For Gogol Bordello, every day is Halloween.
Leading up to Friday's Halloween-night performance at Warehouse Live, front man Eugene Hütz says that his band of misfits doesn't have anything specifically spooky planned, but that it would be out of character for them to bring anything less than their very best.
"We're kind of a band that never developed a routine," he says. "Anything celebratory, we're kind of a natural fit for it."
Gogol Bordello's live performance is a carnival in itself. The band's unique amalgam of various musical genres is often affectionately referred to as "gypsy rock," and it goes without saying that the Manhattan-born rockers will take the festivities to another level.
"I welcome the unpredictability of it all," Hütz says. "We're the kind of band that takes it by the horns, really."
Born in Ukraine, Hütz immigrated to America in the early '90s as a political refugee, eventually ending up in New York City. Along the way, he developed an affinity for the authenticity of traditional country music.
"Country music is built around story-telling, and that resonates with me a lot because I've got stories to tell, literally begging to be let out," Hütz says. "Storytelling is a crucial part of epic songwriting, and that's where my country music obsession comes in."
Strip down any Gogol Bordello song, and Hütz says that listeners will find the same songwriting techniques utilized by the likes of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell, just a few of the front man's many musical influences.
"The chords will be a little different, and the progression and the melody," he explains. "But underneath it all, it's a very coherent story. It's all quite tastefully told. I'm kind of a long-standing student of that kind of songwriting."
Hütz's music also offers listeners an authenticity that the front man feels has been sorely lacking from the industry recently.
"The experience-driven generation is kind of ending," Hütz says, citing artists like Jim Morrison and Lou Reed, who he says paved the way for modern music. "Soon after that, the music started imitating them. Look at any rock and roll magazine, and it looks like they just walked out of the mall.
"It's not their fault," he adds with a laugh. "What they're singing, they're having fun with it, but it's not experience-driven."
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