Arcade Fire’s WE was born in ‘a very uncertain but beautiful time,’ says Win Butler

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Win Butler was behind the wheel of a rental vehicle Wednesday afternoon. His wife and bandmate Régine Chassagne was riding shotgun and their day-shy-of-nine-year-old son Edwin Farnham Butler IV was in the back, eating, as they rolled out of Palm Springs.

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Butler was still buzzing about Arcade Fire’s surprise set last weekend at Coachella. Not on a main stage, where the Montreal band could well have been headlining, but in a tent jammed with 10,000 fans, and throngs more spilling outside.

“It was really cool,” he said. “It was really meaningful. The first time we played Coachella was in 2005. We didn’t have any road crew. We were basically a punk band, driving our own van and didn’t have road cases for our keyboards; they were just in the boxes we bought them in. That was our first time playing for a big audience. … So we were sort of in a reflective mood (being back there).”

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There’s much to reflect on as the enduring Canadian indie-rock heroes prepare to release their sixth studio album, WE, on May 6. It’s been 18 years since the group shot to world fame with its debut album, Funeral. The new record finds Arcade Fire playing with a wall-down mix of urgency, intimacy and abandon that hearkens back to its early days while breaking new creative ground.

It all started when everything stopped. Butler and Chassagne were in a recording studio in New Orleans, where they now live for much of the year (though they still have a place in Montreal), when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“They were closing the borders to Canada,” Butler recalled. “We had written Age of Anxiety, End of the Empire and a bunch of songs. … Régine and I were working every day in the studio. We didn’t know when or if it would be possible to get the band together. We were very inspired and very plugged in, but the world we were making the record for was changing so much.”

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Butler had his grandfather Alvino Rey’s guitar, “a 1930s Gibson he got in New York City from (jazz guitar pioneer) Eddie Lang,” as well as his dad’s old Martin acoustic and his son’s electric.

“I had these three guitars I felt drawn to play, and we have this lovely old Steinway in our living room,” he said. “The goal was to write — independent of genre — songs we could play around the piano with guitar, and to just work on structure, melody and the bones of songs as much as we could, because we had time.”

When they reunited with the rest of the band six months later in El Paso, Texas, the pandemic was in full swing, and the US election was very much up in the air. Despite the upheaval all around them, something clicked.

“Every night, I would grill food and we would sit around the fire and play songs,” Butler recalled. “It was a very uncertain but beautiful time.”

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Arcade Fire has always hovered between extremes. Funeral was an album about death, marked by unifying anthems teeming with life. The new album is divided into two parts. The first, “I,” involves themes of angst and alienation, while the “WE” side is about coming together and finding hope. For Butler, they are flip sides of a coin.

“The ship is moving fast,” he said. “We’re in a challenging time and the world is changing at such a rapid rate. How do we face that change without being defeated by it? There are these two poles: the realities of the world, which at times can be really dark and heavy, which we all want to escape; and this deep, unconditional love, which transcends time and whatever generation or family we’re born into, and is deeper and more universal.”

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WE was co-produced by Butler, Chassagne and Nigel Godrich, known for his career-spanning work with Radiohead. But OK Computer redux this is not. Godrich adapts to meet the pair on their own terms, elevating the band to a distilled version of what it does best.

“I bought (Radiohead’s 1995 album) The Bends the day it came out,” Butler said. “Nigel is such an amazing engineer, trained in this British system that he goes back to the Beatles. He just has this depth of knowledge about recording that’s really inspiring.

“I think because of the way we wrote the record to work on piano and guitar, we really wanted the music to have space. If things sound good, you don’t want to add as much. There are a lot of songs that are the most spacious and empty-sounding things we’ve done.”

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An appearance by Peter Gabriel, on the Chassagne-led dance track Unconditional II (Race and Religion), is but the latest alignment of the stars for a band that has found collaborative kinship with rock deities including David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen and David Byrne.

“(Gabriel) came to the studio and we had a day to work on it,” Butler said. “He does this thing where he double-tracks his voice, high and low. As soon as he put the high vocal down, I was like, ‘Oh s—, that’s Peter Gabriel.’ ”

Days after the new album was announced, Win’s brother Will Butler revealed he was leaving Arcade Fire. Meanwhile, an old friend became a new bandmate: Dan Boeckner of Montreal indie-rock act Wolf Parade joined as a touring vocalist and multi-instrumentalist.

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“It’s sad, but also exciting,” Butler said of the shakeup. “We had an amazing run with Will, and we’re extremely excited about the vibe in the band (now).

“With our son as well, we’ve just got to prepare for change and root our life in love and connection. My goal was always bigger than just having a band. It was more about friendship and a sense of community, and people whose hearts are in the right place and really give as—.

“I’m really proud we’re still doing it, and still working. I’m massively proud of the new record. I think it’s one of the best things we’ve ever done. And I’m really excited for the future.”

AT A GLANCE

WE is scheduled for release on May 6. arcade Fire headlines the first day of the Osheaga Music and Arts Festival, July 29 at Parc Jean-Drapeau. For tickets, visit osheaga.com.

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