Gogol Bordello

Formed in 1999, Gogol Bordello have been breaking down musical barriers ever since with supercharged music based on a brutal gypsy two step rhythm that sounds like an Eastern European cousin of ska, augmented by punk, metal, rap, flamenco, roots reggae, Italian spaghetti, Western twang, dub and other sounds generated by gypsies and rebels from across the globe.    

Gogol Bordello’s philosophy is simple and pragmatic. Music makes it possible to make the contradictions of life sound harmonious, at least for the duration of a song. Their trans-global rebel rock is based on the belief that music and art can transform negative energy to positive and inspire individual action.  

Since the release of their album Gypsy Punks in 2005 the band has been circling the globe igniting the international community with their frenzied brand of anarchic mayhem. They’ve scorched venues all across the U.S.; headlined Festivals in Britain, where they topped the Rock, Metal and Indie charts and wowed fans in Berlin, Vienna, Warsaw, Kiev, Zagreb and Prague. Along the way they’ve discovered more styles of rebel music and incorporated them into their omnivorous sound.  

Gogol Bordello’s front man Eugene Hutz is driven by an unstoppable creative desire. In the past two years he’s starred in Liev Schreiber’s film Everything Is Illuminated and was the focal point of a documentary called the Pied Piper Of Hutzovina which follows Hutz to the Ukraine in 2006, filming him while he searched for the extended family he left behind when he fled Chernobyl in 1986. Hutz came to the United States from the Ukraine after escaping the Chernobyl meltdown and enduring an epic seven-year trek through Eastern Europe refugee camps.  

The Hutz family settled in Vermont, but Eugene left for New York soon after. In the city’s melting pot he found other refugees who shared his vision of an international punk rock sound. Hutz had already gathered a following from his DJ sets at Mehanata, where he cued up Gypsy, rai, flamenco and global underground sounds for exuberant crowds of artists, scene makers and local Ukrainians, Russians, Gypsies, and Bulgarians. Gogol took off immediately, with a high voltage show that demonstrated the extreme nature of gypsy music and those that sing and play it.  

Gogol Bordello released their fourth album, Super Taranta, last summer. The LP was produced by Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave, PJ Harvey) who’s fearlessness was a perfect compliment to Gogol’s wide open approach. His analogue studio in New York is defiantly old school. He doesn’t use Apple's Protools to add the magic when it isn’t there. With his help, the band made a record that sounds like Gogol Bordello backed by artists Manu Chao and System of a Down.