One of the major events of 2022 has been the war in Ukraine that began due to Russia’s invasion of the country that started back in February. It’s an event that has caused worldwide outcry and support for the country being afflicted. Go for a drive or take a walk around your neighborhood, and you’re bound to see a Ukrainian flag hanging out in front of someone’s house of business in solidarity of the struggle. When it comes to the bands that are affected by what’s going on, one of them is the New York City gypsy punks Gogol Bordello, whose guitarist and vocalist Eugene Hütz was born in the Ukrainian city of Boyarka.
On September 16, the band released their eighth studio album, Solidaritine, via both their label Casa Gogol and Cooking Vinyl, with the message being solidarity with Hütz’s home country along with rising up after a few crazy years. When the invasion happened, they were in the closing stages of the creation process, and then they knew that there was no alternative other than adding a few relevant tracks.
“We were literally mixing the last tracks when the invasion happened, which is why the music of it is so joyous for the most part,” Hütz describes the making of Solidaritine. “We were gearing up to create kind of a musical survival kit for the people who want to move past all these shit years we’ve just experienced. It’s a very boisterous and uplifting album because the songs are written with the intent of coming straight out of the gate to move past all this pandemic crap, and that’s when the invasion started. Since putting out an album without addressing the topic is simply not an option, we did some extra work and created extra tracks. In fact, it imbinded them all with a new binding that’s much more relevant.”
Due to Gogol Bordello coming off a tour right before the recording sessions, they were able to track the album in quick fashion. They did the tracking in Vermont, where Hütz has roots due to it being the first place he settled in when he came to America in the early ‘90s with his father, mother, and cousin Yosef after becoming political refugees due to the Chernobyl disaster and ending up there through a resettlement program.
“I’ve always wanted to do some recording there, and it’s one of my old stomping grounds on the East Coast,” he says about Vermont. “Then we took all the material back to New York City, and I kind of saw that what we were making was a full, spit-firing batch of songs that were really in tune with where we came from with our punk and hardcore origins. In fact, I wrote the entire record on electric guitar. Usually I write on acoustic to make sure it works as a bonfire kind of version of the song, but this time, I was just working and doing all the writing on the electric. Looking at how the album was panning out and how electric it is, my hand reached for the phone, and I called our friend and tour mate Walter (Schreifels).
“I told him that I think it would be really fun to work together on this particular record, it’s got all those vitamins that we love,” Hütz adds. “I was really psyched that Walter was in New York City ready to go and ready to rock. It was really amazing to have him not only as a frequencies and mixing overseer but precisely as another great songwriter who really knows how the science of songwriting works. When it needs to be a little more subtle, and when it needs to be full-on primitive, he really gets that, so we had a full accord.”
The artwork for the album cover is beautiful, with a ship adorned with a sail shaped like a heart colored blue and yellow, just like the Ukrainian flag. The design came to be from a fellow Ukrainian Hütz discovered online who happened to be a tattoo artist specializing in iconic symbolism.
“I began to really pick up on his work through quite random research, and I reached out to him, which is how I found out he’s from Ukraine,” He mentions about the artist. “We got on the phone, and he turned out to be very much a deep appreciator of Gogol Bordello, so another chord was struck. He was excited about the call, and in the spirit of Ukrainian resistance, he was down to do the artwork for the album, and that’s the story of that. On our last tour, when we were bussing through Poland, we actually were able to meet in person, hang out, and cheer to the victory of Ukraine.”
Back in March, Gogol Bordello did a “Solidaritine Tour,” with a significant portion of the proceeds from the shows going to assist the people of Ukraine. The band plans on continuing fundraising efforts to help those affected by the war, and Hütz is grateful that people who are more famous and have more of a following than the band are supporting the country during this crisis.
“Almost anything we do onward is being very much affected by the war, so in some cases, certain fundraisers we organized have the exact math, while others are still in the process of it because it’s ongoing,” He mentions about the fundraising. “It’s important to understand that it’s not only the hard numbers that you raise; it’s also the numbers you raise with people that you’ve inspired to do the same. In this case, I feel perhaps the only time ever envious of people that have bigger mainstream names who could easily raise even more money. This is probably the only time I’m ever envious of mainstream stars, and for us, luckily the respect and credibility we’ve earned with our path in music enabled us to convince other credible and influential people to get on with the cause.”
“There are millions of ways somebody can help and one of the ways to help propel it is to be a cohesive educator,” Hütz adds. “The story of Ukraine is yet to be told, it’s only on the radar of people, but it’s actual cultural story is certainly mind-blowing, and it hasn’t been told correctly. Even the people who wish well and stand up for it, they are yet to experience its arch of development. It’s a very old nation with a very distinct and proud history, which is one of the reasons why certain malignant colonial forces are trying to exterminate it, and it will never happen. Ukraine is indomitable; it’s been indomitable for thousands of years, so they better hang it up fast. It has to stop on Ukrainian terms; that’s the only way it has to stop.”
As for the album in its entirety, Hütz says that the music covers a wide scope of topics outside of the war in Ukraine. He also hopes people get the empathetic message that’s consistent within the songs from beginning to end.
“I’m not an ideologist; it’s just uplifting punk rock music,” He says about Solidaritine. “Every song is written on a completely different topic. Some of it is about having a great motherfuckin’ time on planet Earth. Some of it is about coming out of a loop that’s been troubling you for a long time. Some of it is about staying home with your girl and not giving a fuck about what’s going on outside; some of it is about giving a fuck about what’s going on outside on the street, and some of it is about very involved global matters.”
“Some of it is about resilience to the ongoing age of uniformic sameness, degenerative syndromes caused by social media, and some of it is about fighting for the victory in Ukraine,” Hütz adds. “That’s the time we’re living in. I’d say that overall, it represents us as a group of individuals, as a collective band who are out in favor of achieving the highest frequency you can, upping your game at all times, and propelling yourself and others around you to be the most progressive human beings you can be. Solidaritine is an imaginary substance that’s a brother of adrenaline, but it is a kind of adrenaline that calls for empathy and resolving whatever we as humankind have in unity. We’ll just get that much farther along.”
Photo by Sanjay Suchak
