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Arcade Fire

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Arcade Fire
Background information
Years active2003–present
MembersWin Butler
Régine Chassagne
Richard Reed Parry
William Butler
Tim Kingsbury
Sarah Neufeld
Jeremy Gara

The Arcade Fire is an indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada comprising of band members Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Richard Reed Parry, William Butler, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld, and Jeremy Gara. Howard Bilerman, who played drums on the album Funeral, has since moved on to other projects. As of May 2005, the touring band includes horn player Pietro Amato and violinist Owen Pallett. Pallett has also opened for their shows, appearing as the one-man band Final Fantasy.

The band’s trademark fashion is the waistcoat (vest), giving them an air of "frumpiness". When asked about the rumour that the band's name refers to a fire in an arcade, Win Butler replied: "It's not a rumour, it's based on a story that someone told me. It's not an actual event, but one that I took to be real. I would say that it's probably something that the kid made up, but at the time I believed him." [1]

History

Band formation

The Arcade Fire formed around the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. Starting in mid-2003, the current lineup solidified in late 2003/early 2004, when their first full-length album Funeral was recorded. Before this an eponymous EP (often referred to by fans as the Us Kids Know EP) had been sold at early shows. The EP was subsequently remastered and given a full release once the band started becoming more prominent. The Arcade Fire is known for its enthralling live performances, as well as its use of a large number of musical instruments. In addition to mainstays guitar, drums, and bass guitar, members play piano, violin, viola, double bass, xylophone, keyboard, French horn, accordion, and harp. With several able musicians, The Arcade Fire takes most of its instrumental diversity on tour and band members switch instrumental duties throughout their shows. The number of instruments, along with a wide set of musical influences has provided a substantial number of resources on which to draw from during the recording process. The promise showed by the band in its live shows allowed it to land a record contract with the independent record label Merge Records.

Funeral

Their first full-length album, Funeral, debuted in September 2004 in the USA and in February 2005 in the UK, and was very highly acclaimed by critics [2]. The title of the debut album was chosen because of the deaths of several relatives of band members during recording. These events created a somber atmosphere which influenced songs such as "Une année sans lumière" ("A Year without Light"), "In the Backseat", and "Haiti", Chassagne's elegy to her lost homeland.

Without a major label backing, the success of the band and the album Funeral has been acclaimed as an Internet phenomenon. After a 9.7 rating from Pitchfork, Merge Records sold out their inventory of Funeral and it became the label's first album in the Billboard 200 chart.[3] An early tip from David Bowie was also influential. The band booked small clubs for their 2004 tour but growing interest forced many venue changes, far beyond the band's expectations, and continued internationally into mid-2005 throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and the SummerSonic Festival in Japan. Taking much of the summer of 2005 off, the band made three key festival appearances at the Coachella Music Festival, the Sasquatch! Music Festival, and Lollapalooza. Funeral made many top ten album lists for 2004. With the release of Funeral in 2005 in the UK, Japan and Australia, the Arcade Fire made many top lists for 2005. The MTV2 2005 Review hosted by Zane Lowe named Funeral Album of the Year, and NME named Funeral Number 2[1] in their list of 2005's best albums and "Rebellion (Lies)" the best track. By November 2005, Funeral had gone gold in both Canada and the UK and sold in excess of half a million copies worldwide [4], a phenomenal number for an independent release with minimal television or radio exposure. It has also surpassed Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as the biggest selling Merge Records album to date.

File:Arcade Fire on TIME Cover.jpg
The Arcade Fire on the cover of the Canadian edition of Time Magazine, April 4, 2005.

The Arcade Fire was featured on the April 4, 2005 cover of Time Magazine's Canadian edition, and hailed as a band who "helped put Canadian music on the world map". On May 1, 2005, the band performed to approximately 15,000 fans at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival; their performance is often viewed as the highlight of Coachella 2005. In May 2005, the band signed a short-term publishing contract with EMI for Funeral and in June, the band released a new single, "Cold Wind", on Six Feet Under, Vol. 2: Everything Ends, the second soundtrack album to the popular HBO series Six Feet Under. The BBC used the track "Wake Up" on an advertisement for their autumn 2005 season and they are now using the tracks "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" on adverts in January 2006. On September 9, 2005, the band appeared on the UK/US TV special Fashion Rocks, where David Bowie joined them for "Wake Up". This recording, as well as recordings by the collaboration of Bowie's "Life on Mars" and "Five Years", were made available on the iTunes Music Store in a virtual live EP. The same trip to New York City took them to the Late Show with David Letterman and a concert in Central Park. The Central Park Show had a surprise appearance by Bowie, and capped a great touring season for the band. On September 11, 2005, The Arcade Fire appeared on the long-running BBC music series Top of the Pops, performing "Rebellion (Lies)" - on what was one of the band's first mainstream UK television appearances. The band also performed to a TV audience in Paris for Canal +, and the show was later screened on UK television channel, Channel 4. The band has scored two Number One songs on MTV2(UK)NME CHART SHOW, with "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" and a three week run with "Wake Up". However this followed Rough Trade Records (the label who distributes Arcade Fire's music in the UK) deciding at the last minute not to release "Wake Up" on CD, and only on 7" vinyl.

The Arcade Fire's song "Wake Up" was played immediately before the Irish rock group U2 opened their concerts on their 2005 Vertigo Tour; the band would subsequently open three shows for that tour, and at the third show, they appeared onstage during U2's encore to join them in a cover of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart.

The Arcade Fire plans to begin recording a follow up to Funeral in the winter of 2005-2006 having bought an old church forty minutes from central Montreal which they are converting into a studio. [citation needed]

The Arcade Fire's album Funeral and their single "Cold Wind" were respectively nominated for Grammys in the best Alternative Rock Album and Best Song Written for Television, Film, or Other Media categories (Six Feet Under, Vol. 2: Everything Ends). On April 2, 2006, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, The Arcade Fire received the Juno Award for Songwriters Of The Year for three songs from Funeral: "Wake Up", "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" [5]. The band was nominated for, but not awarded, three Brit Awards; Best International Group, Best International Album and Best International Breakthrough Act.

The Arcade Fire have also recently made two appearances on Later with Jools Holland, a live show on the BBC.

On December 27, 2005, Funeral was ranked #1 on MTV2's "50 Greatest Albums of the Year" in the United Kingdom.

Next Album

On the 27th of June, Win Butler reported on the band's journal that work had been progressing on their new album, as yet untitled, and had committed 15 tracks to tape so far using a wide variety of new instruments. These apparently include a pipe organ, and some recording has taken place in the living room of Win and Regine[6]. The band hopes to record with a full orchestra in Budapest over the summer. Contrary to previous reports, the wedding of Tim is not taking place in Budapest; the wedding will take place in Canada[citation needed].

On July 14, Win Butler also announced on his online diary, Win's Scrapbook, that the new album would be self-produced, saying that "after trying to decide if we should work with any producers we kind of realized that we already know how we want things to sound so we should just run after that sound as fast as can and not rely on someone else to guide the good ship Arcade Fire." He also said the band was working with the engineers Scott Colburn and Marcus Dravs.

Trivia

  • Neufeld, Parry, and Amato also play in the instrumental band Bell Orchestre.
  • The Arcade Fire are very popular in Ireland. Funeral has spent over 4 months in the Irish top 30 albums, yet never went higher than 16. Their performance at the second annual Electric Picnic in Stradbally, Co. Laois, was widely considered a highlight of the festival.
  • They have performed covers of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song "Maps", for Radio 1, and a version of the Talking Heads song, "Naive Melody (This must be the place)." David Byrne has been a noted fan of the band; like David Bowie, he has been spotted at many of their early gigs.
  • Win Butler has expressed displeasure at the popularity of internet-distributed MP3s labeled 2001 Demos and another called The Arcade Fire Christmas Album. The demos do not represent the work of the current band, and the "Christmas Album" was taped at a holiday party with friends who played carols in a parody of the Arcade Fire style, and only part of the band was present.
  • In 2005, both Win and Regine contributed to the UNICEF benefit song, "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?"
  • Win Butler (1998) and William Butler (2001) both attended the elite Phillips Exeter Academy.
  • Were recently featured on Achewood where Teodor is (apparently) a fan.
  • Are managed by Björk's managers (www.quest-management.com)
  • When performing singular songs on television (on talk shows, for example) the band often tried to add something unique to each performance: on the 2005 MuchMusic Video Awards, a marching band played 'dead' until the closing chorus, in which all the players got up and escorted Arcade Fire members off-stage and along the edge of the crowd while playing the closing of the song. On talk shows, band members who don't have as much or any singing to do during a song will be especially eccentric on stage.

Discography

Albums

Singles and EPs

Notes and references

  1. ^ NME defends album of year poll, The Guardian, December 2, 2005. Though Funeral ranked 2nd after Bloc Party's Silent Alarm, the Londonist blog charged that Funeral (and other music) had been artificially marked down. They later retracted their post.
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