Hercules ignites an indie disco inferno
New York band joins dance craze
A few years ago, before the place shut up shop for good, Andy Butler landed a gig at famously raucous Florent, in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. Restaurant hours are kind to musicians' schedules, and Butler soon burrowed into a routine: a day of waiting tables, and then a new verse, a rejiggered chorus, or a skeleton of a disco song spun through a multitrack, until it had some heft to it, some density, some low-end sparkle.
"I heard rumors pretty early on," says Tim Goldsworthy, a producer with the famed electro label DFA and a former member of British band UNKLE. "The New York scene is small. But when Andy brought me those early demos, it became clear that the songs he'd written were moving in more directions than any other artist on DFA. They were big; they had this big emotional scope. They could be intense or lighthearted. It was pure dance music."
By even the most generous math, disco should be 15 years deceased, buried in some steamer trunk along with a pair of John Travolta's tightest slacks and a champagne-stained copy of the Bee Gees' "Spirits Having Flown." Instead, it's rearing its bedazzled head again, courtesy of a motley crew of young acts (like France's Justice) with more than a passing interest in making the rock kids dance.
Exhibit A:
"For a long time, disco fell by the wayside," Butler says from Los Angeles. "You'd hear it at the roller rinks. Or at a bat mitzvah. Or a wedding. I started learning about the whole history through records that were being sampled. I learned about the stuff that was going on back in the day, when it wasn't as simple as stringing together some samples. So many people came together to make those disco songs. There was such an intense spirit of community, and that's what fascinated me."
In March, DFA released Herc's first, self-titled disc, produced by Goldsworthy and Butler. The album is disco-themed - although Butler, 29, said in the end he'd rather not be bound by one genre - and buoyed by a candescent single, "Blind," sung by Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons.
"Hercules and Love Affair" caught the right sets of ears and leaked quickly to the Web; "anthem of the year" nominations were rapidly issued, and duly seconded. By this summer, Herc had been scooped up by Gnarls Barkley as an opening act for part of the duo's August tour, which stops at the Wilbur Theatre on Wednesday.
"I remember hearing early samples of the album and thinking this is going to make a pretty big impact," says Justine D., the events director for the Brooklyn venue Studio B and a well-known New York promoter. "This past year dance music has been so relevant - all the indie fans are listening to it."
Hercules was booked to Studio B for its first show, but soon, Justine D. says, "Andy realized there was this huge demand. Hundreds and hundreds of people wanted to see them play live. I can tell you I've only seen equal interest in one other Studio B event, and that was the Daft Punk afterparty."
Unlike, say, Black Kids or Cansei de Ser Sexy - two acts that also recently released electro-tinged albums - Butler's music can often sound aggressively neat. There are no stray ends on "Hercules and Love Affair"; it muscles from the opener, "Time Will," to the final track, "I'm Telling You." On "Hercules Theme," the mood is wry: a slick '70s throwback groove filled - in fits and starts - with the screech of a horn section.
The tone of "Blind" is more severe. Butler and Goldsworthy dial down the flourishes and play the verse straight: a descending, minor-key synth line, overlaid by Hegarty's frail tenor. The song, for a while, seems on the verge of falling apart - the vocals quiver and quaver before finally settling down in the final seconds - and then Butler snaps the whole thing up again on the chorus, doubling the violence of the backbeat.
"Now that I'm older," Hegarty croons, "the stars shed light upon my face/ But when I find myself alone/ I feel like I am blind." Butler recorded a few early versions of "Blind" - he estimates there were about 40 total - with his own vocals, before presenting the song to Hegarty. The pairing, he remembers, rooted "a soul singer in a disco context. It brought the song into another world altogether."
The lyrics describe a simple arc: "You feel lost as a child and then you grow up and seemingly find acceptance," Butler explains. "Finally you understand that even with acceptance, you don't understand your own identity."
The story is his own. Butler grew up gay in a Colorado town that was not always immediately accepting of his identity, and for a while, he felt things "were going in a direction counter to what I was," Butler says. "I felt the burden of it."
His outlet was the dance club, "a place I wanted to be. I was a bedroom DJ for a long time," he remembers, "and people would say, you should go play music for an audience." He began spinning in Colorado clubs and then moved to New York, where he now lives. Along the way, he picked up ideas from friends and fellow innovators and knitted them into his own songs.
"Andy is a real musician," says Goldsworthy. "He's not a DJ who can put together beats and then that's it. He writes songs."
On stage, Butler plays the maestro, directing a circus of noise - from drum machines, to basses, to keyboards, to a brass section. Since Hegarty is working on a new album, and unable to tour, vocal duties are handled by Brooklyn singer Nomi Ruiz and Kim Ann Foxman, a local DJ and a friend of Butler's. (Both women are featured on the album.)
From his position onstage, Butler says he often sees moments "that are to die for," a full-throated realization of his early multitrack sessions. Still, he allows, he'd rather be in the studio, exploring, fiddling with new songs, "floating new concepts - looking forward, looking backward."
"I enjoy performance, but with touring, it's a very specific schedule," he says. "I guess I really enjoy the act of creation." 