“I get to explore my own love of dance music, and the most intimate moments that I’ve had on dancefloors.”

A slightly feverish but absolutely charming Andy Butler is speaking to me from San Francisco, describing what goes into the music he makes under the banner of Hercules and Love Affair. A classically trained pianist who has studied modern dance, art history and the work of experimental modern composers, Butler is also an out gay man in a lifelong love affair with dance music.

By the time Butler left Colorado for his current home, New York City, he’d already discovered the links between new-wave, post-punk and early house and techno, and had held down a DJ residency at a Denver leather bar. In our interview, he told me about the lessons he learned in his clubbing heyday.

“The early ‘90s, when I really started to go out and learn about and collect house music, was a wonderful era for dance music,” says Butler. “There was actually a lot of subtlety and a femininity and elegance in the music. That’s something that I definitely am interested in maintaining and exploring. I also think it’s important to learn about your roots. Specifically with dance music, I was around all of these older DJs who taught me where things came from — it’s almost like a knowledge that was passed down.”

Butler’s adoration for disco and house positively pulsates throughout Hercules and Love Affair’s self-titled debut, released earlier this year. Yet even when paired with Butler’s interest in Greek mythology, the album is hardly mired in the past. The songs — featuring the idiosyncratic, deeply emotive vocals of Antony Hegarty (Antony and the Johnsons), Kim Ann Foxman and Nomi Ruiz — are rich and beautifully produced slices of swirling electronic pop. They’re gorgeous, immediate and fantastically queer, all of which makes the breakout success of the album’s first single, “Blind,” both unexpected and delightful.



“Maybe it was naïve of me, especially when Antony’s voice just oozes emotion out of every bit, but I didn’t realize ‘Blind’ would resonate as much as it did or even so heavily for queer people,” says Butler.

“People have said that they felt it was anthemic or like I was talking about a universal gay experience, which was shocking to me because I was just talking about my own experience of growing up gay and feeling like the moment that you can put words to your experience, you’re presented with a whole other lot of problems. It’s also been really sweet and a bit shocking to see kids who are presumably straight singing along. It’s a coming-of-age song about identity, but it’s amazing to know that it’s reached people in that way.”

While this reach has much to do with Hercules and Love Affair’s association with respected indie-disco label DFA, it’s also notable given the project’s natural and overt gayness. Sure, disco might be the underground sound of now, but there are not a whole lot of homos at the forefront.

“Yeah,” agrees Butler. “It’s interesting that, within the community of DJs championing disco around the world, there’s a faction that are gay. It’s amazing to go and listen to, say, someone from [British queer party] Horse Meat Disco play music and then go and hear someone like Prins Thomas play disco because to me — and I’ve felt this way for a while — some of the disco music played by these straight guys has been de-gayed. There’s the whole culture of re-editing music and they often take out the sections that are really over-the-top or dramatic, and it becomes this really repetitive, straightforward raw kind of disco. My friend Daniel Wang did his own re-edit recently of a Village People song and he just put all of the gayest parts of the song together. It’s amazing how that speaks to me in such a different way.”

Which is why the widespread appeal of Hercules and Love Affair thrills my queer little heart.

“From the name to the imagery to the vogueing in the videos, it’s all very gay,” Butler chuckles. “But really, it’s about embracing difference and cherishing how multi-faceted people are. I think that one of the coolest things about Hercules is that when I get together with the band, I’m looking at eight people — jazz musicians standing next to this transgendered singer who’s next to this lesbian singer and straight boys playing bass and drums, and there’s me. It feels very modern and futuristic and great.”