Arcade Fire frontman Win Buter has outlined the role played by Radiohead during his formative years, and praised the Oxford band for presenting their world views through music.
In an interview with Pitchfork, Butler described how Radiohead’s writing first excited him. “The original stuff that got me excited about music was Björk and Radiohead and the weirder spectrum of the bands that were popular and on MTV,” he said. “Radiohead weren’t small in their focus. It definitely seemed like they were talking about the world at large. I think the first indie music I heard was Neutral Milk Hotel and the Music Tapes, who were both Elephant 6 bands on Merge.”
Later, Butler also spoke of his time working in a record store in Boston, and how he ‘didn’t care’ for a large portion of the music played there. “When I was living in Boston I worked in this store that played the college radio station,” he explained. “I had to listen to it all day, and I didn’t care for most of it. But I remember the songwriting that really connected with me, like Magnetic Fields and Neutral Milk Hotel and early Conor Oberst.
To me, it was more about the intent rather than the sound, because I think a lot of Magnetic Fields or Neutral Milk Hotel or even some Superchunk songs would sound great sung by Taylor Swift with slick Nashville production. A song’s a song.”
Arcade Fire will return to the UK for a sold out tour which begins on December 1st in London.