Drowned Madonna: Hi Eugene, welcome to Drowned Madonna! We have heard that you were born in Ukraine. And after the Chernobyl accident, thanks to the BBC, your family decided to fly away. Is it right?

Eugene Hutz: It's a bit simplified, but, yes the facts are correct, except that flying away and landing in NY took about 7 years, with Poland, Hungary, Austria, most importantly Italy in between... all of those travels directly influenced my music, and much of core material of Gogol Bordello like "Immigrant Punk" and "I Gotta A Passport Officer" has been concieved back in refugee camps as semi comical relief, no matter how brutal things got somehow humour was always in the mix... I'm a believer "It Is An Engine Of Survival" as Charlie Chaplin said.

DM: Where were the other band member born and grew up?

EH: Well, accordion player Yuri and violinist Sergey and I are the East European party, we are from various parts of ex Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine, we are also the melody providers, that's why our music will always be unmistakably East European even if we will play reggae or rhumba or speed metal, or ''La Isla Bonita''... Oren is from Israel, Mediterranean rock sound of his beat up guitar is also an important trademark. Girls Pamela and Elizabeth are of Asian decent, but live in NY... We all live in NY, eccept for Thomas, DC, who is originally from Ethiopia, MC, and percussionist Pedro is from Equador and Eliot is lone American, a minority in our context.

DM: When did you start up the Gogol Bordello?

EH: The band evolved over period of 10 years, starting with me playing out by myself in NY, traveling through all the steps of newly arrived artist: playing subway, sleeping under boardwalk, convincing people to play my recording, convincing them to give me a chance... and, as my perseverance grew, also my luck grew and other exiting likeminded musicians joined in... and it's how it grew into this international GOGOL phenomena, which supposedly just suddenly fell out of the sky last year! Only 10 years of unrelenting workomania and there you go!

DM: Talk about your artistic background…

EH: It was both music and painting that inspired me as as child, since my father was a musician and his brother was a painter... that is why Gogol Bordello is also so visual, I believe... I spent childhood browsing through art books, mostly searching for naked ladies you know... or trying my best looking up balerinas fundaments... or figurescating girls on TV, since those were the only erotic things shown on Soviet television... later on I found punk music that exited me with bright individualities of bands and simple realisation that you didn't have to finish music school to be in incredible band, so I fucking quit music school and started to play drums set the way I felt it, so fucking loud and oblivious that I was absolutly useless as a part of the band!... It's a story repeated by many strong front people in music... James Brown, Iggy Pop and Madonna as well as I learned... all started as drummers later on bringing all that energy to the front, when the songwriting calling came...

DM: Your music could be described as gypsy punk rock... How did you get the great idea to fuse punk with gypsy music?

EH: It was purely autobiographical amalgamation, with a bit of my family roots in Romany folklore and a bit of curiosity, (I mean total fanaticism!) for music from faraway countries I naturally used my knowledge of different styles to arrange my songs in polystylistic way... to put it simply, a lot of material I write has a simple natural flow but with knowledge of many styles you can easily turn songs into fantastic creatures... otherworldly expirience... but I guess its wild dancability is another trademark of it, that's back to the Romany roots again...

DM: What kind of subjects draw your interest the most?

EH: From the childhood I was always drawn to characters that persevere against all odds... I guess it was precoded in me in a lot of ways by family history, World War 2, Soviet Union bullshit, and basic struggles of Gypsies to survive... I mean, everyone heard about how Gypsies travel all over the place, but not meany heard how many simply froze to death in steps simply trying to make it from town to town... but persuing of the dream never shell leave people, because daily life and monotonous routine of life is dangerously evil... we are born with ability to dream and use our imagination to get out of these traps... and we must use it and never give up... persuing our dreams is the only way to make our life dreamlike, no?

DM: Absolutely! Eugene, you also DJ in New York... Can you tell us more about this?

EH: DJing was also always part of me because of my insane record collection, it simply needed to be displayed, plus I have a natural urge to upset the apple cart... and when I first moved to NY I was shocked how "too fucking cool for school" it was, where people indulged on parties in standing around posing and showing little enjoyment of life... that's where I come in, I turned the whole fucking town mood upside down and brought Gypsy and Balkan music to sweep the dancefloors... soon my DJing style became copied all over town, but I don't care... I rather go into a place hearing good music than fucking crap... I don't care where they got it, from me or elsewhere...

DM: How did you get in touch with Madonna?

EH: Through making music and films at some point we had some common friends... which is how we got in touch and pretty much took it straight from there to brainstorming about the film ''Filth and Wisdom'', which she was very exited about and where she offered me to play the lead... At that point I was ready for a next movie to do and also was getting progressively more and more frustrated with dull scrypts I was recieving... but with Madonna's exiting energy and unorthodox scrypt I got fired up as well and just went for it. At first glance it was an unusual circumstance all around, but it felt very right, so I gave the project my best...

DM: Did you enjoy acting in "Filth and Wisdom"?

EH: Absolutely, I think it was the most fun project I ever had working on that was not my own...

DM: And what about Live Earth?

EH: It was a very spontaneous idea. You know, often I bring my guitar everywhere I go, including the film set... and play to entertain people and myself... and some of those gypsy songs, you know, they are pretty catchy... so basicly, light went up in our several minds simultaneously, that we can do a song together and surprise the fuck out of everyone on this god damn planet! She (Madonna) said let's mix it up! I said let's mix it up!... What do people want from entertainers? They wanna be flored and surprised! Well allright, we fucking do it...

DM: What are your current and upcoming projects?

EH: We are in full swing of touring with new record "Super Taranta", even though the full swing of touring with record "Gysy Punks" haven't finished yet. Gogol Bordello is a very buzy full swing kind of a band, you see... and now is a very exiting time for the band when a lot of new people are learning about us and joining the Gypsy Punk party, so the only thing that is easy to predict it's gonna stay in full swing and keep its unique surprising path rocking... "Filth and Wisdom" will be out at some point soon and we will be there to drink to that!

DM: Anything you'd like to say to Madonna's fans?

EH: Stay tuned for the surprises!