Arcade Fire look back on recording sessions with David Bowie

“It’s like meeting a mentor, someone who has navigated pop and experimental stuff,” Arcade Fire‘s Win Butler has told The Sun newspaper as he looked back on the band’s time in the studio with David Bowie.

The two acts joined forces on the lead single and title-track of Arcade Fire’s new album ‘Reflektor‘, on which Bowie offers brief, over-the-shoulder backing vocals.

“There are very few role models you can point to who have success like that,” Butler continued. “Many artists get lost chasing success and end up killing what brought them success in the first place.”

“What was cool was that we were mixing at Electric Lady studios in New York. The line he does on ‘Reflektor’ echoes the line he does on ‘Fame’, the song he recorded in the very same studio with John Lennon. So he showed up and said, ‘The last time I was here I was recording with John Lennon.’ And we looked at each other to say, ‘And here you are recording with Arcade Fire’.”