Eugene Hutz, in the Guardian Unlimited portakabin. Photograph: Elliot Smith
Yesterday morning, I literally rolled out of the tour bus and did a show. After being for 34 years a night person I had to immediately become a morning person and give it all as soon as I woke up. It's easy, just change your DNA and life path completely and just completely become somebody else - no problem. So easy. Last night was an insane night, I was filming until the cows came home in London, working on a short film called Filth and Wisdom. The whole band are in it - it's going to be great.
Playing so many festivals, I've learned that you should be friendly to other bands, which is something we learned to do only recently. We weren't horrible to other bands, but we come from such a different neck of the woods that people were just looking at us like, "These guys are from Romania and we don't know how to talk to them." But first of all we're not from Romania and even if we were, so what? It's time to join the forces, because we can bring a lot of interesting stuff to the table. Our civilisation is different. Even though it's part of Europe, but I would hardly describe it as European or western civilisation: we have our own methods and we have our own culture and we have our own humour and so forth. Eastern Europe is a gold mine, so I just think that bands backstage sometime create unnecessary tension between themselves, driven by arrogance and basically insecurity, but there's really no time for that. Just let the dirty water flow through.
In terms of festivals in Eastern Europe, the futher East a festival takes place, the more disorganised it gets. There you can get in anywhere without any pass. That said, geography doesn't matter - it's who's behind the festivals that counts. Festivals that are volunteer-driven always shine through - Roskile, Palio, you can tell them. The fewer cops there are, the better. We just played Bonnaroo in the States and Coachella, but Banaroo shone because we were like, "Wait a second, I didn't see one single cop in this whole huge festival." There was no rioting and the line-up was pretty diverse - there was us and Manu Chao and Tool and bands that just cause the crowd to go bonkers. So I think the less unnecessary organisation there is and the more soulful management there is, that's what makes it shine. In Palio, the gypsy stage where we played, it's a volunteer festival and the whole backstage area was decorated in Romany tradition with scenes from Romany movies and that's fucking great. As for festivals we haven't enjoyed playing: there was some horrible thing... I don't need to say which one, but I don't enjoy playing where all I see is fucking Miller Lite commercials in my face and tons of fucking cops.
I don't know whether Glastonbury is a travellers' festival still: that's not what I heard but I'm going to find out for myself after this. I heard that it's a land of rape and murder. Some experts, some reliable sources told me. But of course Glastonbury still has the ability to do change people's minds and alter their consciousness. You've just got to get the right bands and the right people will come, and they'll have the right reaction - liberation, catharsis, grabbing the tits of somebody else's girlfriend. You know - the usual!
