But it's endearing too, it makes me care a lot about everybody in a way. I really do care about them not feeling threatened. I don't want to barge into this thing and be like a thorn in anybody's side. It's so important to the polka culture that you respect them, because they've been maligned and made fun of for so long. That's really become a major thing for us to combat, to try to push back the other way.
Polka music is wrapped up in ethnic pride to a huge degree.
Polish polka events, for example, are more than just music. They're likely to include Polish food, Polish beer, even Polish folk dancers dressed in ethnic costumes. But the number of those people is definitely diminishing as our profile increases. We did get our fair share of hate mail about how we went in and stole this Grammy from the 'real people'. But I think what they don't understand is, the band's been around twenty years.