In the middle of the morning in New Orleans and in front of a cafe in Uptown, Win Butler talks about life in his adopted city – basketball games, brass bands and poisonous white moth caterpillars that fall from the city trees in late spring to unsuspecting passers-by. . He looks at the mighty oaks across the street, widely branched and lined with moss. “The trees run this city,” Butler said. “They’ve definitely seen some nonsense, these trees.”
With his wife, Regina Shasan Butler, he is best known for his role in Arcade Fire. Founded in Montreal at the turn of the millennium, the band quickly gained a reputation as one of the world’s best live artists and became an aristocracy of indie music in five albums. They were anointed by David Bowie and Byrne; Grammy, Juneau and Briton won; they played Obama’s inauguration; and often used their platform for political activism, promoting non-profit health organizations, local protesters, and a number of Haitian charities (Chassagne is of Haitian descent). Most recently, the band raised $ 100,000 for the Relief Fund of Ukraine by playing a series of small club concerts in the United States, including the cult site in New York, the Bowery Ballroom.
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At times, they annoyed their audiences: the whims surrounding the release of their 2013 disco album Reflektor – secret concerts, street parties, audience dress codes – brought a slightly disturbing echo of U2’s Zoo TV campaign. But it was the release of their latest album, Everything Now from 2017, that shocked fans the most. The album was accompanied by a high-concept promotional campaign claiming that Arcade Fire is now part of a multinational corporation. They called their tour Infinite Content and published parody reviews of records, fake news, ironic product positioning. For some, it was a brilliant commentary on the consumer era; to others it seemed ridiculous, too serious, and ill-conceived. For many, this was awkwardly removed from the insides of their live concerts.
This month, the band released their sixth album, We, a record they describe as “the forces that pull us away from the people we love.” [and] the urgent need to overcome them ”. This is Arcade Fire, has a strong intellectual background, a nod to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A * and a guest addressed by Peter Gabriel. But it also stands as the band’s most tender record since their early release; spacious, simple and sweet, an album born of the constant proximity of the days of the pandemic.
Butler, Shasan and their son moved to Louisiana six years ago, captivated by the mix of cultures and unbridled passion for music and creativity. “What’s Mark Twain’s remark that there are only three cities in America?” Butler asks as we walk down Magazine Street. “New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. Everything else is Cleveland. ”
Butler cuts a prominent figure: a tall basketball player with blond blond hair, today he is wearing cream jeans, a white T-shirt and a black jacket. There’s an intensity in the way he speaks, whether he’s talking about Mardi Gras playing cowboy at the TBC Brass Band in New Orleans or the hanging children of the 2000 U.S. presidential race. this neighborhood, warmly greeting the barista in cafes and happily telling the story of Miss Mae’s, a 24-hour “dirt bar” that stands on the corner of Magazine and Napoleon.
[The Trump presidency] there were quite turbulent times in the United States. You will wake up and have no idea what will happen, Regina Shasan
Down the street, Butler takes us to a former breakfast, now home to Peaches Records. Peach, he says, was somehow removed from the record store he visited as a teenager in the Houston, Texas suburbs, a chain store in the mall that sold mostly CDs and tried to nurture his love of New Order and Cure. He tells how his mother played the jazz harp, his grandfather played the pedal steel and how the first time he heard Smokey Robinson sing, he could not believe that this music was created by human beings.
“Look at that,” Butler said, picking up an octagonal copy of the Rolling Stones compilation Through the Past Darkly and highlighting the qualities of a good cover. His attention is focused on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and the merits of the short album. “It has four songs and a lot of connective tissue,” he says. “And they kind of stretch it, so you have this space to hear things. This isn’t even my favorite record, but it’s an example of coherence. You look at the cover of the album, you listen to it, it’s very consistent. ” He was looking for something similar in We, he says, collecting more songs than ever to make a 40-minute stretch. “We cut some really good things,” he says. “That’s what we did.”
You win again … Arcade Fire feel the love at the Bowery Ballroom in New York in March. Photo: Maria Jose Govea
We walk past Napoleon to a Creole-Italian restaurant to meet Chasan. The rest of the band will arrive in New Orleans this afternoon to begin rehearsals for the tour, and Butler can’t wait to return to the world after the blockade restrictions. He remembers the band’s recent show in New York, how nice it felt to be in front of the crowd again. “A hundred people spit in my face,” he said. I felt like I was baptized.
At Pascal’s Manale counter, oyster Thomas “Uptown T” Stewart stands by a pile of silver shells, discussing the peaceful pleasures of Cyrano de Bergerac, jazz, poetry and quiet people. We drink martinis and Butler tries to convince me that the best way to eat oysters is to put them on a salty cracker, with horseradish, ketchup and a little lemon juice. Sassan stands next to him and unceremoniously pulls a black oyster out of the Persian Gulf from its shell. Stewart is impressed. “You downloaded it like you just made a good bourbon!” He tells her. “I caught your rhythm. You have very good energy. ”
Shasan’s energy has always been undeniable. When Butler first saw her, she was singing jazz standards at an art opening in Montreal, and he immediately asked her to join his young band. The threads of what she described as her “grandma music” – opera and Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf – somehow merge with Butler’s art pop influences. On stage, they perform a similar feat: Sassan sings, dances, switches between accordion, keys and xylophone, as if it exists in its own orbit, while the rest of the group plays.
Returning to the table this lunch, she sits in a black top with a bat’s wing and black jeans, her dark curls moving on the theme of Captain Kangaroo, inexplicably playing on the stereo in the restaurant. “I haven’t heard this song forever,” she says, suddenly distracted. Shasan does this often – a sentence suddenly stops so he can sing along with a chorus, then throws himself back into the conversation.
Before going around Captain Kangaroo, she remembered how the new album took root in America before Covid, in the days of Trump’s presidency. “It was a very turbulent time in the United States,” she said. “You’ll wake up and have no idea what’s going to happen.” The band began work on a recording they hoped would reflect this turbulence: songs such as the slow, syrupy End of the Empire, reflecting the decline of Western power, with references to the cauterizing effect of television, the desire to unsubscribe and watch the ocean moon “where it was California. “
The album begins with Age of Anxiety I and II, songs named after Lawrence Verlingetti’s 1958 poem I Am Waiting. When Butler was 15, his English teacher, Hipster, invited his good friend Ferlingeti to read at his school. It was a moment that changed Butler’s life; so much so that he stole a copy of the poet’s Connie Island of the Mind from the school library. Not long ago, he found the book in a box with his belongings in his parents’ house and began to reread it. When I came across the poem “I’m Waiting,” “I just started crying,” he says. “All the themes in this poem are like all the nonsense I’m writing about. It’s like looking for the soul of America, waiting for the American Eight to stand up and fly to the right. It became so deep inside me. It’s as if a spirit has entered me. “
Butler’s relationship with his homeland has always been complex and controversial. “This shit is fucking rotten, but there are beautiful things in it,” he says. “I live in America, I can’t believe I’m still living in America. But there is something in it that I cannot give up. And as an artist, you’re trying to break something and let the light in. “
He talks about the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan and the war in Ukraine. “And the poor are suffering,” he said. “Poor people always suffer everywhere. Russian oligarchs lose one of their boats like a booze. Which boat lost? All are well. But all money is blood money, it’s all about the suffering of the poor. “
What role can music play? Butler pauses. “We are the court jesters,” he said. “We are playing in court. The infrastructure of things is money. I don’t know the answer. But you can undermine it. “
On the other side of the table, Shasan frowned. “It’s not the court,” she says firmly. “There is no precondition for whom to play music. We play music in hospitals, for dying patients, we played at the opening. This is food for the soul. Not that music heals the community, but music is proof that …
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