"THERE ARE LOTS OF PUNK BANDS BUT NOBODY WHO IS DOING MUSIC THE WAY WE ARE DOING IT"

The term 'world music' conjures up barf-inducing visions of smug middle-aged 2CV driving, real ale drinking vegan Guardian readers in ethnic garb self righteously lurching along to some godawful North Korean polka music. Like jazz and opera, the music itself is fine, it's the people that like it who are usually unremitting see-you-next-Tuesdays.

What has been interesting in the past few years is the way that 'ethnic' folk music has started creeping into metal. It's a trend taht started with Sepultura's 'Roots', continued through the work of Soulfly and System Of A Down and now constitutes a small but growing substrata of hard rock. Seattle's Kultur Shock are the very model of a multi-cultural punk rock band, just your everyday American-Japanese Spanglish Balkan Mariachi punk rock band. Incorporating Gypsy music, traditional and 'pop' music from the Balkans within an already twisted and angular take on contemporary rock'n'roll, their third album 'Kultura Diktatura' is an unbelievable gumbo of global musics. Some of it wouldn't sound out of place in your local kebab shop, but it's the sort of thing that would upset your WOMAD friends because it isn't 'pure' or 'authentic'.

Fronted by Bosnian play write, lawyer, singer and polymath Gino Srdjan Yevdjevich, the story of Kultur Shock is worthy of a book. In brief, Gino was born and raised in Sarajevo, lived throught the war and the siege and came to the United States as the guest of folk legend Joan Baez.

"During the war a lot of western intellectuals like Susan Sontag came to Sarajevo, though they came for their own purposes. Joan Baez at least was more honest. She just came to play her own music, not to posture," he says.

Gino played with Baez, wrote and planned a film about Sarajevo.

"Unfortunately, at that time the war was over and so Hollywood lost interest," he says. "They would say, 'oh but there are some terrible things happening in Haiti now,' so Bosnia was no longer the 'hip' war."

Despite the ending of the war, Bosnia remains a seething hotbed of fundamentalist Catholic, Islamic and Orthodox factions dividing themselves into suspicious, paranoid enclaves as if ready to start the whole thing off again.

"I was told quite frankly that there was no place for me as a secular artist," he says. "I was told that my career there was over."

Gino settled in the US. The immigration service classified him as an "Alien of Exceptional Abilities" which enabled him to remain there.

Kultur Shock began as a punk band. Gino quickly got to know everyone on the Seattle 'scene', particularly Krist Novoselic, who is of Croatian descent.

"It was Krist who encouraged me to make Kultur Shock the band it is," says Gino. "He came to see us at the Crocodile Café [legendary Seattle venue] and said, 'You have to do this,' because there are lots of punk bands but nobody who is doing music the way we are doing it."

After recording 'Live in Amerika', An album of their traditional Balkan folk songs, the band changed their sound completely.

When another politically active punk rock legend Jello Biafra showed up for a gig with two friends in tow, it led to a deal with ex-Faith No More man Billy Gould's Koolarrow records whose inspired signings include Mexican metal bands Asesino and Brujeria.

"What is generally known as 'world' music is a misnomer. Somehow, this category has become associated with a nostalgic, romanticised, and sometimes even condescending view of other (non-US) culutures," says Gould. "To me, the real 'world' music consists of those modern bands, who make today's music in their own context, but with their own identity."

"Jello called me to say that Billy Gould would be in touch, that he had given him my number," says Gino. "Billy called that day and we talked for a few hours, mostly about politics. When the call was over we signed with him."

Although an anarchist and a bitter critic of the war in Iraq, he prefers the US to Europe.

"The people here are genuinely good people," he believes. "Looking the way that I look, half my head shaved, dreadlocks on the other half, if my car breaks down in Arizona, people will stop and help regardless of how I look. But if the same thing happened in Austria they would call a cop."