Arcade Fire

History

2001–2003: Formation and early work

Win Butler and Josh Deu founded Arcade Fire in Montreal around 2001, having first met at Phillips Exeter Academy as high school students. Butler and Deu's musical ideas began to develop and the first incarnation of the band was born while they were attending McGill University and Concordia University, respectively. The duo began rehearsing their material at McGill where they met Régine Chassagne, a music student whom they asked to join them. Deu recalls, "Win and I played guitar. Everyone played guitar. We had no music to show her, but she ended up saying yes to joining us, and I don't know why. Maybe there was a little spark with Win." Halfway through 2001, the band consisted of Butler, Chassagne, Deu, multi-instrumentalist Tim Kile (later of Wild Light), bassist Myles Broscoe (later of Les Angles Morts, Crystal Clyffs, and AIDS Wolf), guitarist/drummer Dane Mills (later of Crackpot) and multi-instrumentalist Brendan Reed (later of Les Angles Morts and founding member of Clues), who lived with Butler and Chassagne in Montreal's Mile End neighbourhood at the time and was a collaborator with them on song-writing and arrangement (2001–2003). During a party in 2001, the band recorded a live Christmas album, A Very Arcade Xmas, which they are rumoured to have hand-distributed to their friends as a Christmas gift.

The initial Montreal structure of the band began to dissolve in the summer of 2002, when they travelled to Butler's family farm on Mount Desert Island, Maine to record their self-titled EP. Tension between Butler and bassist Myles Broscoe led the latter to exit the band following the recording session. Richard Reed Parry, who had been enlisted to help the band record, began to collaborate with them during the sessions and would go on to join the band shortly afterwards. Around the same time, Joshua Deu left the band to resume his studies; he continued to collaborate on the visual aspects of the band. In the winter of 2003, the band celebrated the release of its EP with a show at Montreal's Casa del Popolo. Before a crowd packed beyond capacity, the band's set ended (in the middle of an encore) with an argument between Butler and Reed, in which Reed quit the band on-stage. Mills told gathered friends in the crowd immediately thereafter that he considered the band to have broken up, as such resigning from the band as well. Following the on-stage implosion, Butler's brother Will Butler (subject of the early Arcade Fire song "William Pierce Butler") and Tim Kingsbury were brought in to replace Reed and Mills so that the band could continue, and they set out to promote the self-titled EP. The eponymous release (often referred to by fans as the Us Kids Know EP) was sold at early shows. After the band achieved fame, the EP was subsequently remastered and given a full release.

2004–2006: Funeral

Funeral was released in September 2004 in Canada and February 2005 in Great Britain. The title of the debut album referred to the deaths of several relatives of band members (prominently the Butlers' grandfather, composer/arranger Alvino Rey) during its recording. These events created a somber atmosphere that influenced songs such as "Une année sans lumière" ("A Year Without Light"), "In the Backseat", and "Haïti", Chassagne's elegy to her homeland.

It received widespread critical acclaim and topped many year-end and decade-end lists. According to the website Metacritic, the album had the second most appearances on end-of-decade Top 10 lists, only behind Radiohead's Kid A. In the updated version of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked at No. 500.

The album was critically acclaimed and commercially successful. It appeared on many top ten album lists for 2004 and 2005 (due to delayed international releases), with Pitchfork, Filter, No Ripcord, and The MTV2 2005 Review crowning it the album of the year. NME named Funeral second in their list of 2005's best albums. NME also named "Rebellion (Lies)" the second best track.

By November 2005, Funeral had gone gold in both Canada and the UK, and sold over half a million copies worldwide, a very large number for an independent release with minimal television or radio exposure. The album became Merge Records' first in the Billboard 200 chart and the label's biggest selling album to date, surpassing Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

The band booked small clubs for their 2004 tour, but growing interest forced many venue changes, far beyond the band's expectations, and the tour continued into mid-2005 throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, the SummerSonic Festival in Japan, and the Hillside Festival in Guelph. Taking much of the summer of 2005 off, the band made key festival appearances at the Halifax Pop Explosion, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Sasquatch! Music Festival, Lollapalooza, Vegoose Festival, Reading and Leeds Festival in the UK, Electric Picnic in Ireland and the Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands.

On February 1, 2005, Arcade Fire appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien to perform "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)". Arcade Fire was featured on the April 4, 2005, cover of Time's Canadian edition. On May 1, 2005, the band performed at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. 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 BBC used the track "Wake Up" on an advertisement for their autumn 2005 season, and the tracks "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" on adverts in January 2006. On September 9, 2005, the band appeared on the British/US television special "Fashion Rocks", on which David Bowie joined them for "Wake Up". This recording, as well as recordings of the band's collaboration on Bowie's "Life on Mars" and "Five Years", were made available on the iTunes Music Store in a virtual live EP. The same trip to New York City took them to the Late Show with David Letterman and a concert in Central Park. The Central Park show featured a surprise appearance by Bowie. On September 11, 2005, Arcade Fire appeared on the long-running BBC music series Top of the Pops, performing "Rebellion (Lies)". The band also performed to a TV audience in Paris for Canal+, and the show was later screened on the British television's Channel 4. The band scored two number one songs on MTV2 (UK) NME Chart Show, with "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" and a three-week run with "Wake Up". This success followed Rough Trade Records's last-minute decision to release "Wake Up" only on 7"

2006–2010: Neon Bible

During the downtime between Funeral and the beginning of recording sessions for Neon Bible, the band purchased a defunct church in the small Quebec town of Farnham, approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) southeast of Montreal, and spent the early part of 2006 converting it into a recording studio.

The first track officially released from Neon Bible was "Intervention" in December 2006 on iTunes. Proceeds from this release were dedicated to Partners in Health. An error resulted in a second song, "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations", appearing on iTunes for a short time. The album was leaked to peer-to-peer networks on January 26, 2007, and was officially released March 5, 2007, in the UK and March 6 in North America. Neon Bible premiered at number 1 on the Canadian Albums Chart and the Irish Album Charts, and number 2 on the US Billboard Top 200 charts and the UK Top 40 Album Chart for the week of March 12, 2007. The album was also number 1 on the Rock and Indie album charts. The first proper single, "Black Mirror", reached the No. 1 spot on CBC Radio 3's R3-30 chart for five consecutive weeks, from March 22 to April 19, 2007, and was the first single by any band ever to spend more than two weeks atop the chart. The album gained much critical acclaim (even being mooted as a strong contender for album of the year), and because of its success saw the band proclaimed the most exciting act on the earth by British music magazine Q. Paste voted it one of the five best albums of 2007. Trouser Press writer Jason Reeher ranked Neon Bible "among the best indie rock recordings of all time".

Arcade Fire made their first appearance on Saturday Night Live on February 24, 2007 (Episode 618), performing "Intervention" and "Keep the Car Running". Owen Pallett was not present as he was recording for his solo project. During the performance, one of Win Butler's guitar strings broke, prompting him to rip the strings from his acoustic guitar and smash it on the floor until it shattered. On this guitar, "sak vide pa kanpe" was written in duct tape across the front. A Haitian proverb meaning "An empty sack cannot stand up" in Creole, this may have been a reference to the extreme poverty of Haiti, the country of origin of Régine Chassagne.

On July 10, 2007, Neon Bible was named to the shortlist for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize. Patrick Watson was announced as the winner at a gala ceremony on September 24, 2007. However, due to the band's preference not to participate in compilation albums, they were the only nominee not to have a track on the Polaris promotional compilation 2007 Polaris Music Prize. Some media initially reported that the Polaris committee had snubbed the band by excluding them, leading the band and the committee to issue a joint press release confirming that the band chose not to have a track included on the album.

2010–2012: The Suburbs

On May 27, 2010, it was announced that a new double-sided 12" single would be released the same day as the full album, called The Suburbs, on August 2 in the UK and on August 3 in the US and Canada. The album is produced by Markus Dravs, who had worked with the band on their previous album, 2007's Neon Bible, and was engineered by Marcus Paquin, who has also previously worked with the band. A track-by-track review ahead of The Suburbs release by The Quietus website said, "The progression is similar to the one William Blake takes us through in Songs of Innocence and of Experience that suggests forward momentum and maturity." The album was released with eight different covers.

The first show announced was Oxegen 2010 which took place in Ireland in July. The band announced that they would play songs from the new album in their headline performance at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in August 2010, with Win Butler noting, "We're really looking forward to playing the new songs live... [it's] like an inventor emerging from his basement after a year's work."

In July 2010, Arcade Fire announced they would be broadcasting their August 5 concert at Madison Square Garden live via YouTube. They later announced the video would be directed by Terry Gilliam. The Suburbs was released worldwide at the start of August 2010 to extensive critical acclaim comparable to Funeral and Neon Bible. During the 2010 tour, Arcade Fire gave a tribute to Jay Reatard performing the cover of "Oh, It's Such a Shame". Win Butler confessed to Zane Lowe that the band wanted Jay Reatard to support the band on this tour, but he had died. The Suburbs went on to debut at number one in the US (on the Billboard 200), selling 156,000 units in its first week. It was also number one in the UK and Canada.

In August 2010, Arcade Fire and Google released an interactive music video, written and directed by Chris Milk and produced by B-Reel, which allows the viewer to enter the address where they grew up and the video is then "geopersonalised". This video uses the band's song "We Used to Wait" from The Suburbs, and showcases capabilities of HTML5 and Google's Chrome browser. On November 13, 2010, Arcade Fire made their second appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing "We Used to Wait" and "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)".

The album debuted at No. 1 on the Irish Albums Chart, the UK Albums Chart, the US Billboard 200 chart, and the Canadian Albums Chart. It won Album of the Year at the 2011 Grammy Awards, Best International Album at the 2011 BRIT Awards, Album of the Year at the 2011 Juno Awards, and the 2011 Polaris Music Prize for best Canadian album. Two weeks after winning Grammy's Album of the Year, the album jumped from No. 52 to No. 12 on the Billboard 200, the album's highest ranking since August 2010.

2013–2015: Reflektor

Arcade Fire and Mercury Records confirmed that they would release a fourth album in late 2013. In December 2012, the band's manager Scott Rodger confirmed that Arcade Fire was in the studio working with regular producer of the band Markus Dravs and James Murphy, frontman of LCD Soundsystem. The official Arcade Fire pre-order website set the release date on October 28, 2013.

The band announced on January 18, 2013, that they were selling the church they had been using as a studio due to a collapsed roof. Throughout 2013, the band worked on the album in several different recording studios – including Murphy's DFA Records studio in New York City. On June 22, 2013, Rolling Stone reported that new material from the album would be released on September 9, 2013. On July 12, the band announced via a reply on Twitter that their new album would be released on October 29.

Whilst working on the album, Arcade Fire and Owen Pallet wrote the original score of Spike Jonze's 2013 science-fiction romance film Her. Arcade Fire also wrote the song "Supersymmetry" for the film, which would later appear on Reflektor, as well as the melody for "Porno" which can be heard on the soundtrack. Will Butler and Pallett received a nomination for Best Original Score at the 86th Academy Awards for the score. The score was not officially released to the public until 2021.

Speculation emerged in August that the album would be named Reflektor after images began circulating of street art using the name. These images were collected on an Instagram account and later uploads noted the date of September 9 and time of 9 pm. Arcade Fire confirmed their connection to the campaign with a billboard put up in New York City on August 26, 2013. A week later, the band released a 15-second music clip on Spotify titled "9pm 9/9" under the album name Reflektor.

English rock musician David Bowie contributed to backing vocals on the title song, "Reflektor" after praising the song's quality in fall 2013. In September 2013, Arcade Fire released a version of the 1980 hit single "Games Without Frontiers" for the Peter Gabriel tribute album And I'll Scratch Yours. Upon its release, Reflektor received positive reviews from music critics and had a successful commercial performance. The album was recognized as one of The 100 Best Albums of the Decade So Far, a list published by Pitchfork in August 2014.

2016–2019: Everything Now

On May 25, 2016, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne performed a surprise set outside the Louvre which included a new song. The pair were invited by the French street artist JR to DJ at the launch of his new exhibition titled JR Au Louvre, but the two decided to set up drums and keyboards in the Tuileries gardens.

On June 17, Will Butler hosted a Reddit AMA, where he answered fan questions about the next Arcade Fire album. He stated that the new record might be released in spring 2017 and that the band had 'no definite schedule though. It'll be done when it's done.' On July 5, the band played their first complete full-band concert in two years in Barcelona, Spain as a warm up for their upcoming summer festival dates in Canada, Portugal, Spain and USA. On July 19, Tim Kingsbury told CBC that the band's upcoming fifth album would be out in 2017. On January 19, 2017, the band released a new single to coincide with Donald Trump's presidential inauguration entitled "I Give You Power". The song featured guest vocals from singer Mavis Staples. The proceeds were donated to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Arcade Fire signed a two album recording contract with Columbia Records in May 2017. On May 31, the band released a new single "Everything Now" on a limited edition 12" vinyl at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. Arcade Fire would also perform at the festival in early June 2017. A day later, Arcade Fire announced their fifth studio album Everything Now, which was released on July 28, 2017, and released a music video for "Everything Now". In July 2017, "Everything Now" became Arcade Fire's first single to reach number one on a Billboard chart, reaching number one on the Adult Alternative Songs airplay chart. In October 2017, long-time manager Scott Rodger parted ways with the band.

After releasing two teasers on their social media pages a few days before, on March 12, 2018, the band announced a short film, directed by David Wilson called "Money + Love", containing two of their songs "Put Your Money On Me" and "We Don't Deserve Love", and being released on March 15. On March 17, Arcade Fire were featured as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live for a fifth time, performing "Creature Comfort" and "Put Your Money On Me". For the 2019 Disney film, Dumbo, Arcade Fire performs an end-credits version of "Baby Mine", by Frank Churchill and Ned Washington, which was released as a single on March 11, 2019.

2020–2024: We

On October 21, 2020, Butler was interviewed for the Broken Record podcast, where he commented about Arcade Fire's sixth album. The band had been writing for a year before the COVID-19 lockdown. During lockdown, Butler kept working and wrote "two or three albums". In April 2020, Butler shared some snippets of new material in the social networks. On April 14, 2021, the band released a 45-minute instrumental piece, entitled "Memories of the Age of Anxiety" on the meditation application Headspace.

In March 2022, fans received postcards marked with the band's logo; the postcards included the note "We missed you", musical notations, as well as an image of an eye with the word "Unsubscribe" written below. Those same images began to appear in signage around London as well as on the band's social media pages, indicating the earliest signs of a new album. On March 14, the band announced a new song titled "The Lightning I, II" would be released on March 17. That same day, the band played a concert benefiting the Plus 1 Ukraine relief fund at the Toulouse Theatre in New Orleans, marking their first full-band performance in over two years. They also performed at Bowery Ballroom in New York City on March 18 and 19, benefitting the same organization. Tickets for all three shows were sold on a "pay what you can" basis.

On March 17, 2022, Arcade Fire announced that the album would be titled We and be released on May 6, 2022. Later that week, Will Butler announced he had amicably left the band in 2021 shortly after the completion of We.

Following the release of We on May 6, 2022, Arcade Fire announced the "WE" Tour, the group's first world tour since 2018, starting in August 2022. They again appeared on Saturday Night Live on May 7, 2022, playing "Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)", "The Lightning I, II", and "End of The Empire II" over the closing credits. They ended the Mother's Day performance with Win Butler stating "A woman's right to choose forever and ever and ever, amen."

On August 27, 2022, Win Butler was accused by four people of several instances of sexual misconduct between 2016 and 2020, including sexual assault, unwanted explicit texts, and pursuing relationships with younger fans ranging in age from 18 to 23. Butler and Chassagne denied the allegations and said all the encounters had been consensual. A few days later, Canadian artist Feist announced that she and her band would be dropping out as the opening act of the European leg of the "WE" Tour due to the allegations, having donated proceeds from the two shows she had already played to a local women's aid organization in Dublin. Beck also dropped out as the opening act of the tour's American leg later that year.

2025–present: Pink Elephant

In March 2025, members of Arcade Fire performed at Luck Reunion, outside of Austin, where they debuted new songs from their forthcoming album. These tracks included "Pink Elephant", "Ride or Die", and "Year of the Snake". On April 4, the band published a teaser video clip on their social media accounts, and they released a social network mobile app brand-named Trust. In the app, the band published video clips including a song "Cars and Telephones".

On April 7, 2025, at the end of the radio mix in the Trust app, Butler and Chassagne announced the new album Pink Elephant to be released on May 9.

The band played live previews of the full album on a promotional tour titled 'Don't Think About Pink Elephant'; the tour commenced with nine North American shows beginning April 22, 2025, in Mexico City, and concluded on May 14, 2025 with a one-off show in London. Prior to the first show, the band announced that Parry would be absent from the tour whilst he and his wife prepared for the birth of their first child.

On May 10, 2025, the band were the musical guests on Saturday Night Live for the seventh time in their career, performing "Year of the Snake" and "Pink Elephant" on the penultimate episode of its fiftieth season. The episode drew in 4.215 million domestic viewers. On June 9, 2025, the band were musical guests on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and performed "Circle of Trust".

On October 30, 2025, the band publicly announced via Instagram that members Win Butler and Régine Chassagne had decided to separate.

On February 4, 2026, the band announced Open Your Heart or Die Trying, an ambient companion album based on Pink Elephant. It was released exclusively for Record Store Day 2026 on April 18. The band described the album as "an ambient release that imagines Pink Elephant as a new sonic landscape, a score to a film that hasn't been made yet." The album was later released on digital streaming services on May 1.

Activism

Haiti

Because Régine Chassagne is of Haitian descent, Arcade Fire continuously works to support Haitian people through raising awareness of the struggles this country currently faces, as well as the history, specifically the regime of François Duvalier in which 30,000 to 60,000 Haitians were murdered. This time in history is highlighted in Arcade Fire's song "Haiti".

2004: Arcade Fire played two hometown shows in Haiti where all profits were donated to Albert Schweitzer's hospital in Haiti.

2005–present: Arcade Fire has donated $1.00, £1.00, or €1.00 of every ticket sold on tour to Partners In Health + Kanpe, via Plus1.

2006: Proceeds from the release of track "Intervention" were dedicated to Partners in Health.

2009: Arcade Fire recorded "Lenin" for Red Hot Organization's "Dark Was the Night". $850,000 raised for AIDS relief; $300,000 was donated to Partners in Health.

2010: The NFL purchased rights to "Wake Up" for Super Bowl XLIV; all proceeds went to Partners in Health.

AF ♥ Haiti campaign: trained 50k+ volunteers to engage fans in Partners in Health's mission.

Members

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums

Soundtracks

Her (2021)