After the high-concept hijinks around their last record turned off fans, the indie troubadours have gone back to basics with a rousing new album about Trump and togetherness
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Mid-morning in New Orleans, and outside an Uptown coffee shop, Win Butler is talking of life in his adopted city – the basketball, brass bands, and the poisonous caterpillars of the buck moth that, in late spring, fall from the city’s trees on to unsuspecting passersby beneath. He surveys the mighty oaks across the street, broad-branched and strung with moss. “Trees run this city,” Butler says. “They’ve definitely seen some shit, those trees.”
With his wife, Régine Chassagne, Butler is best known for fronting Arcade Fire. The band formed in Montreal at the turn of the millennium, quickly gained a reputation as one of the world’s finest live acts, and over the course of five albums became indie music aristocracy. They were anointed by Davids Bowie and Byrne; they won a Grammy, a Juno and a Brit; they played Obama’s inauguration; and frequently used their platform for political activism, promoting healthcare nonprofits, indigenous protesters and a number of Haitian charities (Chassagne is of Haitian descent). More recently, the band raised $100,000 for the Ukraine Relief Fund by playing a series of small club shows across the US, including cult New York venue the Bowery ballroom.
