Making dance music that’s fun is serious business — especially if you make it your life’s work, like Andy Butler, main man/svengali behind Hercules and Love Affair. The Denver native has been honing his dance-music-composition chops since he left the Colorado-leather-bar-DJ gig of his teens to make it in the Big Apple. He found success in 2008 with the explosive debut of Hercules, a rotating line-up of singers and musicians doing his bidding as if he were Neil Bogart running Casablanca Records. Herc shot to prominence on the strength of their irresistible update of the large-band sound of classic disco, and the power of lead single “Blind,” which featured the diva vocalizing of Butler’s old pal Antony Hegarty of Antony & the Johnsons. The band’s homonymous debut long-player had Hegarty guesting on four more tunes, with the bulk of the rest of the vocal duties being handled by NYC über-diva Nomi Ruiz. Butler is gearing up to unveil his sophomore outing this September, with guest vocals by Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke. I caught up with him via telephone from Denver as he prepared to unveil the new material on a tour that brings the band to Great Scott in Allston on July 29.
We don’t know much about the new album, not even the title yet — although your blog describes it with one word: “emotional.”
It is! Well, the record — I mean, the last one was equally emotional, you know. Introspection, self-reflection, confusion, sadness, loss, that sort of thing. There’s definitely a lot of emotionally charged music on it. A song like “Blind,” etc. I guess, though, that the range of emotions on the new record is wider, more dynamic. I dunno, I guess I explored other aspects of my psyche besides just sadness or celebration. There are songs about revenge, about defiance. You know, defiant of people prying into your life, getting people to stay out of your business. I guess I was just dealing with a wider array of emotions: anger, but also intensity, redemption, etc. It’s an emotional record.
So would you say that you’re dealing, in part, with the changes brought about by the success you found with the first album?
That’s definitely part of it, but part of it has to do with the emotional place I was in when I wrote those songs, whilst in the midst of a brutal touring schedule, lots of prying interviews, some uncomfortable moments, all sorts of issues between all sorts of people. So it was definitely formed by the experience of the last few years.
It’s interesting, the way you describe your music as so emotional, and at times pained, since it is, broadly defined, dance music, and most people see dance music as just about having fun and being happy-go-lucky. Does dance music mean something else to you, something deeper?
Oh sure. I mean, I have always liked dance music. I remember so well one of my favorite lines from an old classic house track by Murk is “Just like my momma said/If you ever get misled/Forget about your lover/You must always keep your pride/In order to survive/There will always be another/” And just that, in itself, is a very powerful life lesson that is summed up very poetically and simply, on a deep-house track. And even just, sometimes, simple vocal loops that are repetitive, very post-modern. Like, you know, “lift me up lift me up lift me up lift me up.” These kinds of things have more significance, at least for me, than just like “I’m at a party and it’s just a sound.” Dance music has always spoken to me on a legitimately serious emotional level.
That said, I also find it hard sometimes to get people to listen to my music and take it seriously, lyrically. Like, there is a song on the new record called “Falling.” And it’s a really joyous song, and from a sonic perspective, it’s a song of joy and happiness. But if you actually hear the lyrics, it’s essentially a re-telling of the story of Theseus. And it’s a really tragic story: this young man is sent off to save his city from a curse, and his father says to him: “When you return from this mission, please change the color of the sail on your mast so I know that you’re alive and that you’ve done what you said you wanted to do.” And the son makes this one mistake and he forgets, and his father throws himself off of a cliff. And the song is called “Falling” because it’s from the perspective of the guy falling. So, while the song is like “I’m falling/and I’m free,” I wanted to write a dance song from a different perspective! From the perspective of someone looking down at a raging ocean with rocks in it, thinking to himself, “At least I know now what happened to my son — I’ve walked around for three weeks wondering if he’s dead or alive, and in some ways, now I’m free.” And that’s just a re-telling of a myth that’s enchanted me since I was a little kid, but there’s other stuff that’s more personal, that deals with topics in my own childhood, which was at times hard and abusive, and trying to escape from it, trying to find shelter.
I have another song, “Blind,” with the lyrics, “As a child I knew the stars could only get brighter/That we would get closer, leaving this darkness behind.” I was writing that because when I was four or five years old, it was one of the darkest periods of my life. I did not understand why I had been born. I thought that being gay was — like, I didn’t know what it was but everyone around me knew that I was gay. I was terribly confused, and I thought that things could only get better. And this was from the age of four! So the songs aren’t just happy-go-lucky disco songs.
And even classic disco songs aren’t just happy-go-lucky disco songs.
No, they’re not!
It’s interesting that you refer to your usage of the Theseus myth as a “re-telling,” because it seems like something more than that, the same way that naming your band Hercules and Love Affair takes an allusion to Greek mythology and puts it in a totally different context.
Yeah, it’s not just a re-telling, but a re-contextualization of these things that have been passed down forever. The same stories that have been told in all cultures, you know, in different ways. And on some level, we all have that moment where we forget to change the color of the sails and let someone down, make a simple mistake. And those kinds of life lessons are told in many many different cultures in many many different ways. And I just happen to think that music is a fun and powerful vehicle for telling those stories.
You seem to focus a lot on lyrics and lyrical themes, which in dance music is something that people don’t tend to focus on.
I don’t know — there’s definitely a lot of room for instrumental dance music, for track-y dance music that’s great for mixing for DJ’s, I love that kind of music. But for me, and in my own art, lyrics are — I try as much as possible to make them stand on their own as a body of work, so you could look at those words on a piece of paper and acknowledge them as a poem or a text, aside from the music that those words are put to. To me, lyric-writing is a whole separate thing that is really important to me and has to be taken seriously — I’m not interested in throwaway lyrics about cell phones and, you know, sex and dumb stuff.
You have always had awesome vocalists for your songs — especially your material with Antony on the last album. Did you write those songs for specific singers? And how did you get Antony in the first place?
That was just a blessing from the heavens. Antony Hegarty happens to be one of the greatest voices on the planet, and he happened to be one of my best friends. So I was lucky enough to be like, “Hey, guess what, dance music-haters? Here’s some real legitimate singing and thinking for you, so fuck off!” You know? So that was a real blessing.
When I first worked with Antony, I had just written “Blind.” And the original version of the song has a weird synthesized voice of me singing it. And Antony thought it sounded cool, and he was like, “You should just do that!” And I was like “No, I want to hear your voice, I want to see what you would do with it.” And he went into the studio to sing it, and that was that. But after that collaboration, there were a few songs that I wrote specifically for Antony’s voice. Like “Easy,” for example: there were moments that I thought would be perfect for his voice.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Hercules and Love Affair has a different lineup now than on the first record.
Yeah: on the recording we have more live instrumentation than we did on the first record. We have strings, we have trombones, trumpets, clarinets, the whole nine yards. I really tried to involve as much live musicianship as possible. For the live show, I wanted to get a much clubbier, more hard-hitting experience — something more akin to what I used to experience as a 15 year old!
That’s an interesting change, especially since so much of your band’s thing was tied into the large-band format you had when you toured the first album.
I was really happy with what we did as a nine-piece live band on the road. And I was really into the whole wonky live feeling where we felt like we were recreating something very special from the late-’70s/early-’80s kind of no-disco kind of punky-disco thing. But it never ever hit the way that my favorite club tracks hit. And that was always a problem for me. Because inevitably your bass player’s going to hit some stanky notes, and your horn players are going to forget their cues, and your drummer’s going to go out of time with the drum machine. And not that I have that many issues with imperfection — I love live music! — but I wanted to present something with more of a real deep-club emotional experience. And what we were presenting was more of a hoot, a fun lively no-wave thing, like more of a Bush Tetras kind of thing. And I want it to be more physical, like when that bass drum hits, you feel it in your stomach, and your heart, you know?
It’s weird: I have a lot more to think about now than I did with the old show, because I used to have people who covered this area and that area, and now I’m having to cover a lot of areas! But I’m much happier with the sound, the crowds are much more frenzied, much more rabid and insane. I think before it was a little bit more of a show that you watch and enjoy and clap clap clap, and that’s not what I want.
The other thing is that I met a singer [Aerea Negrot] six years ago when I was on tour with Antony, doing merchandise for him. And she was really curious and I was talking her and she told me, “I live in Berlin cuz Berlin’s the coolest techno place blah blah blah, but I’m classically trained in ballet. And I sing and kind of have an operatic voice.” And I thought “Wow, this girl is weird — and kind of amazing!” And I told Antony, “We’ve got to have lunch with this girl who came to the show last night, she seems really interesting.” So we did, but then I lost touch with her, until years later I found someone from Berlin who knew her and had her number. So I called her, and got her in the studio. And she was awesome, she took it to a place that I could never have imagined. So once again I was blessed with someone awesome who dropped from the heavens.
And the other new singer, Shaun Wright, who I met in New York, who’s just been born and bred on house music. His mother was a singer in an R&B group — it’s in his blood! And so he brings to Hercules this kind of more gospel-tinged African-American voice, which I’m really happy about. His voice is really powerful and I’m really excited about him. And when I first saw him I was taken aback because he was covered in sparkles and braids and just reminded me of Rick James and Sylvester.
All of that is interesting, because you probably could have just as easily put out another album of ’70s/’80s-sounding disco music, and everyone would be perfectly happy.
Yeah. No, no, this is a completely different thing, a completely different beat. That said, there are moments on the new record that are very . . . “Herculean.” You’ll hear a horn arrangement that sounds like the first album, or a string arrangement, so there’s some consistency. But this record was much more about honing and displaying my compositional voice as opposed to relying on references. It’s much less referential, and more about songwriting.
Do your records have a message of any kind? Is there something thematic underlying your music, album-to-album?
I think if there if there was a message on the first record, it was “Dance music is legitimate music.” You know, there’s a history to it and it’s not just throwaway trash. On this record it’s more varied, but at the same time it’s kind of the same deal: “If it’s a dance track and it’s coming from Hercules and Love Affair, you’re gonna have to respect it as a song, and not just as a track.” I’m saying it loud and clear: dance music is legitimate music. It’s the real deal.
Your music with Hercules has really given you a reputation as someone who really knows his stuff when it comes to vintage disco and dance music — but do you keep up with new music? Is there current dance music that you love?
Yeah, of course, especially because I DJ so much. I have to! I have to tune in to what’s going on, and I have my favorites, definitely.
Yeah, I was just curious because when one gets into the whole ’70s-disco thing, there’s a tendency to get into the mindset of “Oh, it was so much better back then” and “No one makes music like this nowadays.”
No, I definitely do not think that that’s the case. I mean, I don’t think that music was necessarily “better” back in the ’70s. Although, I do think musicians were treated differently then, and the music industry was different then. There was a respect for songwriting and musicianship that’s changed a bit in pop music. But I don’t necessarily think it’s better or worse or anything.
HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR PLAY GREAT SCOTT ON JULY 29
gunter glieben glauchen globen 