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Interview with Hercules & Love Affair
Interviewed By: Tim Needles
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Hercules and Love Affair are an electronic/dance music project created by DJ Andy Butler. Their album, released in March 2008, features an eclectic array of guest vocalists such as Antony Hegarty, Nomi Ruiz, and Kim Ann Foxman. The New York-based project has received critical acclaim, and the album, which was featured on the Chanel website and numerous commercials, has a growing popularity worldwide. |
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Congratulations on the success of the album. I wanted to begin by asking you about your collaborations with the guest vocalists, Nomi, Kim, and Antony, and how they came about.
Andy: Well, those collaborations happened quite organically. They were friends of mine, so I just started playing music for them and inviting them to sing on the songs. The first collaboration was with Antony. We had been friends for a couple of years, and he knew I was making electronic dance music, and I just played him some tracks. I had written a poem, and I brought it to him, asking if he’d be interested in singing the song, and he was more than welcoming. So two days later, we were in the studio. The first song from the batch was “Blind.” Then Antony and I went into the studio later in the year and did “Time Will.” I had set up a bit of a studio in my house shortly thereafter, and Kim Ann Proctor was hanging out all the time, so I asked her to sing a bit. Initially it was for this 12” thing called “Classique,” which came out before the album, but then she just ended up singing on a handful of songs on the record. Nomi came into the picture, and again I sort of demoed things with her at home first and then each vocalist sang the same songs. Later on in the process, we decided which vocalist would be on which song.
How did the idea of making this record come about?
Well I had been writing all this music for years. I had been doing it just for fun, for myself, when I was asking Antony and Kim Ann and people to participate. There was no goal. I didn’t have any vision of putting an album together and releasing it. I was just doing it because that’s what I do. I write songs and was working on them in a song-by-song basis, and before I knew it, I had a handful of songs that I was playing for friends, and one of them suggested I take it to DFA Records. He put in the word and connected me to DFA. Then DFA got excited about it and brought it to EMI, who in turn got pretty excited and released it. It happened that way.
What actually led you to the title of Hercules and the Love Affair?
Well, I had written all these songs, and at some point I realized that I needed to have a name for the whole thing. I had been playing with Greek mythology and Greek imagery in the lyrics, so I wanted to find something that tied the whole record together. Parts of the record are emotional, and they are real personal songs, so I wanted to find something that spoke to that but that also resonated on several different levels. I remember this myth about Hercules that I learned when I was in college. It’s basically about him in the mists of this journey, losing his lover, and he can’t continue on his journey because he is so heartbroken and dismayed. I thought this was a poignant image. You have the strongest man on Earth unable to carry on, wounded because of his heart. I thought it was an apt title, and it just so happens that his lover was a male, as well. I thought it was an interesting detail. Hercules had male and female lovers, so it sort of all tied into the narrative. There is an undercurrent of a narrative to the whole thing of gender identity and sexuality and stuff like that.
Wow, that’s interesting. Did you have any other influences outside of music, in terms of literature or art?
Well, it’s really the clubs. The club is where I draw most of my influence, and those epic journeys that DJs can take you on serve as the primary influence. I’m really interested in history and the history of aesthetics in pop culture, so lots of different things influence me. I studied the art history of the '70s in school, conceptual art, and studied lots of art history in general: visual art, filmmakers, lots of different things. In terms of creating stuff, I tend to come from a very personal place. I tend to look at what is personally going on, and that’s where I tend to get going. That’s why, for example, Greek mythology surfaced, because it’s just something that’s significant.
Your album was very well received, not just in America, but around the world. It seems like electronic dance music is growing in popularity and influence in different genres. What’s your perception?
It does seem to be a pretty colorful landscape right now, and there does seem to be a lot of emerging artists who are interested in working with electronic textures and dance and like a dance beat. I think in the last couple of years, the fusion of indie rock with dance music—like the DFA bands and something mainstream like Interpol—I think it set the groundwork for people to explore a little bit more. I think it’s exciting there are a lot bands that are coming out that are doing electronic stuff. And more producers. The music seems to be a little bit more substantial than the mainstream fluffy dance music of previous years.
That’s one of the great things about your album in particular—there’s a lot of diversity in it, and it certainly breaks beyond the dance genre. How much of that was intentional? Did you think about different influences you wanted to put in the record, or was it just an organic process?
Well, in terms of writing, only very specifically was I ever taking direct reference, you know? There was literally a line lifted from a Frankie Knuckles song on the record that I included on the first song, “I Will.” It was a direct homage to Frankie Knuckles. Then there was something like “You Belong,” which has that classic aesthetic of Detroit house music. Something like that probably evokes that kind of production a bit more than being a direct reference. I’m drawing from a lot of different places, you know. A lot of different artists and producers excited me and still do. I’m creating our sound out of those places, but that’s more from my feelings that I associate with listening to that music.
Who are some of those musicians that inspired you early on?
Well, people like August Darnell, the guy who does Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and before that he had a band called Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. They were just a hyper-musical disco fusion band, kind of blended jazz music and big band music with disco and island and calypso and all sorts of stuff. I was definitely interested in him. Another guy might be the Martin Circus. Disco Circus is another thing—big, bouncy vocals, silly vocals sometimes. Like, Arthur Russell tracks are influential. I think Gino Soccio is a wonderful songwriter and crafted some of the most beautiful, deepest disco tracks. Those are a handful of the disco artists, but also later on there were New Wave artists that tapped into a lot of emotion, like Yazoo and OMD.
Sure, I can hear some of that '80s synth sound on the record.
Yeah, definitely, that was my first style of dance music that I fell in love with, that really synth bass stuff. Yeah, some of the stuff was coming out around Kid Creole, and there was a lot of these New York bass sounds. There was this band called KONK, this sort of post-disco thing, and Italian Disco, which has a real poppy sensibility and great arrangements. They serve as influences too. I took ideas from all that stuff, and in terms of the softer music, taking cues from Brian Eno and Kate Bush.
What was your interaction with co-producer Tim Goldsworthy (former drummer for UNKLE) from DFA like?
It was really good, actually. It was nice to be with someone who is really on the same page. One thing that I think is really important to the making of this record is that the people involved were really seeing eye-to-eye with me aesthetically and understood what I was after. His knowledge of dance music is significant, and he knew the records I was interested in referencing and the sounds and sonic qualities that I was after, so it was easy to engage in dialogue. It was easy to pursue those production techniques because he was just really efficient. He’s been producing in the studio since the early '90s, so he had a really big grasp on the stuff we were working with. It was a really good working relationship.
You started out your musical career in Denver. How did you break in? Did you have a big break?
I don’t know if I ever had a big break. I was just always writing music. I was always at the piano playing music and started writing really young. My parents started to encourage me to write more and more. I started DJ’ing at a very young age, 15 years old, and it was all done in an academic setting for personal fulfillment for the longest time. Then I came to New York, at which point I picked up some higher profile DJ gigs and did some work in fashion.
What’s your advice for up-and-coming musicians and creative people?
Well, my own approach is that nothing is too precious and to create, create, create. The best advice I ever heard was when I heard a writer speaking about her creative process. She said 75 percent of her creative process involved the garbage can. I think it’s a good way to approach things. It’s better to just let it all out and edit later. It’s important not get in your own way during the creative process. The other thing I would say is if it makes you happy, do it.
The album has been featured in a bunch of commercials and is really getting out there in the public beyond just the club scene. Did it open any new, interesting doors for you? What are you are working on now?
I’m sort of focusing on the same process, writing material, writing music, working with singers, inviting people on board to sing, realizing this new music, and I’m just going to approach it the same way. We had a very exciting, very fortunate year with lots of crazy twists and turns. The fact that it was embraced critically as it was and that we’ve had some really notable individuals or entities like Chanel express a lot of interest in the project, licensing some of the material and putting it on the runway—we just did a big event for them in Central Park—those kinds of things have been really exciting. In general, the favorable reactions have been really exciting and thrilling. All I can hope is that people respond or appreciate something in the new material. I hope that they can find something they can hold on to like they did with this record. It would be great, but it’s kind of hard to figure out what that is as an artist, so I’m not really bothering myself with it. |
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