RC: So with all of these influences coming together from all over the world, do you feel like there's one type of music that brings you all together?
EH: Oh absolutely. The main driving force comes out of exploring my relationship with Gypsy culture. That basically determines the direction. I write all the songs, that sets the tone. When we arrange them together, that's the next level of a journey. That's where the very cool things happen where unpredictable treatments of the song may occur. But the soul of Gogol Bordello will forever be walking on an Eastern European two-step. There's going to be many things we flirt with, but h**l, our anchor dropped somewhere around the Black Sea.
RC: So, as the force behind the songs and the force behind the song "Immigrant Punk", do you think that's a song that defines what Gogol Bordello is all about?
EH: Well, there are many songs you can take and say, "OK, this is what Gogol Bordello is all about." It's all about "60 Revolutions", or it's all about "Start Wearing Purple", or that it's all about "Baro Foro". There are many different layers, but "Immigrant Punk" is essential.
It talks about me. At this point, I have all my papers straight and I have everything. But a lot of my friends are still in transition; a lot of my friends are still trying to get their things together. There's so much bureaucracy around. Like in New York, everybody you know is a foreigner, (laughs) I don't know anybody who's got their papers right. It's kind of absurd like that.
It's more about frustration, more about wanting to be recognized as a person on the Earth. It's like we need to come up with our own generational chants to define us. It's f***ing frustrating.
I spent seven years without being a citizen of any country. I had to give up my citizenship in the Ukraine in order to get out and I was not accepted as a citizen of the U.S. until 1996. So I know how that feels.
As I said, most of my stuff is autobiographical. I can't really write anything about agricultural problems in Angola, because I don't know anything about it (laughs).
