Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - Ep 362: Gogol Bordello

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Eugene Hütz from Gogol Bordello joins Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast for a wide-ranging, no-filter conversation on music, identity, and the state of the world. Eugene breaks down the real history behind the word "gypsy," how misinformation spreads, and why critical thinking feels like it's disappearing. He also shares his perspective on growing up in the Soviet Union, the war in Ukraine, and what it means to stand your ground in chaotic times. We get into the evolution of punk rock, why creativity used to come from boredom (and what replaced it), and how modern culture is overloaded with noise but starving for meaning. Eugene talks about building Gogol Bordello out of pure chaos, playing unhinged live shows, and why music isn't something you "approach". 

The musicians are just magical people. As naive as that sounds, I always thought that just like these people are just, you don't need to be really that good. It's just as long as you're broadcasting that vibe and living that lifestyle, you're already in a breakaway civilization. You're already not walking this horrendous, you know, force-fed dictatorship lifestyle. So I felt like if you're one foot in a, whether it's a mash pit or orchestra pit, It's the same.

Music is the subculture. If you're really part of it, is what you're saying. You're already on a different level if you're dedicating yourself to the craft of music. People usually say, like, musicians' walk of life is so thorned

with so many different ups and downs and just don't do it if you really don't have what it takes. But I feel different. I feel like people who are musicians who are not even successful, just there's still life is a lot more happier. I agree. You know, like, I have a bunch of friends who just get in a van and fucking go, like, up and down, East Coast.

We're like, do 10 dates. Yeah. The band, like, draws like 50 people. They're fucking psyched, man. It's not like a low bar. It's just actually, metaphysically speaking, a better experience for the soul. Hey, everybody. It's Nick.

How's your hearts? How's your minds? Just a quick intro for today's interview. We have Eugene Hutz. the lead singer of Gogol Bordello, you know, sort of East Village International punk rock. I don't know, meets the art scene meets, I don't know, it's hard to explain what he is. They're their own thing. One of the most entertaining bands in rock and roll.

I feel like they'd be a good match for Andy Fresco on the UN for a live show, give him their live performances. It's a great interview. He's Ukrainian, so we got into the Ukraine war a little bit. You know, just some other stuff about growing up in that world. And it's cool because those, you know, those Ukrainians are very acerbic, very dry. So it was a good mix between him and Andy and I in the interview. Great interview.

I'll see you later. Bye. Have a good week. Hey, guys, it's Andy. And I want to talk a little bit about volume.com. Yes, volume.com. Our sugar daddy. Yes, our sponsor.

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It was $7.50. You could just spend one cup of coffee and get all the frasco you want. So head over to volume.com slash Andy Frasco and subscribe. Support your guys. Maybe I'll even pay Nick more. You never know. fucking go. My man, I like a man

who wears sunglasses during the day. Indoorse and nighttime. That's how I usually do it. Eugene. But listen, fuck it, I'll do it for you. Just one more time. We're going live.

Fuck it. Eugene, how he's going, bud? Yeah. It's happening. I want you know... Shit is on, brother. Shit is on. The heat is on.

How do you approach music to try to wake people up? Oh, yeah, I don't approach it. That's just what I do. It's not like, let me do it again. Really? Let me see what I can whip together here.

No, it's like, I'm off from a, I don't, you know, I don't, what I do is just a really kind of like, it's evolved a long time ago since I was a child and I never questioned it for a second. And I questioned things within it. The fact that my path is a path of a musician and, you know, what our performer, storyteller, that, like, never, I never doubted that. So I don't approach it. It's what I do every day, you know, like. Will you give me your first memory as a musician or something that you realize that's what you wanted to do every day? Yeah, well, I got it from my father. I just downloaded it like, you know.

I was born into a band, basically, into my dad's band. What was his band called? Meridian. What type of music? Rock and roll, man. Fuck, yeah. I mean, I kind of picked up everything from him. And, you know, in Soviet Union, playing rock and roll was not a very, you know,

thing that's going to get you places. It's going to get you out of places. Right. And so... That's a great point. You know, but I just was... You know, he discovered it on his own. I picked it up from him

and became my lifestyle pretty much automatically. Yeah. How old were you? What? How old were you when you felt like it came in automatically? When I was in my mother's womb. No shit.

I mean, I was. I was listening to Jimmy Hendricks at that time, like, you know, the band of gypsies. Yeah, there you go. There you go. My favorite album of the childhood. I was like basically crawled out, danced myself out of the womb to those sounds.

Jesus fucking Christ. And remarkably, through so many, you know, years of exploring music and going, you know, from classical musical training that I also received to some degree to like go on haywire and becoming like thrash metal teenager and then discovering punk rock and then industrial and techno and everything else. You know, it's um, uh, Jimmy Hendrix sounds, they remain to be the most hypnotic. Like, after all these decades when I thought that I will surely find something more, um, high of higher

frequency. And, well, of course, it's ingrained in my psyche and my nervous system. So there's one explanation. Another explanation is that it peaked with Jimmy. It's true. I mean, you know, he is what he is. Yes, it's pretty much impossible to. What do you see in Jimmy Hendrix that make you say he's the goat? Just, it's kind of an inseparable qualities, you know, some people, argue about his virtuosity putting it in question, you know, and that there was a certain amount of, you know, swag stick involved. And I'm like, and how is that the fucking problem? Right. Isn't that part of the show? That's the whole thing. Yeah. That's just who he was. Just because you don't

have any fucking swag. There you go. Like, that's his problem. Yeah, it's called a show. You know? I have that problem too. I'm like, I do 250 shows a year, been doing it for 15 years. Right. And people, you know, just because I'm crowd surfing and fucking doing the horror and running around, they think my shit's a bit instead of like, that's just who I am. I'm just part, I grew up in the punk rock scene. I grew up fucking, if I wanted you to be boring on stage, I just listened to your album, you know? Yeah, it's certainly that thing where it's just a kind of a psychedelic Rubik's Cube. You can't take it apart.

I tell you what, like sometimes I come home with. my girlfriend from a party, you know, or from a concert or from a tour and just like, sit down, watch like Jimmy Hendrix for like four hours on YouTube and have some more whiskey, like, I've never heard it in my life. It never gets old. It's just like, what the fucking fuck? Yes. Is there a certain song that will never get old to you or a certain like live track or live

recording that never gets old to you? I have a lot of tracks like that. What do you got? I think my favorite album of old times is Joy Division Closer. Why? I kind of discovered it at the kind of really a pivotal time, like when it's kind of really stood out from entire punk, post-punk barrage, fucking meteoritis shower I was experiencing of records and cassettes just flying over my head. I always had a lot of really great mantars

about music beyond my father, but just hanging out back in Ukraine with like, you know, rude boys, skinheads and who were like really all about ska and reggae and hardcore and electronic

music and punk, classic punk, avant-garde punk. And it's just like kind of like stood out to a degree that that made me actually I mean I was already playing music

like you know like as a drummer I started out playing drums like all the psychos do when they're 13 years old Neil too that's Neil's our guy and if you go into that list

it's like you know most of like amazing front man they turned out to be a drummer like they started out as a drummer like Iggy and James Brown Prince Prince because you start the back

You start in the back and then you want to realize you have more to say. Well, first, it's like, what's the most physical thing I can bang on and work up so much endorphins that I don't even need drugs? Like, you know, like, it seems to be a pretty good way. And Madonna was a drummer too. There you go. And her band, her breakfast club, I think it's called. Yep.

Seabies Band, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, and then I just kind of, when I was starting, time to start writing music, I was chiefly stimulated by Joy Division. I was like, wow, not only can I replicate these drum beats, which are so unusual, but technically undemending, but I can certainly get around to bass lines like this. I can replicate them. They're not complicated. But and guitar lines, they're so economical. And it was just fucking amazing to hear people do it on like a seemingly dilettant level, but make high art out of it.

Yeah. Like I distinctly felt like it was high art. And it was easy to you. Yeah. Well, it seemed within reach. Within reach. You know, like I couldn't play like Pat Metini or, you know, Jacques-Pestoros. Which I went to see also secretly from my friends, from my punk rock friends.

Yeah. Secretly, you wouldn't... Pat Medina came to Ukraine and I was like... I got to go. You know, I got my hood over my head so none of my friends so I can see me. You took the sunglasses off so they wouldn't recognize you. And then they still got some shit for it, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It goes all until this day. That's hilarious. It's like... I love fusion music, you know, like if I could somehow chairman on that front, I probably would. I'm just like not that much of a technically skilled player. I mean, some, but not really, not like those guys.

Right. You got to make it your life. Yeah. And so it's funny because it goes on until this day. Like, I was doing this cramps tribute in New York City. It's like annual thing. It's really fun. And a lot of cool people fucking chame in and come out and do cramp song.

The whole night is a party. Cool. And so I was really late for my slot. And I showed up like an hour later and they're like, what the fuck, man? Like, come on. Get out. Get your ass on stage already. Where were you?

And I was like, I was in fucking Blue Note watching Chick Korea with Marcus Miller. Oh shit, I love those. And they're like, why? Because they're geniuses. There's different ways to be a genius. I can be more than just this, guys. It goes on.

There's more than one way to be a genius. The fusion punk beef goes on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember a moment when music humbled you? humbled me Like You know you said like Your first moments of

This is a This is approachable Right Any of the moments where it wasn't In your head it wasn't approachable Um No really I don't know why that is

Confidence Not not necessarily Just like Just like you know i think i feel like um well back in back in my uh school back in back in soviet union there's a big difference between living in ukraine uh and ukraine and soviet union will you explain it to me what's that will you explain the difference yeah of course soviet union is a dictatorship state yeah don't and if somebody thinks it's something else then

they're not reading the fucking room man you know it's a state of dictatorship where anything any kind of sense of individuality is discouraged and and everything is a product of a kind of a this particular form of like mythological socialistic or communistic jamboery, which is not really socialism or communism. It's just dictatorship served as this particular

communistic salad of ideas. In the meantime, it's just not so far away from Nazi Germany. And so living in that state is drastically different from living pro-European Ukraine. not talking about Ukraine during the war, although war will ensure, of course, the victory of Ukraine will ensure that it will drift even farther away

from any previous, you know, Soviet Union history. So, we were talking about confidence and how you never felt humbled. Yeah, I think that there, the teachers were so, sadistic that the whole idea of

is built on discouraging to anybody to do anything really because they only need nuts and bolts and not for the society that they can screw in into whether it's military apparatus or whatever the fuck some industrial workmanship. But I just kind of had this idea that the musicians are just magical people. As naive as that sounds,

I always thought that just like, these people are just like, you don't need to be really that good. It's just as long as you're broadcasting that vibe and living that lifestyle, you're already in a breakaway civilization. You're already not walking this fucking horrendous, you know,

force-fed dictatorship lifestyle. So I felt like if you're one foot in a, whether it's Mosh Pit or Orchestra Pit, it's the same. Yeah. You know, you're already levitating to some level. You're already kind of out of here on some level. Right.

You're already not, you know, complying. So music is the subculture. If you're really part of it, is what you're saying. It's like you're already on a different level if you're dedicating yourself to the craft of music. Yeah, I mean, I always say to my friends, like, if I'm going to have a kid, I'm just kind of like, be probably, you know, people usually say, like, I mean, musicians' walk of life is so, you know, thorned with so many different ups and downs and just don't do it if you really don't have what it takes.

but I feel different I feel like people who are musicians who are not even successful just there's still life is a lot more happier than like

I agree you know like I have a bunch of friends who just get in a van and fucking go up and down East Coast where like do 10 dates

yeah the band like draws like 50 people they're fucking psyched man still barely not doing it like man still barely not doing it you know what I mean

like it's not like a low bar it's just actually metaphysically speaking, a better experience for the soul. Yeah, totally. Have you ever had a moment in your musical career where you felt heartbroken? Because of musical situation? Or just the whole, the atmosphere of it?

Well, of course, I've been heartbroken like everybody else on this planet, but that wasn't because of musical ups and downs. No. What was it? romantic situations that didn't pan out the way we want them to pan out

what about like band members ever had to like fire a band member or well there was situations like this and also also the thing about

Gogol Bordello it's kind of like when I came in you asked me how many people is in your band it's at seven and um that's been the way for many years but there was a time when I didn't know how many people in the band

are you for real? Because, yes, because in a stages of embryonic stages of the band it was like a very kind of it was a ball of energy and and yeah there was a core of the band which remains to be the core

it's Sergei and Pedro and I and our original drummer or Elliot who left to pursue a family as children. And, you know, we're just keep in touch and went and saw Nine-H-Nage Nails together for our Valentine's Day reunion. I love that. You know, true romance goes on.

But, you know, there was a time when, you know, some really some heavy-ass fucking players from New York, like, from, like, jazz scene or from avant-garde scene and would turn up for a rehearsal, and then turn up for a gig, and then turn up for a tour. And so it was like, oh. I guess you're in the band now. Yeah, so, and then disappeared just in the same way, like two years later,

hey, I'm doing, I'm doing this now, I'm going, like Ori from Balkan Beatbox, for example, which is a great, great project. Yeah, that was his story. I mean, I don't really know how he appeared in a band. He just came in with... So was it an open door policy for the band? Well, there was, to an extent that policy. policy

last thing in my mind was fucking having any kind of right right right right it was total fucking chaos but um you know because of so many

session players and and I kind of learned I learned that idea from Nick Cave in the Bad Seeds because you know I was like a big fan

of birthday party and then the band transformed into a into Nick Haven of Bad Seeds and I kind of followed every album and I saw that

oh, okay, it's like, here's the core members. And there's always like one, two new band members on the record. Like, oh, wow, you know, Barry Adamson is on the record. Who is he? Like, wow. Trasota be he's an amazing composer and like, you know, avant-garde and jazz player. So you got to study everything about that. And then Kit Kongo Powers from the Crams joins Nakevado.

And so that brought like a lot of real cool newness and mystique. to how it is operates. And now I know how it operates. I kind of set the band in motion with a similar idea. Like, we don't need entire string quartet. Like, we don't. But, you know, when Sergey came into our vicinity, of course I snatched him because violin is good for gypsy punk rock and roll.

True. Yeah. You know, in fact, a lot of Romani people who invent term gypsy punk for me said who were fans of what we were doing they said hey you need a violent player that's just going to complete the story

here and so when Sergey appeared I went I went extra mile and you know persuaded him to be in a band because he's a classical musician right quick break from the interview

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And he's how what he said to say. He told us to say, also my best friend Jason has a huge hog. And that's true. So grab Gardinista and let them know Frasco and Jason's huge hog sent you. All right. Goodbye. Convincing these classical musicians about chaos, like your live show is fucking party. How did they first approach the live show?

You know, I think about these fucking crazy jazz, serious musicians. And then they all want to be with you. you. And then you're like, all right, let's do the show. And you just fuck, you know, like what, give me those, give me some of those stories of these guys. Word shell shock. It's very accurate here. In fact, I have it on camera.

Somebody was filming the show when Sergey came to our first concert. And for those who were listening out there, you know, Sergei's, you know, classically trained, like, finished conservatory and Theater Academy me and never you know he never rubbed thighs with anything alternative let alone punk rock and hardcore so i heard about him and um i as i was mentioning i persuaded him in fact i kind of came to his

gig to his um classical gig and i told him that you know i have this crazy-ass punk rock band with uh in the works and that we need to enrich our instrumentation and i think he'd be perfect and and he and he took my number and just to be polite and then i called him and i said hey listen we have a show actually tomorrow so fuck rehearsal just show up and let's get to you're going to be great you know you're just going to be fantastic at it. You are a legend. You know, in this context, you're going to be sizzling.

And he said, you know, my wife told me not to play with you. Because she heard about you. Her friends told her that they went and saw your concert, and it was this despicable extravaganza. We, you know, that this is not the kind of music I play. And I was like, really, wow. So that's kind of cool. You know, so I was like, so, okay.

Did you like having that rep? Well, I mean, what's there not to like? Yeah, rock and roll. The new cramps when we showed up on Lower East Side. You know, we brought a awesome, you know, decadent party everywhere we went. And we were banned from every club. Yeah. Including CBGB.

That's crazy. What do you got to do to get banned from CBGB? Yeah. I know, exactly. It's like, I understand if you're banned from fucking blue note.

Right, exactly. For like, you know. What was the worst thing you were banned for? Who said that they were bad? There was nothing bad about it. No, banned. In their eyes.

Band. Like you was like, you'd like, in their eyes, why'd they not have you in the room? Chaos. Chaos. Extreme chaos.

Chaos beyond people. willing to deal with it. Nothing malicious, just going back to how many people in the band. From Seby's, we were banned because at that time, we just met Pedro, our percussionist and electronic

and singer. He's from Ecuador, and he was kind of this became, we became very tight. very quickly and DJed together everywhere. And he taught me a lot about Latin American music and I like hit it off with that whole community of Colombian,

Argentinian, Brazilian, you know, Mexican people that were just deeply into music. And, you know, they had their own scene. And they were having these gatherings where they would you know, do a kind of like that drum, samba drum inspired

gatherings where, you know, like 30, 40, 50, 50, 60 people would show up with their drums and do create rhythmical chaos. And so they turned up for one of our gigs and they just blocked entire sidewalk. It was just like us from the stage

all the way through the bar and all the way to the sidewalk, it was like a band that starts on stage and ends across a street fuck yes you know and just like not everybody was ready to deal with that I mean we love CB's like we need customers in here no it was packed it's just that it was a model of behavior that was not like you think punk rock already did it all but yeah that was just like one other thing

that you're like hold my beer bitch I'm gonna bring I'm bringing a different vibe It was a different spectacle, you know, a bit like situationist kind of art. That day is happening or something. You know, we have a lot of jam band fans that listen to our pod. What's your Les Claypool? What's your fascination with Les Claypool? Any great memories of first time meeting Les and him meeting you? Yeah.

Well, it's actually pretty amazing because Les invited us on tour pretty early on. like people were just finding out about us and being a seeker and a kind of a person that's just so into embracing like new shapes and forms I don't know how he scouted us out

but what I do know is that we had a blast on tour with him it was us and there's another kind of a really really quirky band damn I their name is escaping my mind right now

but so through that process you know we became friends and then immediately after Les invited Sergei and Yuri and I to come to his place and do some recording so

you know went to Sebastopol where he lives and recorded there it was I think it came out on his like one of his side projects like frog Frog Brigade.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. With Mike Dillon. Yeah, and from then on, we just kept in touch and, you know, just coming out doing little guest appearances here and there. And, but I actually was kind of connected into Lesz's universe long before that. In the early 90s, when I just first came to the States, I, you know, was, I moved. moved in with some cats, just kids who were just into rock and roll and alternative music and into punk rock who were going to see Fugazi and, you know, Matt Ball and Murphy's Law and all the

hardcore bands together. And one of them was kind of would disappear for a month or two here and there. And, you know, my English was non-existent back then, so I couldn't really keep track of everything informational wise. And eventually I did ask him, though, hey man, what happens when you disappear for two months? Where do you go? One of my roommates. He goes,

well, I used to play drums, and now I'm a drum tech for Primus. Oh my god. That's crazy. Yeah. That's fucking nuts. And for James' addiction too, his name is Joe Paul. So Joe Paul was happening, man.

Hey, brother. And so, you know, I was like, wow, just like that, you know, I've been here in the States for six weeks. And my roommate is working as a tech for James Addiction, who were in their peak, basically. 91, 92. And Primus was just going ballistic at that time. They were on MTV and stuff. Yeah, totally. Yeah, totally.

So it was kind of like one way. Or another, you know, meeting less was inevitable, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And I just think he's a great American original up the part with like, you know, Captain Beefheart and Frank Zepa. And, yeah, great American original. Any of, have you met any of your idols? Pretty much all of them.

Who was your favorite? Well, I think that for a songwriter, because I can say, I consider myself foremost a songwriter. Absolutely. You know, that's kind of what holds it all together. Yeah, totally. And I love performing and going out there and, you know, conjuring the, you know, the collective madness.

But ultimately it's all held together by songwriting. And my chief mentor is Nick Cave. Yeah. What did he teach you? Well, there is a... There's a lot of things. I mean, first of all, it's a very kind of the trajectory of... I take it you all familiar with the birthday party.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the trajectory of kind of, you know, just rattling completely and demising song form. And, you know, with birthday party, you know, and creating kind of like, like an ultimate avant-garde art punk band and then making way back to essentially johnny cashesque song form and revisiting it in a you know in the years of later years with a with even deeper love which i can see how can that can happen i kind of travel the same trajectory and Yeah, for sure. I mean, where do you think it'll end up?

Absolutely canonized hanging in a louver. Yes. Where else could I go, but not there. Well, just to point out one more time, I think those things are all interconnected and they're one swarming, you know, living being. So it's not like one is better at the other. It depends what part of life you're in.

Like, you know, of course, language of alternative tuning and not using any chords at all and despising songwriting for them. Of course, it was appealing to me when I was 16, when I saw Sonic Youth first time. It's like, that's the way. And then you see Sonic Youth themselves making, making their way into the songwriting form.

Right. You know, and doing really great at it. And so, which is also definitely one of my hugest mentors in terms of like band music. You know, it's something that's like so all encompassing. It's almost like that to me like word metaphysical comes to mind because it's just so like, That's like music that comes from the other side. So is in a cave and so Iggy Pop, of course, in terms of like... I mean, those are my guys.

Yeah. So, I mean, Shane McGowan was a huge influence, you know. I, you know, as they say, I was lucky to meet all of them and become friends with them. But luck is probably the wrong word. It's kind of... Your death in a me, but it's kind of inevitable because, well, I'll tell you one story. It's like when I was still living in Ukraine and just starting to discover all this crazy-ass expressive music and artists, you know, word name Lydia Lunch, of course, also came on my radar along with others. and it was like

and as soon as I left Ukraine I was like working in construction in Italy and this was kind of miserable years and I got in touch with my friends was talking on the phone with them and they were like hey Lydia Lange was just here

and I was like how did that came about there they're like we have no idea she came with Kit Konga powers from cramp and this German band Die Out. And you know what? We played with her.

We opened up. So, yeah, it's like a couple months before that named Lydia Lange was something from another planet. Right, right, right. Then I did not orchestrate it. I wasn't even there. But because a family of this kind of musicianship, this kind of particular walk of life artist,

that I think we are part of that whole tree is incredibly small around the world. It's like you can count it all on fingers, these couple clusters of it. And so I wasn't there, but my friends end up playing with her. It's fucking crazy. And then, of course, I meet her in New York and we talk about that. And she's like, yeah, it's absolutely inevitable. And she's like, the world is tiny for us, you know. And so, yeah, that's really.

kind of answers, I think, what you're saying, you know. And meeting all these people, it was incredibly meaningful, you know, Nick Cave is a really amazing person. You know, Egy, of course, as he's a sage. Any of your idols were just complete assholes? That's a banal thing that people keep reiterating, like, you know, don't meet your idols. Now it's like, no, do meet your idols. I hate that thing. Just don't be a dick. Right. Yeah. And they don't expect things. chances are they want to be assholes. And don't put expectations on them. I'm going to be a fucking

disrupting their fucking throwing a grenade in their life. What else is what other choice you give them? Right, exactly. You talk about how you write for whatever's going on mentally. What are you writing about right now?

Here's how I do it. I don't know if it's like the most prolific way or not, but I don't really um conjure anything up or try to get inspired or any of this kind of fucking things

you hear about yeah yeah it's like I think I believe in a this thing that calls a speed of soul um I think I read it in a about this book

called Born to Run it's about a a Mexican desert tribe of natives Native Americans who kind of instead of walking do all their daily operation by running

and so they have this thing where... I've seen this, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was like a book that made some waves for sure and when we're working with Rick Rubin on the record he told me about that book because, you know, I was a long-distance runner in the past. And so he told me about it.

We talked about it. So I got it. I read it. And there was an interesting part where this guy who's writing book about them, he's spending time with them. And they're crossing some chunk of the desert. So there was a situation where they all stop and say, hey, well, now we have to rest.

And he's like, but we're not tired. He's like, yeah, no. And the chief goes, no, we are not tired. We're going to have to wait for our souls to catch up because her bodies made the sleep and the soul are still back. And, you know, it really rang true with me because I think I experienced some of that kind of,

like outrunning your soul a little bit, especially in the forms of jet lag. You're fucking flying from fucking Tokyo back to Rio. I used to live in Brazil. It was just insane. Like, just going back to Rio from Australia or from like any point. It's just nuts.

Neil, quiet Neil. He's, this is one of his favorite bands. Oh, cool. I've seen you guys forever, so it's, it's great to see you. Thanks, man. What would you like to say to Eugene, my bro? So I always have a kind of random question, and I'm thinking right now, this is all I can think of. Do you ever have, like, a recurring dream or recurring nightmare?

Yeah. What's that, what goes on in that recurring nightmare? And surely it's long, but, you know, a brief synopsis of the recurring nightmare. Oh, so it's about learning how to swim. Hmm. Yeah, I am for some reason for a long time I couldn't learn how to swim. And and so this dream is that I'm swimming and then suddenly I'm not swimming anymore. You know, it's nothing catastrophic except that, you know, you can drown.

Yeah, you're drowning and dying. Yeah, but, you know, it's just something that I don't know why. I don't know what it is. It's just probably explains as easily that, just as that, that it was something that I really had to conquer. And this girl that I was really obsessed with at the time, when I was on a still athlete on a, it's like, imagine I'm like, a long-distance runner, you know, 14, 15 years old,

taking place number one in Kiev time after time. I think it was serious training, you know. And I just can't fucking swim. It's like, what the fucking fuck is my problem, dude? She was a professional swimmer? And she was on our team. And we were at a sport camp and jumped in the water. And I was kind of faking it that I can swim.

And she's like, I like her style of swimming. And I'm like, what the fuck? I'm swimming. It like gave me the wings, you know. I mean, it was make-belief. Well, it's confidence, right? Yeah, so I faked it till I made it in that sense, yeah. That's fucking unbelievable.

That's awesome. Oh, man. Very cool. Yeah, dreams were weird. I had that same, I had a reoccurring dream of me dying in a plane crash because I was scared of flying. Nice. And then I fucking, I fly all the time.

But once I finally got away from that fear, I didn't have that dream anymore. Did you, are you still afraid to swim or is it, as you still? No, no, I don't care at all. I love swimming. I love flying. What's the last time you had that dream? Do you remember? Probably comes and goes, maybe like, I don't know, every six months.

Not too often. Yeah. But, you know, it seems to be there in a rotation. Do you dream a lot? No, really. Yeah, me either. It's because we're writers. We write it all out and there's,

nothing to dream about because you're living it. Yeah. You know? That's funny. That's actually so true. So what? So do you think because we're living it, we don't dream about the future as much? We just, we just stay present because we know it's going to happen?

Well, I mean, depends how you mean dreaming. Like daydreaming, that's drastically different from dreaming or like envisioning. Envisioning. Like you said, writers. Yeah. We're living it. Yeah. Yeah, that's different from just, like, dreaming with REMs and ice.

And that's just, like, your brain, like, going through inventory of some kind. Yeah. I'm not big on that whole, like, dream interpretation. Talking about pseudoscience. That's some pseudoscience right there. Just people making fucking writing books and selling them. Yeah. Because they don't know fucking anything else.

Yeah, exactly. Everyone dreams. Let's write a book about it. That really symbolizes that. It's like, yeah, really, okay. I don't know. I think you just had that thought. Well, that's it.

Then I was going to ask you, are you living the dream? And you probably are, because you're writing it. I think a lot of people live self-propelled prophecy, you know, in a lot of ways. Not all, because how do you explain and justify people who, you know, get into tragedy and can't get out for one reason or another, you know? But I don't know, I mean, I can't explain all these things, of course not. Yeah. But I think that we have capability to reach certain frequencies in life where, you know,

not to sound corny, but kind of like, you know, what you're seeking is seeking you. All that law of attraction kind of thing. It can work for you. Yeah. Especially if you're in New York. It seems to work there 100 times faster. What about in Vermont? It doesn't work 100 times faster.

I was like, when I saw it out, I'm like, damn, you live in Vermont. I'm like, what attracts you to Vermont? What do you love about it? What attracts me to Vermont? Or like, why did you end up calling that your place? Well, of course it was because I looked at the globe with a microscope. And then I thought, wow, what's that? place that I never heard about.

Yeah. Let me go there. No, we were simply stationed there as refugees. Yeah. Wow. There was no bunk beds in New York City at the time. Available for newcomers. And so they, I was really bummed out.

Well, you know, because I really wanted to, you know, just immerse myself into New York, hardcore and music and stuff. but we were sent to Vermont and then it was a blessing in disguise you know I quickly discovered that it's a really special place and Bernie Sanders was running the

town and his wife Jane Sanders and Bernie they started this cool club that was essentially teen center that you know had punk rock and hardcore shows Yeah.

Sick. That's how you got started here, huh? Yeah. So that was my home away from home. Yeah. And there I met all my friends, basically, that I remained with friends to this day. A lot of them, a lot of them, yeah. You lived in Burlington?

Yeah, Burlington, yeah. Yeah, I only started moving to New York City six years later. Did they have the higher ground with higher ground there yet? Higher ground did not exist back then. What about that fish bar? Nectors. That was there. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, considering your audience, I'm going to, like, peace out, you know, and not get into details on that. We love talking shit. No, there's no shit to talk about it. But we were, like, polarly drastically opposite sides of the scene. Right, right. When fish was just starting up, we were like, oh, my God, like, no. And, you know, like, what's this?

But, you know, that is, you know, but then quickly they kind of gained even amongst punk and hardcore kids, they kind of gained different kind of respect in terms of that, you know, any way you slice it, they were the Indiest band. Yeah. And so, you know, like people may not necessarily like their music, but it's, it's a, it's. it became a growing, growing, growing and more and more and more, more respected thing of Vermont. And then, you know, of course, I met all the, all the guys and, you know, and my, my, one of my, you know, end up going places together and drew up with a Mike from Vermont to a premiere of Fear and Loathing, Las Vegas to New York City. And to, uh, to, my utmost surprise.

I mean, imagine me. I'm a punk rocker, you know. I'm going to this premiere with Mike. I was going to see Melvin's actually in Brownies. But, you know, he was going to see this premiere and he was like, oh, I can give you right and you want to come with me too. So anyway, I'm going there and we walk in and we're kind of late. We missed the red red carpet. it and we missed it and we walked into the lobby of the theater and i see egi pop for the first time in my life like offstage in just standing right there my sage of all times jim jarmush and johnny deb and another person who then became a really good friend of mine also jonathan shah oh holy shoo and they're all standing, they're just chatting, you know. They already seen the film, I assume, you know, several times.

And then Mike just goes straight up to them and shakes Iggy's hand. And I just got knocked out. You know, in my like naive world where everything was still kind of compartmentalized. Right, right. Yeah. Like, to some degree, I mean, to some degree that like, how can, you know, Iggy of the Stooges have like shaking the head the guy from the fish yeah yeah yeah what the fuck

yeah but then it was like you know it was a time of maturing for me you know of like this is all musicians

this is all Dionysian madness yeah this is all creativity flourishing in many other ways yeah and so I kind of

had to you know grow up there on the spot in a certain sense on some level and he walked up to Iggy yeah I introduced myself Of course, I was with Mike at the first time.

Then many years later, I met Iggy again, and we became friends through another chain of events, not like in the passing. But he kind of, Iggy just kind of, you know, aside from being like a musical inspiration, what is significant is that as I grew to realize, that it wasn't just like your musical mentor, like that's all there is.

You know, like that's just he does that and that's it. It's like years later, you know, I mean, I was going pretty hard playing 200 shows and I was not too far off the ease flight of the bumblebee frequency. Right, right. You know, I was like pretty close to not existing at some point. Yeah, yeah, I feel that same. Yeah.

You know, just going a fucking ham. And I started to start falling apart. And when I met Jim, you were you into blow or anything? No. No. No, no, I wasn't. But, you know, music is quite psychedelic substance on its own. So if you're going very hard, you can get there fast.

And I was going very hard. I was on this mission that, like, I need to. like create some kind of be some kind of musical medicine man and it was partly delusional of course or entirely delusional let's say almost took a life out of me but that's when I met Jim and he was just like you know he kind of said this word chigong to me which is you know this like form of martial art that he was practicing and you know I kind of studied up and looked it up and started practicing myself, which basically saved my life.

Holy shit. Yeah, so it's like, you know, Iggy, the same person who sent me on this, you know, nuclear engine rocket. Sonic nuclear engine rocket is the same person who kind of made me even kill later on in my life. Oh my God, that's fucking unbelievable, dude. Yeah, it is. It's really meaningful in a lot of ways, you know. It's just like this tree that keeps on giving. Yeah. You know, just still going, uniting people, bringing their frequency up, you know,

everywhere he goes. Yeah. Well, speaking to being a gift, and, you know, you built a lane for my band to do what we do. So I just want to say thank you. Oh, thank you, man. That's amazing to hear, you know. We're high energy and we couldn't have done it without you guys. And, like, to play these open air shows and to, like, for them to get.

give us a shot because we grew up listening to you guys. And so thank you. Thanks. And this is also a very cool time for, you know, now also considering your audience, exactly that, you know, I'm actually, over the time, I kind of made my way into, and because of less Claypool and just being keeping my ears open, kind of made my way into finding a lot of interesting things for myself in a jam band scene and playing. and playing a lot of those festivals.

I mean, people, we often invite. We all play the same stuff, yeah. Yeah, we're often invited into those circles with, less, or without, you know, like, Galactic. I love Galactic. Yeah, they're the boys. They're awesome. Stan Moore is the man. So great.

And, uh, King Gizzard? King Gizzard, of course. Earlier on, I was, uh, Osiric tentacles. Uh-huh. It's really one of my calf. He loves it. Oh, yeah. Way before their time.

England. What about like Modeski Martin Wood? Think like Disco biscuits, but really good. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, they're like a New York kind of jazz. But you know, something really cool is happening now where I was at the festival and I saw a t-shirt, you know, the typical jam band. What do you call them?

Acidwashed T-I-Doh. Oh, yeah, yeah. Tie-died, yeah. And I was just like, okay, it's that thing. and uh but then i see sex pistols logo on it oh my god and uh so it's like damn the time has come we're like you there's no fucking way you could wear a t-shirt like this in like 90s exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah cardinal sin couldn't go to punk rock show in that t-shirt or in that t-shirt to a jam bad but now i feel like there's so many streaks of alternative music happened that

I mean, if you get it like under microscope, like the new psychedelia movement that was like a mad chester sound and happened with like stone roses and, you know, primal scream. That was the fucking tie-dye with six people's on. That was the punk rock fucking jam bands, you know, on its own trip. But now it's like maybe that can get elevated. And I can see also a lot of younger bands that I produce because now I have my own label. You like doing that? Yeah, it's awesome.

I bet it's great for like a dental cleansing of the brain, you know, to help. It's great for curating, you know, essentially like new wave of music. It doesn't make sense at all. I make up shit a lot. I do too. I'm going to have to go with curating this. creating dental cleansing. But no, you just, you know, it's good to sometimes bring bands together

that, you know, some band might be stuck in, especially when they're young. You know, people who are like 23, 24 and they're like stuck in Harlem or other band is like all the way out on Bushwick. Another band is in downtown. And like years go by, they never heard about each other. But if you put them on the same label and into the same shows, suddenly it's like a community. and it grows from there so that's been great and

kind of shoe gaze and psychedelic rock kind of psychedelic psychpunk it's kind of becoming a thing it is yeah it really is it really is I'm stoked yeah well I'm stoked thank you for taking your time fuck yeah man this is great man you're the man

keep rocking yeah I listen to you talk for two more hours yeah I'm delirious because I didn't sleep that's why I have to wear shades well get some sleep before the Ogden go kick and let's do this again sometime. Yeah, sure. Yeah, thank you. Cheers, buddy.

Cheers meeting you.