Arcade Fire

The Arcade Fire

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

The Arcade Fire formed around the husband and wife duo of Butler and Chassagne. Joining together as recently as mid-2003, the current lineup solidified in late 2003/early 2004, when their first full-length album Funeral was recorded. The Arcade Fire is known for its enthralling live performances, as well as its use of a large number of musical instruments. The promise showed by the band in its live shows allowed it to land a record contract with Chapel Hill-based independent record label Merge Records.

The band employs a vast array of instruments. In addition to mainstays guitar, drums, and bass guitar, members play piano, violin, viola, cello, xylophone, keyboard, 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 band’s trademark fashion is the waistcoat, 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" (Pitchfork Media).

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 [1]. 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, with much of the early push coming from reviews on sites such as Pitchfork. 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. Funeral made many top ten album lists for 2004.

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". 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. On September 9, 2005, the band appeared on the UK/US TV special Fashion Rocks, where David Bowie joined them for "Wake Up".

Sarah Neufeld and Richard Parry also play in the instrumental band Bell Orchestre.

Arcade Fire plans to begin recording a follow up to Funeral in Autumn 2005.

Discography

Albums

Funeral (Merge Records) (September 14, 2004) #45 UK #131 US

Singles & EPs

"The Arcade Fire" (EP) (self-released) (2003)
"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" (Merge) (June 20, 2004) [Limited]
"Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" (Rough Trade) (March 28, 2005) #30 UK
"Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" (Rough Trade) (May 23, 2005) #26 UK
"The Arcade Fire" (EP) (Merge) (July 12, 2005)
"Cold Wind" (Rough Trade) (August 1, 2005) [Limited] #52 UK
"Rebellion (Lies)" (Rough Trade) (September 5, 2005) #19 UK

External links