Hercules & Love Affair Reflects on Addiction & Recovery in 'Fools Wear Crowns'

As the Hercules And Love Affair album, Omnion, prepares for release on September 1, another track from the record has dropped: "Fools Wear Crowns," a soft song about addiction and recovery.

The song has vocals from Hercules And Love Affair's own Andy Butler, who wrote it about his experiences with drugs and alcohol entering the music industry at a young age.

"'Fools Wear Crowns' was an opportunity for me, in a small way, to express some remorse," Butler told Pitchfork. "It was a little attempt at [making] amends for a specific relationship, but also many of the relationships in my life that suffered during that period. The lyrics acknowledge that we as humans enjoy, in a weird way, watching people fumble. But it's not always buffoonery that you're seeing. In my case, I think there was an illness at play."

Related | Hercules & Love Affair's Andy Butler on His Queer New Sex Anthem 'Controller'

Butler had been caught up in a world of drugs and clubbing in his teenage years before going sober, Pitchfork reports. He then fell back into drugs after catapaulting to fame overnight with his dance music project, Hercules And Love Affair, before finding sobriety again.

"It is dance music that I'm making still and I'm happy to be making songs that are imbued with a substance to them," he continues. "This record wouldn't have been made if I hadn't removed all of that stuff that was numbing me or killing me, and allowed myself to feel some really unpleasant stuff. There was also some really amazing joy. That's how I feel in the world."

Listen to "Fools Wear Crowns," below: