PRINTThe Arcade Fire lights up Mojo’s
These Montreal indie rockers burn up clichés with their twisted brand of pop
November 25, 2004 | 12:00 a.m. CST
The idea for the name “The Arcade Fire” started with a neighborhood bully and his scary tales of calamity and destruction. Lead singer-songwriter Win Butler recalls how this bully, the first guy who ever beat him up, also scared him and his friends into believing that a local arcade burned to the ground with children inside.
The band’s sound, although intense, isn’t tragic. The Arcade Fire pushes the paradigms of conventional rock by creating a sound that can be described as an amalgam of indie rock and orchestral dance-pop. This unexpected combination makes for one rocking concert. The Arcade Fire brings its vivacious shenanigans to Mojo’s on Tuesday to help promote Funeral, its debut full-length album.
Originally from Montreal, the band doesn’t believe it has one trait that makes it unusual. But after listening to Funeral, released earlier this year on Merge Records, one would beg to differ. The unique sound of The Arcade Fire comes from its lack of limits. The band members do whatever they deem necessary, whether it be playing the xylophone or accordion or drumming on a venue’s ceiling pipes or a random person’s helmet-covered head. “We want to use as much texture as we can find, and we will keep searching for that until we aren’t crazy anymore,” Butler says.
The Arcade Fire strives for purity, originality and other ideals. “It’s hard to play simple things with conviction, and it’s hard to listen and understand that chaos is not the enemy,” Butler says. “Rock music can be so scripted out and pathetic, and the farther that we get from that, the happier we will be.” Critics have compared the band to The Clash and Talking Heads. “Everyone in Arcade Fire loves the same music, but our influences are different,” Butler says. “It’s not a typical group, but we have the same spirit of accomplishment. We try to find that spark of something that would be in an original rock or punk band, and when we do, your body just takes control. We try to harness that powerful force, that energy.”
I Want Your Six
Vox accosts performers and music fans with a very sharp pencil and forces them, under duress, to answer six questions.
This week’s answers are from The Arcade Fire’s singer-songwriter and guitarist Win Butler. The Montreal band will be playing Tuesday at Mojo’s with Bobby Conn and Les Georges Leningrad.
1. What is your favorite album?
Lists are evil.
2. Which album do you wish would spontaneously combust?
Lists are evil.
3. What’s the best live show you have ever seen?
It’s a three-way tie between when I was 15 and saw U2, the first time I saw Hidden Cameras and Wolf Parade.
4. What is your favorite make-out album?
I don’t listen to music when I make out. I watch local news.
5. What band is so last year?
Lists are evil.
6. Build your dream band.
You got Marlon Brando on drums, Cap’n Crunch on the congos, Peter Frampton on guitar, early Salt-N-Pepa doing a dance scene with The Fly Girls and Roy Orbison as the vocalist.
— Margaret Costa
With Funeral, The Arcade Fire incorporates many elements that have helped make it more popular. The band cites weather, death, birthday parties and oldies stations — along with Pixies and Arvo Pärt — as influences for its latest CD. The name was inspired by family members’ deaths while the album was being made, but this doesn’t give the album a somber tone. “Funerals are parties in my family,” Butler says. “The record is not preoccupied with the theme of death, but it is always there. It’s not positive or negative. It’s unavoidable.”
Although The Arcade Fire has gained popularity and critical acclaim only during the past several months, it has been together for three years. Currently the band consists of Win Butler, Regine Chassagne, Richard Parry, Tim Kingsbury, Howard Bilerman and Will Butler.
“Regine and I were seeing each other and making music in the beginning, and then it just started to snowball,” Win Butler says. “Richard did a demo for us, and then we started playing with Tim after that. After a while, my little brother came up from Chicago and joined in. This was our core for a while, but then we started playing with Sarah Neufeld, and she has started to become a full-fledged member.”
Chassagne and Win Butler were married in August 2003 and believe their marriage has not changed the band’s music-making dynamic. The Arcade Fire attributes its success to word-of-mouth and the band members’ passion for music in general.
“We would not be doing this if it depended on our being successful,” Win Butler says. “This is not the best work to get into if that’s what you want. For me, my family was all musicians, so it just came naturally. It’s more of a way of life, and I think we all have that philosophy, which is a reason why we work.”
As for live shows, they can range from spiritual and uplifting to bizarre and chaotic, depending on your state of mind.
So whether The Arcade Fire will burn with its usual intensity at Mojo’s is debatable. Butler says to come without expectations. “It is just so unpredictable. If you come thinking you’ll get one thing, then there will be people with their arms folded. Come with an open mind, and you’ll get an experience.”
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