Stripping Back the Chaos for a New Post-Punk Era

Transmission 308: Interview with Gogol Bordello

Eugene Hütz is a Ukrainian-born songwriter, DJ, and the perpetual engine behind Gogol Bordello. Since arriving in New York’s Lower East Side in the late 90s, he has utilized the stage as a site for Dadaist happenings, high-velocity punk, and a relentless interrogation of cultural borders. His work addresses the friction of the refugee experience, the necessity of spiritual perseverance, and the raw energy of what he famously termed “Gypsy Punk.”

Title: We Mean It, Man!
Artist: Gogol Bordello
Release Date: 2026-02-13
Genres: Post-punk
Label: Casa Gogol Records
Description: Eugene Hütz discusses the new Gogol Bordello album, We Mean It, Man!, out Feb 13, 2026 on Casa Gogol Records. A talk on punk, techno, and survival.

On 13th February 2026, the band releases We Mean It, Man! via Casa Gogol Records. Co-produced by Nick Launay, the record functions as a “post-punk groove revenge,” leaning into the electronic pulses and minimalist distillations Hütz first encountered in the rave scenes of Montreal. It is a work that trades the “more is more” chaos of their earlier output for a concentrated arrangement of gated-drum patterns and electronic layers, featuring contributions from Bernard Sumner and a renewed focus on critical thinking in an age of distraction.

Before making music professionally, what were you listening to? What were your main musical influences?

Well, I feel like I was a professional musician before I even came out of my mother’s womb, if I can say so, because I already have memories of Jimi Hendrix and the Stooges and listening through my mother’s womb wall because of my father. So I’ve never really actually experienced any kind of pre-musician existence. I basically picked up where my father was at and downloaded all his musical collection as soon as I was born.

I never wondered what is going to happen with my life. I always knew that I’m going to be a musician. That’s what I liked and I was born into it.

Of course, on top of education from my dad of all the great rock music, the time came when I discovered punk rock—my music—and that was perhaps what you’re asking for, what really inspired me to make my own music. So that would be Joy Division and Sonic Youth and Nick Cave and Aishwarya Tendulkar, kind of really singular things like that. Just bands and artists that are so singular that replicating them would be impossible.

You’re moving from solo acoustic set to eight-piece band, change your sense of scale? Before you play acoustic sets and then you move to a band with eight people. How does that change your sense of making music?

Actually, what really happened is that I was never in any kind of ground zero, I was never in any kind of center, even if you’re using a point of reference. When we started Gogol Bordello as an acoustic piece, even that was just transient, because before that for 10 years I was already playing in punk and hardcore and electronic bands. In fact, we started doing acoustic music because I was so fed up with everything.

I was just so tired of techno and drum and bass and jungle and breakbeat and industrial and hardcore and punk. So I thought, let’s go back to the beginning to an acoustic string that vibrates and start a new beginning with a new band that’s going to be post-punk, post-hardcore, post-everything and just a neo-primitive band that’s kind of inspired by gypsy music. Quickly, once again, it rolled into becoming an orchestra of eight people; within two years, it was again an electric punk hardcore band with electronics and synthesizers.

Everything is transient and it’s like one never-ending flight, one flight of a crazy ass bumblebee.

I feel like I was a professional musician before I even came out of my mother’s womb… I basically picked up where my father was at and downloaded all his musical collection as soon as I was born.”

What were the biggest challenges in starting out the band?

The band itself came together quite organically like a snowball, adding one member every month, basically, until it became a piece. But the challenges were that the shows were so aggressive that we were banned from every club in New York.

Luckily, art galleries liked us and were booking us, so we kind of survived on an art gallery atmosphere and art grants for a while, both in Europe and here. Because the band wasn’t really a band, it was like a Dadaist happening with a lot of chaos and a lot of participation from the audience, so we were even banned from CBGB. I mean, how the fuck do you get banned from CBGB? We did it.

With the help of galleries, we survived, and what really confirmed the band’s existence was actually touring. Touring is a very kind of boot camp for anyone. We consolidated what we do exactly and it became a band through touring. Before that, it was really a situationist art explosion or something like that.

You have called this album Post-Punk Groove Revenge. What is the target of your revenge?

Me. This is the target of my post-punk revenge. I realized that for many years we did a lot of music that was just crazy ass, rambunctious, high energy, gypsy punk, hardcore, predominantly living in that zone.

A huge part of me lives in a world of euphoria and music that comes from an euphoric post-punk groove, so I wanted to balance things out and bring those initial influences to the surface—things that initially inspired me to create my own music. Like I said, for an example, Joy Division.

Something also happened to help it along. Two years ago, I collaborated on a track with Bernard Sumner. Doing the track together was kind of a gateway into this album. I felt the need to go into that direction because I realized how much is undone in that direction for me and for us as a band. It’s a bit of a different emotional spectrum, more droning, different kind of vibration, still very high energy, but with layers of euphoria and a kind of leaning towards a more minimalistic approach. That is actually what I always loved about my favorite artists: that they did great music on quite minimal means. I’m very interested in distillation, the distilling process.

Intellectually, I understand that less is more. That’s the number one thing everybody learns in art school. I grew up with my uncle, who’s a painter, and I knew all that since I was two years old, how less is more. But at the same time, I am the “more is more” kind of person. That’s all theory for me; in real practical matters, I am a “more is more” kind of temperament. That’s my energy, which is why Gogol Bordello is the way it is.

But I am interested in the distillation process nonetheless, distilling and boiling things down. So partly this album is a kind of revenge against “more is more” and towards “less is more,” to see what happens if you smash those two ideas together.

Everything is transient and it’s like one never-ending flight, one flight of a crazy ass bumblebee.“

How did the environment, physical, political or social affect the tone of the album?

Directly. Songs like Life Is Possible Again are very much yearning for the world getting out of the ditch that it’s in. So much catastrophic stuff happened in a couple years that it’s kind of unthinkable and unacceptable. Yet we need to find coping mechanisms.

Life Is Possible Again is actually a song about perseverance against all odds. People have either already given up, they’re just going with whatever the fuck is going on, or they’re just going with the flow. I just looked around and realized that nobody’s really writing stuff like this about perseverance against all odds. That song is kind of written from the future of when things are hopefully already equalized to a certain extent.

Other stuff like No Time For Idiots is another commentary on where we are at as a species. It seems like people completely lost their ability to focus or any critical thinking or just to make any kind of logical analytics. Let’s face it, people were never really great at that, but now they are absolutely losing their ability to focus.

Only 10 years ago, it seemed like the world was on the brink of some spiritual breakthrough; everybody was meditating and reading New Age books like something grand is going to fucking happen. Now all of that completely got wiped and went fucking down the toilet so drastically and seemingly overnight. So this album spiritually is about perseverance against all odds and trying to collect people together who are still capable of some focus and critical thinking. Hopefully, on the wings of positively charged music, this can fly out there in the world and do some good.

This album spiritually is about perseverance against all odds and trying to collect people together who are still capable of some focus and critical thinking.“

What specific piece of gear define the hyper futuristic textures of the album?

Well, there is actually. As you know, the album was conceived as a collaboration with Nick Launay, who is one of my top producers of all time, just beyond being a producer, a brilliant artist and a visionary. So I was heading into it with synthesizers up the sleeve.

Our accordionist is actually a multi-instrumentalist, Erica Mancini. With her joining the band several years ago, I already knew that we’re going to lean into this direction. With the aforementioned collaboration with Bernard Sumner, I knew we were going to be leaning into more synthesizer work.

In the very beginning of the band, I already played the synthesizer live and on the record. It’s not like a never-done thing before, but we brought it to some really powerful fruition, some organic fruition for us on the record because in life we always use it. It works fantastically live, bringing out some of those crazy ass techno elements. It always amuses me how a lot of people don’t really get that Gogol Bordello was originally very much influenced by techno. That’s why you find that primitive beat in a lot of our tracks.

When I was a teenager and moved from Ukraine to the States, I was living near Montreal and in Vermont and I went to a lot of raves. The first time I heard techno, I was like, “this is the new punk rock,” so it stayed with me. I implemented that in Gogol Bordello in its own way. I think now we reached a new hybrid sound where all those elements—punk and hardcore and gypsy music and some techno—finally work together. I see that my time is running out.

Photos courtesy of Gogol Bordello

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others