‘We’re one of the best rock bands on Earth now’
Latest album largely panned, yet Arcade Fire’s Win Butler says “we’re in a tremendously lucky position”
Talk to the members of Arcade Fire and invariably they’ll tell you they’ve always been playing looking at the long view. For the ever-popular Montreal-based sextet, what people think of them now is of little consequence. Rather, how the band is viewed in the future and whether its music has staying power, will be the true test.
“In my mind everyone who is ultimately going to listen to our band has not been born yet,” lead singer Win Butler says via phone from Edmonton, Alberta, a few hours before a show on the band’s “Everything Now” world tour, which comes to Toronto’s Air Canada Centre Nov. 3 and 4 with Broken Social Scene.
“Who knows the angle or the avenue by which someone is going to get into our music? And that’s what excites me. To have that catalogue where people can discover it after all the (stuff ) has hit the fan and everyone has had their opinions.”
In many ways, Butler could be describing the indie-rock outfit’s previous few months. Released in September, Arcade Fire’s latest album, “Everything Now,” is the critical darling’s first to be widely panned by critics. Even though the band had a swelling fan base, regularly headlined arenas and even snagged a surprise Album of the Year award for 2012’s “The Suburbs,” Butler says he believes when a musician starts getting concerned about others’ perception of his or her work, the art inevitably suffers.
“I think people get trapped worrying about what people think about what you’re doing,” the Texas-born singer says. “But it is diffi- cult when there’s a bunch of noise around something. ‘Oh no, some people didn’t like that. Maybe it’s not good.’ But you’re only human. The bands that I love — the Pixies, the Clash, the Cure — certainly weren’t doing it for accolades.”
Butler carries this insular attitude into each Arcade Fire album. When working on “Everything Now” over the past few years the band only focused on what it could control. “The first step in making records for us is plugging into the world and plugging into our neighbourhoods and communities and our f amilies,” says the band’s guitarist, and Win’s brother, Will Butler. “And then from that we see what emerges.”
Sonically, “Everything Now” veers in several directions, doubling down on the dance-pop of the group’s 2014 double album, “Reflektor,” and incorporating all types of genre from disco funk (“Signs of Life”) to reggae (“Chemistry”), punk (“Infinite Content”) and even shades of country (“Infinite — Content”). But the album’s message is forthright: as a society we’re living in a disturbing, confusing, often deceitful time.
“It’s very hard to have Donald Trump be president of the United States and living in the moment we’re in and not try to make heads or tails of it,” Win Butler says of the album’s thematic genesis. “It’s such a crazy time.”
Social media, the singer adds, seem to fuel even more divisiveness. He compares the addictive and often toxic nature of logging onto Twitter to betting on slot machines. “I gotta play it. It’s probably going to make me feel like (expletive) but there’s always that chance it could pay out this time.”
Win Butler’s views on social me- dia may be coloured by it being the means by which Arcade Fire has f aced its harshest critics of late. And it started happening before their new album was even released. As part of an elaborate rollout campaign, the band created a f ake “global media and e-commerce platform” called Everything Now, and published “fake news” in the form of a pre-emptive, spoof review of the album.
It was all tongue-in-cheek, seeming more than anything a ploy to engage its fans in the album’s themes — the pervasiveness of negativity, particularly in the media, and rampant consumerism.
Will Butler says “part of putting out a record is it’s just fun and you might as well make a fun world and make some jokes,” but his brother takes a more serious, fatalistic bent.
“I feel like we’re one of the best rock bands on Earth now. And we’re kind of maligned now,” Win Butler says. “You’ll have fans coming up to you and being like ‘I actually really like this album.’” Of the critiques “Everything Now” has received the singer adds, “It’s almost like people writing college essays just copied off the internet. One person writes a thing and it just gets copied a zillion times.”
Not that the singer is anything but appreciative of the band’s current position.
“We’re in a tremendously lucky position,” he admits, emphasizing how working with independent labels such as Rough Trade and Merge has allowed Arcade Fire to maintain “control over our own catalogue.”
“A lot of bands got thrust into this machine where even if they had a little bit of success they weren’t able to have enough control of their own thing.”
The brothers agree that taking the album on the road for the band’s current tour is ultimately the clearest indication of how the album connects in this moment with its fan base. Win Butler describes the ongoing run of shows as “a feeling of excitement and a feeling of the unknown.” Will Butler says the songs from “Everything Now” have been given new life when performed live.
“I’m really proud of where we’ve made it to as a band,” Win Butler concludes. “But it’s definitely not easy.”