If anyone in rock music wrestles daily with stereotypes, it’s Eugene H tz. Then again, the frontman for gypsy rock band Gogol Bordello thrives on exertion. Hear Gogol Bordello’s Wonderlust King Sure, the band’s live show is exhausting to watch. A convolution of Balkan burlesque, participatory pragmatism and chaotic expressionist ritual, Gogol’s concerts are legendary.

Think of one as a barely contained, urbanized compression of a three-day gypsy wedding and the groom and bride are anarchist punks to their very core. But Mr. H tz’s struggle never stops. The Kiev, Ukraine, native uses Gogol to deliver sharply intelligent, multicultural and social commentary as he sweats like a soaker hose at every performance. That the seven-year-old act’s music has coalesced enough to make his goals resonate with the mainstream only challenges him more.

Jackie Canchola Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene H tz Lucky for him, it’s been a steady climb. There’s been a slow and very phenomenal burn, Mr. H tz said recently by phone while outside of a theater in Virginia. In 2000, we placed the Tate Museum in London, and then the Whitney Museum in New York; we had a name in the art scene first. After that, it was new-school world music, which was fine then.

But after that, I wanted to point out that we’re actually a gypsy rock band, and that’s the category where we really belong. The kind of music that we play was too radical; it was called too unmarketable then … I’m glad that it didn’t happen overnight; that could have been dangerous for us. Gogol is still dangerous; only now, it’s palatable and infectious.