SK @ Louis's Pub
February 10 Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Centre
February 11 Thunder Bay, ON @ Warp 9
February 14 London, ON @ Call The Office
February 15 Toronto, ON @ The Drake (w/Lenin I Shumov)
February 16 Montreal, QC @ Mile End Cultural Centre
February 17 Ottawa, ON @ Barrymore's