An interview with Win Butler from Arcade Fire – why he is looking forward to the Germany concerts

Win Butler not only associates Berlin with a number of memorable shows by his band — but also with a very special backpacking experience as a teenager. “I was here for the first time in 1998. I was still in high school then,” he says at the beginning of our conversation. “I arrived in Berlin, it was in the middle of the Love Parade. The Love Parade and the Soccer World Cup at the same time! I got off the train — and there were 400,000 people dancing… in swimming trunks! I tried to push my way through this crowd of 400,000 people to get to my hostel. I just thought: ‘Oh shit, Berlin is beautiful! That’s really intense!’” Butler Berlin will soon be paying another visit with Arcade Fire Olympiahalle in Munich (September 18), presented by ROLLING STONE. At the three concerts they will present their current album “WE”.

Arcade Fire shows like to have a penchant for the imposing, after all, the band consisted of up to twelve live musicians over the course of their line-up, and the sound becomes orchestral on stage. When all goes well, Arcade Fire move off the stage and into the audience, then march through the ranks of fans and through the auditorium at eye level. How did this down-to-earth attitude come about?

Butler lashes out — explaining the band’s live ethos: “We come from a DIY and punk background. In Montreal, for the first three years we only played on the floor, not on stages, at loft parties, dance shows, multidisciplinary art shows and in church basements. Montreal was extremely diverse at the time — there were a lot of DJs, a lot of bands like Godspeed, You Black Emperor! I think those concerts on the floor were really important. Even when I got off the mic back then and kept singing, people could still hear me. It was just very small rooms – and because we were always on the same level with the audience, we were able to refine our live performances. Our motto was: we don’t care if you like our band or not, we will connect with you, you won’t just sit at the back of a bar. We’re going to create a moment.”

Organically grown

The fact that the band and thus the stages kept getting bigger happened in a very organic way. “We played in front of 20 people, then 100, 300, 500, 2000 and eventually 30,000. But we toured in the van. On the ‘Funeral’ tour we had a Mobile phone for eight people. We carried our gear ourselves, we played to 20,000 people at Coachella and we didn’t have a guitar tech with us. We have done the work.”

That club spirit is still important to the group today: “Even as the productions got bigger, we still approached it as if we were playing on the ground floor or in a small club. For this album we played a few gigs in New Orleans and at the Bowery in New York. 500 people fit in there — we just wanted to see if we can still do it. It’s just primarily about the music, the physicality of the band. About musicians who have known each other for 20 years, just love playing live and want to connect with people.”

Butler is convinced that it is absolutely possible to create a feeling of intimacy even in large venues. He experienced this himself at his first Depeche Mode concert, he says: “I was sitting in the last row, at the top of Madison Square Garden. It was a hell of a show, I had a great time. The movements were big enough, the staging was compelling enough, and the music was great enough that there was a connection.”

Arcade Fire: The Perfect Setlist?

The perfect arcade fire setlist doesn’t really exist, says Butler — because it varies wildly from country to country. “You could play the same song in ten different places and it would feel completely different. It’s just because of the music people grew up listening to, the way they dance and the way they feel music.” He would even do heavier songs like “Creature Comfort” at festivals with Slayer and the Nine Play Inch Nails and get away with it, he says. “But when we play in France, people tend to go for the softer, more delicate and more nuanced stuff. You can feel this energy that people really want nuance and dynamics — it seems like it’s cultural. These cultural differences are much more pronounced in Europe than in the USA: “The differences between London and Glasgow, for example, are enormous. Although both are in the UK, it’s like being on another planet.”

However, backing tracks are out of the question for Arcade Fire — Butler prefers to make do with possible mistakes and inconsistencies of the respective evening. “With most bands, half the sounds you hear come from the computer. That’s fine in principle, but it’s a bit like karaoke. It can never be out of line that much, it’ll sound pretty much like the album and pretty much be perfect. Maybe the audience likes that our band represents the other end of the spectrum, which is that everything is live. This can sometimes be inconsistent. The energy changes depending on what’s going on in the crowd. The tempo changes depending on the enthusiasm of the audience. What we’re aiming for is, simply musically real to be. Allowing shit to happen, allowing mistakes, allowing things to surprise you.”

Win Butler (L) and Regine Chassagne, Arcade Fire

Are there any songs in the Arcade Fire back catalog that present special challenges? “We played ‘End Of The Empire’ at a festival in Montreal. The piece is nine and a half minutes long — and really quite soft for long stretches. I was like, before we played the song, ‘this could get really powerful and cool now…or the longest nine minutes of my life, I’m not sure’. Part of me just thought that people just want to drink beer and do drugs — do 30,000 people in a field really want to hear a nine-and-a-half-minute song that spans wide arcs? But you know, we did it — and it was really freaking cool and different, the energy was really interesting.”

Regarding his performance, Butler singles out one of his idols: “I remember seeing Neil Young a few years ago. Back then he did a kind of reboot of ‘Rust Never Sleeps’, it was very rocky. At one point he played ‘Needle And The Damage Done’ in his solo version. It was THE damn moment. It was unique, completely unvarnished. Just this guy singing the song about his friend who was a junkie. You could hear a goddamn pin drop, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked at Neil and I was like, ‘Thank god that guy’s alive’. I’ve been a fan of Neil since I was 16 — and he still rocks it. That’s very inspiring for me: as I get older and look at who of my heroes is still real and not doing that fake rock star shit. I want that.”

At the end of our interview we come to talk about Butler’s grandfather Alvino Rey (1908-2004). Rey (whom the Arcade Fire album “Funeral” is dedicated to) was not only a renowned jazz guitarist and leader of big bands, but is also considered the father of the pedal steel guitar and a pioneer of the electric guitar, and helped develop it he was significantly involved. What influence did his grandfather have on him? “I learned everything from him. He was really very modest, you had to get almost everything out of him. He built the prototype of the first electric guitar. He was good friends with Leo Fender and Gibson. He played with Duke Ellington. He was one of two jazz guitarists in New York City in the 1930s. He was playing with Elvis”.

What did Rey tell about Elvis? “He really liked Elvis as a musician and thought he was a nice boy and a great performer.” But his grandfather raved about Duke Ellington a lot more than he did about Presley: “He said to me, ‘If only you had the opportunity to go to a club in Harlem and see Duke Ellington with a forty-piece band… you came in, they People danced, the chords were insane, the music was the most sophisticated thing ever – and every one of the 40 musicians was amazing!

“He will always be my hero,” he concludes about his grandfather. “I wish he were still here. I could very well use some advice from him right now.”

ARCADE FIRE LIVE IN GERMANY 2022 – THE DATES

September 14, 2022 Cologne, Lanxess Arena
September 18, 2022 Munich, Olympic Hall
September 29, 2022 Berlin, Mercedes Benz Arena

Tickets for the concert are available, among other things here.

Erika Goldring Getty Images

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