Arcade Fire’s Will Butler on Fame, Touring and Not Being Bono

Montreal-based rock band Arcade Fire exploded onto the music scene in 2004 with their arresting debut “Funeral,” but it wasn’t until this summer’s “The Suburbs” when they catapulted into the #1 slot on the Billboard charts and surpassed their indie status. What separates Arcade Fire from so many other lucrative groups is they’ve donated over a million dollars of their own earnings to charity, most specifically, Partners In Health, who helps impoverished nations like Haiti combat disease.
The cause is personal for the band’s 28-year-old multi-instrumentalist Will Butler because the family of his sister-in-law and fellow band mate Régine Chassagne’s (she’s married to his brother and the band’s lead singer Win Butler) hailed from the troubled country. As part of Northwestern University’s annual Civically Engaged Young Alumni Week, Butler will speak tonight at his alma mater in Chicago suburb Evanston about how Arcade Fire combines their musical endeavors with their altruism.
Butler talked to Speakeasy about his coming talk.

The Wall Street Journal: “Funeral” came out when you were finishing your senior year of college. Did you find it difficult to manage the band and school?

Will Butler: It actually was really fun. I’m on about half of “Funeral” and I would come out for really important shows. I would write my final papers in the back of the tour bus.

Did your professors know you were doing that?

They kind of had to at that point. “Well, is it okay if I miss two weeks of class?”

How did you get involved with the Northwestern talk and what will you be discussing?

It came about because the freshman class this year is reading “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World” [by Tracy Kidder]. Coincidentally, when we were playing New York, an alumni person, actually, a friend of mine from college, contacted me and asked if I’d do something. The freshman class is reading about this guy Paul Farmer that my band actually works with. It’s for the Center for Civic Engagement, the guys who are running both the conference and who are in charge of the “One Book, One Northwestern” program this year. Broadly, I’m speaking about how — I’m not sure how much why — but I will definitely be speaking about how we came to the various things we’ve done for the public.

Have you been to Haiti?

I haven’t. We were going to go in February, but the earthquake happened a week and a half week before we went.

Since the earthquake, do you think conditions have improved there?

Now there’s the whole cholera thing which is what they were terrified of happening the whole time. Things have not concretely improved. Basically in Port-au-Prince, since the regime’s been down, it’s almost as if nothing’s has changed in the city. I think some people’s lives from the day after the earthquake are better now, but I think the country as a whole is still set back a little bit.

Why did you and the band decide to align yourselves with Partners In Health?

The original impetus was to do something for Haiti at the end of the “Funeral” tour. We did shows in Montreal, our homecoming shows, and we thought we should give the money away because we definitely made enough money. We wanted to give the money to Haiti, but we actually gave the money from those shows to the Albert Schweitzer hospital. Then we took off and recorded “Neon Bible” and at that time we learned about PIH. The original question is why do stuff for Haiti? There’s the Régine connection there and it’s a place in dire need of help. They’re just very good at what they do. They’re a very progressive organization.

Are you overwhelmed with the band’s success or do you see it as a platform to reach more people?

I don’t think we’re overwhelmed with our success; we weren’t expecting it or anything. Basically in our case, talent times intelligence times the work we’ve done has equaled the success we’ve gotten, which is not that common in this world. When it does happen, it feels appropriate: “Oh, I pushed, and the boulder moved as far as I pushed it and I hope it doesn’t roll back and crush me,” which is what happens to a lot of bands. We’re very thankful that the boulder hasn’t rolled back and crushed us. We’re definitely trying to move the boulder.

How far would you like to take the band?

None of us want to be famous. Famous is actually really annoying in terms of being recognizable as people. It seems like it’s not that fun, but we obviously want as many as people as possible to hear our music. We’re proud of it because it’s good.

Was it always objective of the band to be socially aware?

We all really loved the Clash. Their work evolved with the world around them. It’s more about being engaged with the world around you and writing about all facets of things. I don’t think there was a band meeting about it. The world is very complex and we try not to oversimplify things with our descriptions of them, which I guess makes us slightly less punk rock.

Would you say Arcade Fire is this generation’s Bono?

Isn’t Bono this generation’s Bono? I mean, when we perform, we say we usually want a dollar per ticket going to PIH. We say thank you for that. We try to leave art out of it a little bit. We do write songs about Haiti and stuff like that but we try to draw a line a little bit between our work with PIH and the artistic side of things. In our personal lives, we help out. We have volunteers at the shows giving out information. We try to keep them a little bit separate because I think if they get too entwined, it can hurt the artistic process. Once we start making that album then I think we’re getting a little more preachy.

Do you think the band’s made difference through the charity work?

Yeah, I think PIH has made a really huge difference not just in Haiti but worldwide. Not even just through the work they do but also the model they’ve created of treating poor people like normal human beings. The fact that worked, the fact that they could treat TB that way, I think opens a lot of eyes. We’re definitely helping PIH. The money is important but even without us people were starting to get excited about PIH. I think we’ve helped snowball that a little bit. We’ve definitely added weight to that snowball.

You’re touring Europe through the end of the year, then what’s next for the band?

We’re going to experiment this winter. We’re not quite sure what we’re doing in February, but January and March we’ll probably be off. We’ve never successfully written or done anything really in a middle of a touring cycle. We’re going to see if we can maybe get into a different rhythm besides the tour, tour, tour, rest, rest, rest, tour, tour, tour, rest, rest, rest. We’re going to see if we can intertwine them a little bit. We’ll definitely be touring next spring because the weather will be nicer to drive around in the springtime than the winter.
Will Butler speaks at Northwestern tonight and he and the Arcade Fire will perform on “SNL” on Nov. 13. 

source : http://blogs.wsj.com/