The Big Questions: Hercules & Love Affair

Interview: Mike Monypenny

Andy Butler and Kim Ann Foxman from the NYC disco outfit answer questions we ask every month

What did you want to be when you grew up?
Andy Butler: Either a songwriter or a priest.
Kim Ann Foxman: I used to want to be an Archaeologist.

What’s the worst club you’ve been to?
AB: Probably Senor Frog’s in Cancun. But Barbara in Reykjavic is a close second.
KAF: Henrieta Hudson.

What’s been your worst job?
AB: Working as a personal assistant to a monumentally anal photographer.
KAF: I worked in a metal supply store for a week in NY.

What are you obsessed with right now?
AB: Honestly? Thrash and death metal. Slayer has been my bedtime music for a while now.
KAF: Haribo gummy everything

And what do you hate right now?
AB: People/artists with too much of a schtick. Ironic dipster stuff.
KAF: Fedora hats as a trend, especially in combo with over-designed jeans. Barf!

When and where were you your happiest?
AB: Probably when I was 12 years-old on my summer vacations, finding out who I was by discovering who Siouxsie And The Banshees, Godflesh and Celtic Frost were.
KAF: I was happiest as a child growing up in Hawaii hanging at the beach, no bills to pay, no responsibilities.

How do you describe what you do to someone who doesn’t know you?
AB: Short and sweet: songwriter. DJ is too open-ended and provokes further interrogation.
KAF: I make people dance.

Have you ever been arrested?
AB: Yes. For partying too hard.
KAF: No, but I did get caught stealing spices from a grocery store when I was a teenager.

What’s the best record ever made?
AB: There’s a million. Maybe one of the early NYC Peech Boys tracks or something from Nina Simone. A recording where emotionally charged performances are caught and suspended in time. Or where the production is otherworldly, like a 10cc track.
KAF: ‘Thriller’ Michael Jackson.

What’s the coolest thing in your house?
AB: Either my EMU SP [synth] or my collection of Kate Bush videos on VHS. It’s so cool that I have no way of watching it. Doh!
KAF: A little LLadro Monkey figure.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever had?
AB: Be sincere. Authenticity is the key.
KAF: My dad’s advice, “Just don’t get pregnant.”

Who’s your all-time hero and why?
AB: Probably my brother. He is a renegade, intellectual, and (I think) part-time mystic. He has overcome a lot and created an amazing life from adversity.
KAF: Lady Miss Kier because I always loved her voice, and she was the queen of the club.

What do you collect – apart form records?
AB: Jewelry. I collect books on the occult and metaphysics. Shoes. Synths. I don’t sound very butch but what would? Baseball cards? Barf.
KAF: I have a funny vintage one-piece bathing suit collection that my best friend started for me. And I used to collect strange work-out videos… everything from Latoya Jackson to Estelle Getty.

What’s your vice?
AB: Sex.
KAF: Vodka soda.

Who was your first love and what happened?
AB: It’s boring. I was a freshman, he was a senior. He graduated. I cried. The first of many tears. Wahhhhhh!
KAF: Anthony, the newspaper boy. I was a homo.

What were you doing at 2pm last Sunday afternoon?
AB: I was on an aeroplane.
KAF: I was sleeping in the sky, flying from Copenhagen to NYC to perform at the Butt Magazine Party.

What’s your answer to everything?
AB: I have to check with Ruth…
KAF: Totally.

On a scale of one to ten, how good are you in the sack?
AB: A 10 when I wanna be.
KAF: I’m a 10 with a 10.

What’s your most prized possession that you’ve still got from when you were a kid?
AB: My Miss Piggy doll. I married her when I was six so I guess she is my wife.
KAF: All I have left are pictures… I have a fun one of me with Tom Selleck.

Have you ever had a homosexual experience?
AB: I have Miss Piggy for a wife – what do u think?
KAF: Only when I breath.

What was your last treat for yourself?
AB: A ring.
KAF: A swim during sunset in the Blue Lagoon.

What do you spend your money on?
AB: Music, clothes, jewelry.
KAF: Food, music, taxis.

What’s your drug of choice?
AB: Stuff that keeps me awake. But not crack coke or crystal. Why do they all start with c?
KAF: Redbull – it’s like my liquid crack.

What can’t you live without?
AB: I think air and food.
KAF: Internet.

Do you have a recurring dream?
AB: Yeah, the one in the bathhouse.
KAF: No. They’re always extremely random.

What would you change about yourself if you could?
AB: My eyesight. One eye is stronger than the other so I can’t enjoy 3D movies. But my sense of smell has increased, so I can smell your butt from here.
KAF: I’m pretty happy with my body, although I wouldn’t mind smaller hip bones.

What’s the worst item of clothing you’ve ever worn?
AB: A Roberto Cavalli leopard print rocknroller shirt as a uniform for waiting tables at a fancy spot in NYC. Gross.
KAF: A Hoochie halter top; a part of the 90s I’d love to forget.

If you had a Tardis, what time would you go to?
AB: Um, I have to check with ruth.
KAF: I would love to get a taste of New York in its infamous hay days during the late 70s and early 80s.

What’s your lamest claim to fame?
AB: I got a spot doing an MTV safe sex campaign but turned it down. My lawyers told me not to. Woohoo.
KAF: My friend sold Fred Savage some LSD.

Hercules And Love Affair’s new album ‘Blue Songs’ is out January 31 on Moshi Moshi. You can catch up with Andy Butler in our very own Mixmag.net podcast, where he tells us what records he would take with him if he was Marooned on Mars.

Read more: Mixmag