Arcade Fire

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Arcade Fire is an indie rock band based in Montreal, Quebec which is based around the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. In 2004, their first full-length album Funeral was recorded. The group uses of a large number of musical instruments in addition to mainstays rock instruments of guitar, drums, and bass guitar, such as bowed string instruments, accordion, various brass and harp. The band first came to note after Funeral garnered a 9.7 rating from Pitchfork media. In 2006, the group won a Canadian Juno Awards for Songwriter of the Year.

Personnel

Current members

In addition to founders Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, other members include Richard Reed Parry, William Butler, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld and Jeremy Gara.

Touring members

Marika Anthony-Shaw
Colin Stetson
Kelly Pratt
Wilferd Bremmely
Owen Pallett
Pietro Amato

Howard Bilerman, who played drums on their debut album, Funeral, has since moved on to other projects. On the 'Funeral' shows, the touring band included horn player Pietro Amato and violinist Owen Pallett. Neufeld, Parry, and Amato also play in the instrumental band Bell Orchestre. Pallett, though not listed as a band member on the band's official site nor in the album sleeve notes, has been a member of their touring line-up and, according to the album sleeve notes, did the orchestral and string arrangements with Regine for both albums. Other members of the touring band are Marika Anthony-Shaw, a violist and former Lindsay Place High School strings teacher who played on Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light with Bell Orchestre and Set Yourself on Fire by Stars, as well as horn players Colin Stetson and Kelly Pratt, who has also played with Beirut. These extra musicians bring the Neon Bible touring band to ten on-stage members.

History

Formation and early history

Although the original band known as Arcade Fire was formed whilst Win Butler was at the Phillips Exeter Academy and consisted of, along side Win, Josh Deu and Tim Kyle (now of Wild Light,) the band as it is today formed around the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne around 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.

Arcade Fire are known for their enthralling live performances, as well as their use of a large number of musical instruments. In addition to mainstays guitar, drums, and bass guitar, members play piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, keyboard, French horn, accordion, hurdy gurdy, harp and mandolin. With several able musicians, Arcade Fire take most of their 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 during the recording process. The promise shown by the band in their live shows allowed them to land a record contract with the independent record label Merge Records.

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. The arcade in question was the Exeter arcade and bandstand in the town square of Exeter, New Hampshire, where both Butlers attended Phillips Exeter Academy preparatory school.

Funeral

Their first album, Funeral, debuted in September 2004 in Canada and in February 2005 in the UK. 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. "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" is based on their experiences of the North American ice storm in 1998.

David Bowie heard the band while on tour and brought them to the attention of label owners. Still 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. 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 six key festival appearances at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Sasquatch! Music Festival, Lollapalooza, Reading Festival in the UK, Electric Picnic in Ireland, and the Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands. Funeral made many top ten album lists for 2004, with Pitchfork, Filter and No Ripcord crowning it the album of the year. With the release of Funeral in 2005 in the UK, Japan and Australia, Arcade Fire also 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 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, 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.

Arcade Fire were 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. 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 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, 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's Channel 4. The band have 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 success followed Rough Trade Records's (the label that distributes Arcade Fire's music in the UK) decision at the last minute not to release "Wake Up" on CD, and only on 7" vinyl.

Arcade Fire's song "Wake Up" was played immediately before the Irish rock group U2 opened their concerts on their 2005-2007 Vertigo Tour; the band would subsequently open three shows for that tour, and at the third show, they appeared on stage during U2's encore to join them in a cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

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, 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)". The band was nominated for, but not awarded, three BRIT Awards; Best International Group, Best International Album and Best International Breakthrough Act.

Arcade Fire made an appearance on the BBC show Later with Jools Holland on May 12, 2005, performing "Power Out" and "Rebellion (Lies)".

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

On October 22, 2007, Funeral was ranked #8 in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Albums.

Neon Bible

On June 26, 2006, Win Butler announced on the band's journal that work had been progressing on their new album and the band had committed 15 tracks to tape, using a wide variety of new instruments. These apparently include a pipe organ, and some recording took place in the living room of Win and Régine. 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 we can and not rely on someone else to guide the good ship Arcade Fire." He also said the band were working with the engineers Scott Colburn and Marcus Dravs.

The first track officially released from Neon Bible was "Intervention" in December 2006 on iTunes. Proceeds from this release were dedicated to Partners in Health. An error resulted in a second song, "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations", being on iTunes for a short time. The album was leaked to peer to peer networks on January 26, 2007 and was officially released March 5, 2007 in the UK, and March 6 in North America. Neon Bible premiered at No 1 on the Canadian Albums Chart & The Irish Album Charts and No 2 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 charts & The UK Top 40 Album Chart for the week of March 12 2007. The album was also No. 1 on the Rock and Indie album charts. The first proper single, "Black Mirror", was announced in January 2007. Displaying echoes of British band Echo and the Bunnymen, "Black Mirror" reached the #1 spot on CBC Radio 3's R3-30 chart for five consecutive weeks, from March 22 to April 19, 2007, and was the first single by any band ever to spend more than two weeks atop that chart. The album has gained much critical acclaim (even being mooted as a strong contender for album of the year), and because of its success saw the band proclaimed the most exciting act on the earth by British music magazine Q. Trouser Press writer Jason Reeher ranked Neon Bible "among the best indie rock recordings of all time."

Arcade Fire played on Saturday Night Live on February 24, 2007, performing "Intervention" and "Keep the Car Running". Owen Pallett wasn't present because he was recording for his own project, Final Fantasy. During the performance one of Win Butler's guitar strings broke prompting him to rip the strings from his acoustic guitar and smash it on the floor until it shattered. On this guitar, "sak vide pa kanpe" was written in duct tape across the front. A Haitian proverb meaning "An empty sack cannot stand up" in Creole, this was a reference to the extreme poverty of Haiti, the country of origin of Régine Chassagne.

On July 10, 2007, Neon Bible was revealed as being on the shortlist for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize. Patrick Watson was announced as the winner at a gala ceremony on September 24, 2007. However, due to the band's preference not to participate in compilation albums, they were the only nominee not to have a track on the Polaris promotional compilation 2007 Polaris Music Prize. Some media initially reported that the Polaris committee had snubbed the band by excluding them, leading the band and the committee to issue a joint press release confirming that the band chose not to have a track included on the album.

The Neon Bible tour continued into September 2007, with 25+ dates scheduled in North America and Europe through mid-November. The band toured Australia and New Zealand for the first time in early 2008 as part of the 2008 Big Day Out festival. On October 14, 2007, members of the band made a surprise guest appearance at a Bruce Springsteen show in Ottawa, playing "State Trooper" and "Keep the Car Running".

The band has committed to give Partners in Health $1.00, £1.00 or €1.00 of every ticket sold on their upcoming European and North American tours.

Present

In February 2008 Win Butler announced on the band's journal that the Neon Bible Tour had come to an end after one year of touring and a total of 122 shows (including 33 festivals) in 75 cities and 19 countries across the globe. The fansite "Us Kids Know" stated that Arcade Fire had no plans for any further shows or activity in 2008.

Win Butler has been a vocal supporter of Barack Obama since the end of the New Hampshire Primary. Arcade Fire performed two free concerts for Obama in Ohio on March 2, 2008 and March 3, 2008 before the March 4th primary.

Discography

Albums

List of studio albums:

Funeral (September 14, 2004)
Neon Bible (March 6, 2007)

EPs

List of EPs:

Arcade Fire 2003 (2005 Re-release)
Live EP 2005
Cold Wind 7" 2005

Awards and nominations

Grammys

2006 Best Alternative Music Album nomination, Funeral
2008 Best Alternative Music Album nomination, Neon Bible

Meteors

2008 Best International Album winner, Neon Bible

Polaris Music Prize

2007 nomination, Neon Bible

Juno Awards

2006 Songwriter of the Year, "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" (with Josh Deu), "Rebellion (Lies)", "Wake Up"
2008 Group of the Year nomination
2008 Alternative Album of the Year nomination, Neon Bible

Brit Awards