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Arcade Fire Information
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'The Arcade Fire' is an indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec. Its members are Win Butler, Regine Chassagne, Richard Reed Parry, William Butler, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld, and Jeremy Gara. Howard Bilerman, who played drums on the album Funeral, has since moved on to other projects. As of May 2005, the touring band includes horn player Pietro Amato and violinist Owen Pallett. Pallett has also opened for their shows, appearing as the one-man band Final Fantasy.
The bands 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" .
History
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. In addition to mainstays guitar, drums, and bass guitar, members play piano, violin, viola, cello, xylophone, keyboard, French horn, 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 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.
thumb|left|The Arcade Fire in a 2005 performance.
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 . 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 lumié¨re" ("A Year without Light"), "In the Backseat", and "Haé¯ti", 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. 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. As of November 2005, Funeral has gone gold in both Canada and the UK and has sold in excess of half a million copies worldwide , a phenomenal number for an indepedent release with minimal television or radio exposure (it has also surpassed Neutral Milk Hotel 's popular and highly acclaimed In The Aeroplane Over The Sea as Merge Records biggest selling album to date). Taking much of the summer off, the band made two key festival appearances at the Coachella Music Festival and Lollapalooza. 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"; the same trip to New York City took them to the Late Show with David Letterman and a concert in Central Park. On September 11 2005, The Arcade Fire appeared on the long running BBC music series Top of the Pops, performing "Rebellion (Lies)" - on what was one of the band's first mainstream UK television appearances.
The Arcade Fire's song "Wake Up" is played immediately before the Irish rock group U2 opens their concerts on their 2005 Vertigo Tour; the band would subsequently open some shows for that tour, and appear onstage with U2 towards the end of the shows.
The Arcade Fire plans to begin recording a followup to Funeral in the winter of 2005-2006 having bought an old church forty minutes from central Montreal which they are converting into a studio.
Trivia
Sarah Neufeld, Richard Parry, and Pietro Amato also play in the instrumental band Bell Orchestre.
Discography
Albums
* Funeral (Merge Records) (September 14, 2004) #44 UK #131 US #16 Ireland
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 RTRADS254) (August 1, 2005) [Limited] #52 UK
* "Cold Wind" (Merge MRG27) (August 9, 2005) USA
* "Rebellion (Lies)" (Rough Trade) (September 5, 2005) #19 UK
* "Wake Up" (Rough Trade) (14 November, 2005) #29 UK
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