Arcade Fire: Determined to be like something else
Introducing ARCADE FIRE, a very hot rock band from Canada that many Americans outside their devoted following may still not have heard of. This morning, its members talk with our Anthony Mason:
Few new rock groups can fill a big arena like Brooklyn's Barclays Center, but this band can. They've won a Grammy, and charted two #1 albums.
If you haven't yet made their acquaintance, they are Arcade Fire.
"I feel like we're just constantly in a posture of introducing ourselves," joked Win Butler. "I feel like we've been introducing ourselves for, like, 15 years: 'Oooh, we're from Montreal. We do this, we do that ...' I wonder at what point we don't have to keep introducing ourselves? 'Nice to meet you!'"
Time magazine in Canada called Arcade Fire the country's "most intriguing rock band."
David Bowie is a fan, and has joined them on stage. They've played with Mick Jagger on "Saturday Night Live.
- Arcade Fire keeps fans on toes with tour guests (CBS News, 08/26/14)
On tour, the core six members add strings, horns and Haitian percussion, creating a sound both epic and operatic -- what one critic called a cross between a Clash concert and Cirque du Soleil.
"For me, it's like I believe in the songs so much, I just want to make sure that the spirit of the song comes out," said Regine Chassagne. She and Butler -- husband and wife, and the band's principal songwriters -- met at McGill University in Montreal in 2001.
"I had nothing going on, and she had lots of stuff going on," said Win.
She was playing in a medieval band in shopping malls: "I also sang jazz in a grocery store opening, which was pretty funny at 8 a.m.," Regine laughed.
They moved in together in Montreal's Mile End section: "I first saw this building, Regine was living around the corner, and it was a bar. And I saw the For Rent sign and figured you could make noise, 'cause it was above a bar," said Win.
For several years the apartment would become their performance space and their recording studio. Regine recorded the vocals of the song, "Haiti," in their bathroom.
That first album, "Funeral," recorded for less than $10,000, has gone on to sell more than 700,000 copies.
Arcade Fire started playing small venues around Montreal, like the Ukrainian Federation Hall. Win brought his brother, Will, into the group.
Also in the band: Drummer Jeremy Gara, and Richard Reed Parry, who told Mason he met Win from an ad seeking a roommate posted on a telephone pole: "And he was like 'I have this great place. We can make a lotta noise, it's a weird loft.' And I was like, 'Weird loft? Lotta noise?'"
"I think you were the only one who answered!" Regine laughed.
Bass player Tim Kingsbury said that when he joined the band, "I wasn't really anticipating doing this to this extent."
"You didn't think this was gonna work?" asked Mason.
"No!" he laughed.
Also a surprise: Their Grammy in 2011 for Album of the Year for "The Suburbs." They beat out Eminem, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga.
The band members -- all multi-instrumentalists -- are all Canadians, except for Win and Will Butler, who grew up in Texas. Their grandmother was a member of the singing King Family. Their grandfather was the big band leader Alvino Rey.
Butler was actually wearing Grandpa Alvino's shirt.
"Were you influenced musically by him?" Mason asked.
"Well, he bought me my first guitar."
Regine, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, was a musical prodigy: "I didn't have a lot of access to music, so when I heard something, I would just kind of listen to it like it was going to go away. Because it was, and I was never going to hear it again. So I just learned to remember everything."
Butler said, "She can play pretty much anything she's ever heard."
And she did, throughout the interview.
Mason asked, "Are you hearing music in your head all the time?"
"Kind of," she replied. "Maybe it's not normal. But I hear so much music in my head, sometimes so clearly, that it might as well be real."
During the recording of their second album, "Neon Bible," she remembers, "I woke up with a crazy headache. So my head was, like, about to explode. And I tried to remember, what was I dreaming about? And I realized I was playing 'Black Mirror' backwards in my head, with the melody backwards and the beat, and I was trying to make it work."
"That is pretty scary, though, to wake up hearing a song backwards in your head," said Mason.
"It took so much brainpower to do this. It's like my head was heating up, you know, like a computer. Why am I doing this? 'Cause I wanted to make sure I knew it backwards and forwards."
To watch Arcade Fire perform "Reflektor" click on the video player below.
The band's also been influenced by Regine's heritage. Haiti has remained a big part of the conversation for the band.
"Well, it was already such a big, important part of our lives," said Butler. "And then the earthquake happened.
It was 2010, and the group rushed out on tour to raise about $1 million for the relief effort.
"And we had a Super Bowl ad, too," said Butler. "'Cause we were like, 'Okay, what's in our in-box that we would have said 'no' to? All right, what does it pay? Yes, tell them to double it."
"So you did that Super Bowl ad entirely to raise money for Haiti?" Mason said.
"Entirely, yeah."
After four albums and more than a decade together, Arcade Fire remains a tight family.
"Well, we've also never had drugs in our band," said Butler. "You know, there's a lot of pitfalls. We've all read the rock biographies!"
"And you take your lessons from that?"
"To be honest, I always found it so boring. I have no interest in that. In fact I find it embarrassing, like, some old rocker who is like, 'Yeah, groupies.' I actually find it embarrassing, you know?"
"Why do you find it embarrassing?"
Well, it's like seeing a drunk Santa Claus or something like that!" he laughed.
For Arcade Fire, the music is the thing. They turn sound into spectacle:
"It's when you push something to where it's about to break -- that's how we play," Butler said. "For better or for worse, that is kind of how we play."
Richard Reed Parry added, "Just try to transcend the confines of wherever you're at. It's always kind of punk to do that, just be like something else!"
To watch the music video for "Here Comes to Night Time" by Arcade Fire, click on the video player below.
For more info:
- arcadefire.com
- Arcade Fire albums available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes
- Follow Arcade Fire on Twitter (@ArcadeFire), Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify and YouTube