AmpedOut: A 'Love Affair' to remember

Hla_photo_crayons (L to R: H&LA's Nomi, Andy and Kim Ann are through coloring. Photo courtesy of Mute Records)
The line "As a child I knew that the stars could only get brighter, then we would get closer, get closer," which opens electro-disco band Hercules and Love Affair's immensely moving debut single "Blind" sums up member Andy Butler's youthful optimism that his true identity or place in the world would eventually be illuminated and become known to him.

So who is the Brooklyn-based band's keyboardist-producer?

To see him as a product of his time only provides you with a blurred picture since self-described old souls like Butler can't be fully captured on film.

Planetary allignments even become inadequate musical markers for someone seemingly born -- not under a star, but rather a shiny mirror ball -- at the height of disco, back in 1978. Disco music may have been "before his time," but somehow it became his sonic blueprint.

It would take 17 more years for the Denver, CO native, who was already a promising pianist at 12, and DJ and raver at 15, to consciously encounter the rare disco or "deep disco" that would underlie his later music identity... and it came in the form of one of legendary San Francisco House DJ (and Wicked Soundsystem-member) DJ Garth's long and deep disco blocks.

Moving to New York, Butler would likewise meld both seminal-disco and the House music it spawned in 12 original music tracks that make up Hercules and Love Affair's self-titled debut album, including Top 40 UK single "Blind," and the more recent "You Belong," and featuring vocals from Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johnsons fame), Kim Ann Foxman, and Nomi. This combination of old and new can also be seen in their live shows which incorporate both traditional instruments and electronic instrumentation.

Gay.com chatted with Andy Butler about Hercules and Love Affair's upcoming North American mini-tour, which kicks off Oct. 17 in Chicago, his 15-year-old moment DJing in a Denver leather bar, his love for disco, and his own voyage of self-discovery that, like the standard underground warehouse party of his youth, never seems to end.

Andy, for those who have never seen you live, can you tell us what to expect on the upcoming mini tour?

Well, it's live dance music. The album is pretty mellow and down-tempo, but live, everything's picked up a lot. There are eight people on stage with two singers covering vocals. Antony has a new EP out, so he knew he'd be having a busy year and gave his blessing to the girls who sing on the rest of the record, Kim Ann and Nomi, to split Antony's songs on tour. We have a little brass section, with a trumpet and a trombone, a bassist, drummer and tons of keyboards and drum machines. There's a lot to look at and a lot of energy. It's faster and more hard-hitting, a little bit more aggressive. There's a dance party onstage, and hopefully people in the audience are having fun, too.

Why did you choose to blend traditional and electronic instruments on stage?

There was a period of the late 90's, early 2000's, when electronic music was at its peak, and you had superstar DJ's and electronic bands. But when it comes down to just using a laptop, the show can be quite dry. There's something basic and human that doesn't go on at electronic music shows. They can be great with other visuals, but people respond strongly to the playing of other instruments. To fuse them with the dance beat and the electronics is pretty exciting, because it's refreshing to see people, live human beings working and sweating and playing instruments rather than just a dude behind a laptop.

Going back to your teen years, it's no secret that you got your first break DJing at a Denver leather bar at 15. How did that come about?

I came out quite early. I was a 15-year-old going to an all-boys Catholic high school, but I had this awareness that I was gay. So during the week, I was going to school and on the football team, but on weekends I was going out to find something true to who was. It started with warehouse parties and raves, because there was a lot of freedom at these parties, and eventually I would always find the gay guys at the party, because they were usually mixed events. I saw these fellas and found myself dancing next to that group, and was eventually in the mix. As a 15-year-old and 16-year-old, I found myself falling into an older scene or group that still embraced me. They knew I was excited by electronic music. I already had a bit of knowledge, had bought my first pair of turntables, and had been playing records for a while. They were doing an event, and they thought, 'Let's have Andy open up the night.'

It was innocent enough, and there was not really a chance of getting in trouble 'cause it was 9:30-10p.m. Of course the police turned up, but the stars were definitely aligned, because they were there for something else. Still, my friends had to abduct me, and I ended up sitting in one of the toilet stalls with the hostess, Chocolate Thunderpussy. She told me not to worry, that they'd be back in 10 minutes to get me. But I was scared that my parents are gonna find out, 'cause my parents would really be pleased when they see I got caught.

But what was the experience of hanging out with the older crowd in bars and clubs like for someone who I'd imagine wasn't developmentally prepared for it yet?

It was a trip. Of course at that age I felt really lucky. I had really mixed feelings. On one hand I encountered so much advanced thinking and culture, and really immersed myself in this group of older gay guys who'd gone to college and studied art history and knew everything about music. They were showing me intense foreign films and John Waters films. I remember seeing 'Pink Flamingos' at 15 and getting really upset during the scene when [Cracker and Cookie] are fucking, because there's a chicken between them and they kill it when they're fucking. I got really upset, and that was funny to my friends, because that was a really 'childish' response to that scene, since I was really disturbed by it. So I encountered a lot of intense stuff at an early age. Still, I felt lucky that I was able to express who I was in a fundamental way.

Going back to high school, I felt more alienated from my peers, because I was hanging out with less people my own age, and more people who were older than me. I got into a certain amount of trouble, but learned a lot. Maybe it was not the healthiest thing, but it's not the most uncommon story for a gay man growing up in America over the past 50 years. As a gay teenager, you have to start to find places or outlets where you can be who you are, and sometimes that doesn't take you to the prettiest or healthiest places. Sometimes the places that are a little darker, are the only places where you can be who you are.

But are you saying that you were just around more "adult" behaviors or are you saying that you also participated in them?

Well, I mean, it was as a 15-year-old, a 15-year-old kid, really excited to explore my sexuality, so it was great to explore that, but I was exposed to more intense sexual ideas and content than a lot of 15-year-olds. I was around people in open relationships and not afraid of group sex. I started thinking of the gay community and gay identity as, sexually, extremely liberal. It was a very naive understanding of it all, because I didn't get a sense of the complications or things that went along with it. I grew up with older guys who said it's ok to be promiscuous. There was a lot to take in, and now I can look at the whole experience, and say that it's really good that I didn't get caught up in doing something at that early age, when I wasn't developed enough to make adult decisions. Now as an adult, I see that life as an adult doesn't have to involve copious amounts of drugs, and you can have monogamous relationships, and you don't have to be a wild party boy.

I've read that acclaimed conductor, composer, and pianist Martin Goldray was another early influence.

I studied with Martin nine years ago, and he's up there in terms of being the go-to guy when a modern classical composer in the experimental arena composes a new piece, and wants a person to premiere that piece of music. He studied with [minimalist composer] Philip Glass for a long time, and had an intense sense of rythm and an extremely intense discipline, which is the thing he was constantly focusing on with me. Coming from my kind of background, it was the thing I struggled with a lot. But once I became interested in composition, that was something he encouraged. He had me play modern classical music that I was genuinely interested in, which inspired the music I was writing at the time in school. I learned a lot from studying with him and it directly inspires the music I'm making now. He comes from a high-art background, but he was really open-minded and encouraging even when he'd hear a piece of dance music I made. He served as the person who really encouraged me to continue writing music. Coming from someone who does his kinda stuff, and still thinks I should continue, really meant something -- that he still saw stuff in the music I liked.

(The band, including Antony, back left. Photo courtesy of Mute Records)
How did you form Hercules and Love Affair?

After school, I continued writing music and eventually explored vocal music, and so was searching for vocalists. I met Antony shortly after graduating through friends in the East Village, who are performance artists. When we became friends, I turned to Antony, saying that I wrote this song, and asked him if he'd be willing to sing on it. Within a couple hours, we went into the studio and recorded the vocals to 'Blind.' Then I did the same thing with another friend, Kim Ann Foxman, who I met through an ex-boyfriend six years ago, and she agreed; and Nomi, I met through Antony, and then she came in and participated.

Most bands have one main singer, and occasionally two. But Hercules and Love Affair has three.

I see it as more of a musical project, a vehicle for my creative ideas, but the real model for me was Massive Attack. When I first heard the 'Blue Lines' record, I thought it was the coolest thing because I thought they had all these different singers on one record. It was very mysterious, something bigger than the band, and more like a collective scene. I wanted to get away from personality-driven music and get back to the concept. It's not that unusual in hip hop or club music to have tons of side projects, and also to obscure identities.

Massive Attack was more your generation than disco. At best most 30-year-olds know major disco hits by Donna Summer and The Village People, yet your music references rarer disco grooves by mostly-forgotten artists. How did you discover all these tracks?

I came across disco through house music. I was such a house music head, collecting vinyl and seeing DJ's, and hearing them play original disco records and saying, 'I know the sample from Todd Terry or DJ Sneak,' because most of them had been sampling disco music. San Francisco had a really raging club scene at the time so there were a lot of DJ's coming to town, who I'd go to see at underground events that kept going, till the after, after, after party. And at 17, that first experience hearing DJ Garth from San Francisco playing deeper disco music, was really important to me. Playing for three hours and not playing one hit or one song post-1982. I got the bug early, and there's a lot steeped in my memory. Then I tracked down the original disco records at New York record stores that were going out of business. At one store, I found an entire collection of Italo disco, 100 records for only a dollar each. It was fascinating to me because of what it implied... that all the handwriting on the records probably comes from the gay guy DJing this music from the time it was being made. Now I have this legacy, all these heirlooms being passed on. I began obsessively looking for this music, being interested in it, and making friends who were interested in it.

Your musical compositions may harken back to the golden age of disco, but your band composition is still very novel. What's been the public and press response to your touring lineup of a gay man, a lesbian, and a trans woman?

At first everyone was very interested in the fact that there were queer people at the core of the project, but at this point it seems to have become less of an issue in terms of press coverage. The public has been nothing but supportive and excited for the most part, and gay kids across the world have been pretty vocal about expressing their gratitude for the songs, performances and for our being so proud and forthright with our identities.

Speaking of songs, what is the track 'Blind' about?

'Blind' is a song about identity... specifically about my experience as a gay kid, feeling totally alienated and confused by these signals I was getting from society and the outside world that told me I should suppress who I was inside. I felt trapped and pained by the whole experience, and was asking why my life is like this, a lot. Then, as soon as I could, I went searching for myself and found some semblance of an identity in the 'gay' world. But after a couple more years of development I found again that I had not found a strong sense of identity even though I had found a word to put to my experience. Thus I felt blind. It was time to look inside myself to find out who I was.

Have you since found a particular sub-community, within the larger queer community, that you identify with?

I don't feel like I fit into certain groups, and for a period of time, I was really frustrated by the whole thing. It happens from never having a young gay identity, because of the older gay men that I grew up with.

I do have the athletic thing, from going to the gym and lifting weights, but I'm not into the muscle-boy party and circuit boy parties and Chelsea identity. I don't identify with the skinny, scruffy hipster scene. I'm not a twink, although I wish I was a twink sometimes. But I have no relationship to the twinky world at all. Bears are willing to embrace me, but somehow I'm resisting that now. I want to hold off on that... I'll be a bear in 10 years. Sometimes I do feel alienated, like where should I be exactly? I've always gotten along with older gay guys, because I love meeting them, and hearing their stories about growing up gay in a different time period. I guess I'm just an older gay man at heart. Maybe when I'm 40, I'll change my body, die my hair, and change to become twinky -- but that would be kinda creepy.

Are you currently in a relationship?

I have a wonderful sculptor boyfriend named Ben, who's graduating school and makes beautiful pieces of art. I've been with him for a year and a half. He's really wonderful. I identify with Ben Ben. We're sort of similar in that he grew up a little fast, like me. He's a little younger, but has a similar life story.

Watch their stylish new video for "You Belong" here: