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Eight gypsy punks who call themselves Gogol Bordello have accomplished the difficult task of becoming the "it" band of New York's downtown-hipster sect. More importantly—and even more difficult of an accomplishment—these merry pranksters have managed to accrue a following in downtown Norfolk, Virginia—a magical place where peta2 music snobs run rampant in PETA's headquarters.
Our adulation didn't come to full fruition until this past weekend in Chicago, at which time we witnessed the glory of Gogol Bordello live. We looked at one another in bewilderment, realizing that perhaps those who dwell in the big city and boastfully label themselves after low-slung jeans truly do have remarkable taste in today's music.
After this moment of reflection, we snapped our eyes back to the stage, where singer Eugene Hutz had halted his band's set and was asking the audience to please take a moment to visit the peta2 booth in order to sign a petition in support of the Chicago Elephant Protection Ordinance. He went on to explain that the ordinance would give Chicago the strongest elephant-protection laws in the country and would set standards of excellence in compassion and kindness—an example for the rest of the nation to follow.
For those who missed this show-stopper, we are inclined to laugh unapologetically with pompous glee, and we have and will once more. But first, we want you to voice your support for elephants—and other animals—by pledging not to go to the circus. We think that you can figure out what to do from here.
 If we must admit it, we knew that the night's events would unfold as they did. In fact, we interviewed Eugene not too long ago, at which time we learned of his circus-related background—and his subsequent desire to help exotic animals kept in captivity.
Why are you interested in working with peta2?
When I was growing up, there were always animals, mostly cats, in our house. I came to a point of realizing how important animals are to me. I feel that I can identify with them quite naturally. Plus, living in a modern world, you can hardly avoid seeing all the horrible things that are done to animals.
You were born in Kiev and grew up in Eastern Europe. Do you think that animals are treated differently here in the U.S. than they are overseas?
In general, the Western world is much more developed than Eastern Europe, and that brings both pluses and minuses. For example, the industry here is much more developed than in Eastern Europe, and so the way they use animals is a lot more developed too. That's why there's a lot more consciousness about animal rights and a lot of people fighting the other way. In Eastern Europe, industry is not really developed and so the consciousness of the masses is not really developed.
Part of my family is gypsies and something my family used to do back in the day was to travel around with dancing bears—to play music and have the bears do tricks. For the bears, it was torture throughout their whole life.
You had the opportunity to have one of your songs on the TV show Wild Boys, but you decided not to because the show was about the circus. Can you tell us a little more about your decision?
My uncle was an acrobat in the circus when I was growing up. He's a good, hard gypsy that decided to be an acrobat instead of training bears. I hung around the circus quite a bit, and I saw that these animals don't have any fun there. I wasn't even looking too deep into it. I don't want to put my music behind ugly scenes like that.
That's awesome. You're playing Alex in Everything Is Illuminated. How is being an actor different from being a musician?
Basically, to be perfectly honest, music is all about cathartic self-expression, and that's why it's so fucking fun. Movies, on the other hand, are all about commitment to the story; it's not about your self-expression at all. It can get pretty difficult at times because you need to separate yourself from the character. And when the character gets dark or vicious, you always have to remember that you're actually telling a much larger story. So, for example, even in Everything Is Illuminated, which is a very beautiful film with a lot of love and compassion, my character does go through severe transformations. In one scene, he gets very pissed off and depressed, and I was actually supposed to hit a dog, which took me a whole day of arguing with the director, like, I'm not going to do it. The actual dog wasn't even there—it's a dummy, but I didn't want to be seen doing that.
So you did end up doing the scene?
Yeah, it is in the movie. It could not be done without it. It's a kind of a scene that entangles the inherited violence in a family. Alex was always slapped around as a kid; that's why he's now hitting the dog.
Are there are any other animal issues that are important to you?
As my conscience of this has been growing, I was thinking of switching into something much more committed. I definitely banned fur from my wardrobe. I was vegetarian when I was a little kid. My dad raised our family to be vegetarian but when we went to immigration, things fell apart because it was impossible to maintain any kind of healthy living there—we were basically eating garbage for years. We were eating whatever they were giving us at the refugee camps. So, I can't proudly announce myself as somebody who is developed to the ultimate degree and has committed again to a vegetarian way absolutely.
Are there any vegetarians in the band?
In our band, there are eight people, so it's kind of a microcosm. We have all sexes, all ages, all nationalities and there's a lot that goes on thought-wise in a band because everybody's from such diverse backgrounds. I must say that these thoughts come to people quite naturally after a certain point. People just start thinking, "What the fuck?" Some people in our band are vegetarian—not everybody, but several. Warren, our guitar player, is vegetarian. Elliot, our drummer, hasn't eaten any meat for several years, and our publicist, Alison, doesn't eat meat. Then Serge, our violin player—the crazy gypsy man—this guy fucking fasts! He'll be fasting on tour, making us all nervous he's going to faint on stage.
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