Arcade Fire

Hailing from Montreal, Canada, Arcade Fire are a seven piece band that have won two BRITs, two Grammys, and have released three records in six years.

Their breakthrough album Funeral (Rough Trade, 2004) was nominated for a Grammy for Alternative Album of The Year and as the decade closed Funeral was chosen by Rolling Stone as the #1 album of the ‘00s. The album also featured in numerous ‘Best of the Decade’ polls around the world including NME, Q, Pitchfork, The Guardian and Mojo.

Arcade Fire’s platinum-selling sophomore album Neon Bible (Sonovox, 2007) debuted at #2 in the UK and USA. Recorded in Québec, New York, Budapest and London, it was released to critical acclaim with the NME calling them ‘‘…the first truly 21st century band”. Q named Neon Bible album of the year in 2007, and it was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the Grammys.

2010’s The Suburbs (Sonovox) debuted at #1 in seven countries including UK, the United States and Canada and the album has since gone double platinum in Canada; platinum in the UK and Ireland; as well as gold in France, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, Australia and the US. Following the album release, the band performed two sold out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden, producing a live stream on You Tube directed by Terry Gilliam, which received over 1.8 million views worldwide. The Wilderness Downtown, an online video for We Used To Wait using groundbreaking HTML 5 technology, received over 64 million views worldwide, spreading across social networking sites and causing Arcade Fire to top Hype Machine. A short film, Scenes from the Suburbs, directed by Spike Jonze and co-written by Jonze, Will Butler and Win Butler, accompanied a new edition of The Suburbs released in June 2011.

Arcade Fire were named Band of the Year on the cover of Q Magazine in 2010, and that year performed on Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Later… with Jools Holland. In February 2011 Arcade Fire won Album of The Year at the Grammy Awards for The Suburbs, before going on to win Best International Group and Best International Album at the 2011 BRIT Awards. 2012 also saw The Suburbs pick up an additional Grammy for Best Recording Package.

Arcade Fire have toured extensively worldwide, including Europe, America and Australasia. Renowned as being one of the best live acts around, the Daily Telegraph described Arcade Fire as “the greatest live band in the world, and everybody who sees them knows it.”

Plans for 2012 include a limited edition vinyl release of Sprawl II/Ready to Start remixes for Record Store Day in April. Arcade Fire have also recorded two new songs Abraham’s Daughter and Horn of Plenty for the soundtrack of forthcoming epic The Hunger Games, their first new material since The Suburbs.

The Arcade Fire are William Butler, Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Jeremy Gara, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld and Richard Reed Parry.

March 2012