They may be known for their ambitious, multi-instrumental live shows, but Arcade Fire’s Will Butler has said today he believes the band are simply following in the traditional punk ethos.
In an interview with digital station BBC 6Music, Will Butler revealed despite his use of a wide-range of instruments both live and on record, he is not particularly proficient on any of them, and likes to follow the ‘pick up and play’ mantra of the Seventies punk pioneers. “I think we took the punk rock ethos of ‘Don’t know how to play your instrument but play it really hard’ and applied that to all instruments,” he explained. “I don’t know how to play the glockenspiel, I’m playing it really hard. I don’t know how to play the tambourine, I’m playing it really hard.”
Meanwhile, frontman Win Butler also spoke of the similarities between their first EP and new album ‘The Suburbs‘, which has echoes of their earlier material both in sound and theme. “I think that all artists write about the same things their whole career,” he said. “There’s a lot of Bruce Springsteen songs about cars. I think that sometimes it takes years to figure out exactly what you want to say.
A lot of the songs on the first EP could lyrically be on the new record. I think that they’re related in a lot of ways. A song like ‘Vampire/Forest Fire‘ or ‘The Woodlands National Anthem‘, which is about the suburbs in Houston where Will and I grew up.”
Arcade Fire are set to headline the Reading/Leeds festivals later this month, and also have UK and US tours scheduled for the rest of the year.
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