An audience with Arcade Fire

When I shook Win Butler's hand, it felt freezing and he smelled of whale oil. 'Do you doubt me now?' he asked me.

I could've never anticipated these events. When I first contacted Arcade Fire to write about them for the Goodnight To The Rock'n'Roll Era music encyclopedia, I got a swift one word email reply: 'No.' And that was that, I thought. Wrong. Over the next few hours I received informational emails from Greenpeace, Médecins sans Frontières, an invitation to join the Mars mission, pamphlets about the benefits of bamboo housing and something called the First World Is At War-gazette. Deep in the night, a personal message from Win's brother, Rhett, arrived.

Human,
Win says: Encyclopedia cannot contain Arcade Fire.

I took the bait. 'Hello Rhett,' I replied, 'maybe not the full meaning of what your band represents, but even the Renaissance eventually acquiesced to being included in encyclopedias.
Mere minutes passed: 'History is written in blood.'
'I guess, but this is for a digital publication. I'm not even printing it.'
That was it. The next morning I found an email from the College of Alternative Calligraphy promoting a new pen which writes in tree juice, but no reply.

Until the letter came. The green moisture had eaten the page and it stunk something awful, but it said: 'If you will not listen, you must see'. It invited me to visit the band at their Montreal HQ. I was stunned, but it now seems in keeping with the band's big-hearted ethos: They won't give you what you need, but they'll pull out all the stops to force you into something you'll never know if you're happy to get.

Two days later my taxi arrived in front of the Arcade Fire's New World Center of Free-Losophy HQ. The driver had warned me he wouldn't wait and indeed, he tossed me out and hit the gas. The New World Center is an imposing structure – half Greek temple, half neon-lit Vegas strip. The size of it is immense, a small village which rests uneasily between the local shops on either side, a candle maker and a horse-smith. That's Canada for you. In the main entry hall -empty, white- I met Rhett. Rhett would be my guide and constant companion these next few days.

Rhett is a small pudgy man. Truth be told, you wonder if his band uniform shouldn't have been ordered a little bigger ('It's how Win motivates me', he explains). You may have seen him. Rhett doesn't actually play any music, but he's always busy on stage – wearing his fire helmet and feeding his squirrels – he offers a rich commentary on the Arcade Fire live show while it happens. My first question to him is how he came up with it.

'Oh, you know,' he says, 'Win's my little brother. He's got the gift of a prophet. He can fire people right up. I didn't always get it, and when we used to hang out, I tried to calm them down, you know. I didn't see what was happening. So I became the Fireman, always rushing to extinguish fires that should burn. And now I'm still the Fireman, you know. I'll always be the Fireman.'

'What about the squirrels?'
'That was my idea. I just like 'em.'

Rhett assured me I should feel very lucky. 'Louis Theroux asked to visit us, but they wouldn't let him in. You're lucky. You might even get to meet him.'
'I'd like that,' I reply.
'Of course you would.'
'What about Régine Chassange [Win's wife and joint singer, often called the soul of the band]? Is she here?'
'She's...uhm...well, I don't know, it's a big place.'
It sure is a big place – I ask him if they live nearby and if they come here every day. Rhett interrupts me. 'We don't live anywhere else. The New World is our Ark. This place is who we are.'

To explain to me more fully what the New World Center of Free-Losophy represents, Rhett escorts me to the big conference room. He calls it The Suburbs, as in 'They'll tell you everything in the suburbs.' I follow. As I'm sitting down, Rhett hurriedly exits. 'Oh right, you know all this already. Must be boring for you.' He blanches. '...I'm not supposed to hear it. Maybe someday.' And he's off. From the far end of the room a pack of seriously suited business types approaches. They've got plans and graphs with them – I get nervous already. To break the ice, I ask if they have conference rooms named after all of the band's albums. Nervous laughter and sideways glances. The spokeswoman answers, 'They're for internal use only. If we had them.'

The next hour is a blur. It starts with questions. 'Have you ever made the wrong decision? Don't you want someone to decide for you?' I see pictures of car crashes, tumors, child soldiers, Bono with blood dripping out of his eyes. The wreckage of the 20th century. I see the coming of Win Butler, all passion and commitment. He builds the New World center out of the rubble of war scarred Montreal. He knows us all, he knows our destiny. I see pictures of Win buying a candle at the candleshop. He's getting horseshoes for his pony. His Ark is open to us all. Charts and graphs indicate the importance of bringing the masses on board. They've got a graph of the level of confusion conocertgoers feel after witnessing a typical Neon Bible tour show. There's a graph showing 85% of the audience is ready to accept Win Butler as the new Messiah after witnessing an Arcade Fire show. They've got another graph showing 95% of the audience is ready to accept Win Butler as the new Messiah if they've seen a man feeding squirrels on stage standing next to him.

'I thought it was Rhett's idea.'
'Only Win has ideas.'

There are slides showing the Louvre replaced by a New World Center of Free-Losophy, the Colloseum, a New World Center in Dubai, in Moscow... The message is Free-Losophy – he'll tell us when we're ready.

I'm ready to pack in this encyclopdedia-gig! But I blink my eyes and it's over. Do I want to see the studio? Sure. 'What about Régine? Can I meet her?' I ask. Nervous glances again. 'She's in the attic a lot...'

The musicians in Arcade Fire practice in an all-white room without windows. Two large posters hang in front of them. One is a portrait of Win wearing the crown of thorns, little drops of blood dripping down and mixing with his tears. The second is a slogan: 'There are no musicians in Arcade Fire.' 'We live for Win's vision,' they explain. None of us should ever develop an individual playing style. You know how you sometimes have musicians, they play a couple of notes, and you go, it's him!?... We don't do that. We're all about the Free-Losophy.' I ask 'em what they're playing today. 'Today we'll be playing an F# to D pattern until we get the call we're no longer needed.'
'Right...'
'The music is piped straight into Win's living quarters and hopefully it'll inspire him to formulate more answers for humanity.'
'Okay.'
'If he gets fired up, he might go down to the whale.'
'To the whale?'
'He wants something different for the new album, so he injects himself into the bladder of a whale. He punches the whale and makes the whale moan in time with our pattern.'
'The F# to D pattern?'
'Yes...it's just one of his experiments. We keep the whale in semi-frozen sleep in the basement. Keeping it local.'
'Look,' I say, 'no offence, but the idea that you're keeping a whale in semi-frozen state in the basement of a Free-Losophy Center jammed between a candle shop and a horse-smith in upstate Montreal seems pretty farfetched. Can I see the whale?'
'No one can see the whale, only Win.'
'Have you seen the whale?'
'No one can see the whale, only Win.'
'And he injects himself into the whale and plays it like a musical instrument?'
'He does.'
'I just can't believe it.'

Walking out of the rehearsal space, Rhett is nowhere to be found. I don't mind. I get the feeling I'd like to get lost inside this Center – see what's not on the tour. But it all looks pretty much the same, empty corridors,of white doors to offices. No secret labs, no 'Funeral' conference rooms, no whale freezer. I truly am lost when I bump into Cousin Jed (though he claims no relation to the Butlers, it's just his nickname). Seemingly the only person I've met so far who's not busy, busy, busy. He loafs through the hallway, sits down on a comfy cushion -white- and looks like a man denied a cigarette.

I introduce myself and he immediately bursts out: 'Oh man, get out quick. Don't stay the night and you might still make it.'
'I imagine you can walk out of here anytime you feel like it.'
'You imagine, huh?'
'You can't?'
'It's not that simple, little man. It's not can or can't, it's Win or won't. It's not in the realm of possibility.'
'Are they going to stop you if you walk out of here?'
'No...no, I don't think so. But there are things they can do.'
'Things Arcade Fire do to people who leave?'
'Arcade Fire? Those dudes are just as trapped as me.'
'So how did you end up here?'
He shrugs. 'Win's helping me with that. I make my mind up too fast and I make bad decisions.'
'You decided too fast?'
'I just saw Free-Lo... and I was in.'
'Oh right,' I'm getting curious myself, 'Is there any free love here?'
He looks at me incredulously. 'We don't even get to see Régine with her clothes on.'
'Okay, yeah, I noticed. She doesn't seem available to meet visitors.'
'She's in the attic, man.'
'Right.'

'Now look, you seem like a nice little man. Can you help me out?'
'Sure, you need a cigarette?'
'No way, man, cancer sticks! Can you get me a Glen Campbell record?'
'A Glen Campbell record? A specific one? Cause I can try but Belgium isn't the hot bed for second hand...'
'No man,' he hushes me with his hand, 'any Glen Campbell record. They're not allowed here, but I love the dude. Wichita Lineman still on the liiiine – yeah...'
'You can't have a Glen Campbell record?'
'U-uh, Win's got this thing. Says he looks too much like him. I think he's just jealous cause Glen's way prettier than him, you know? The Rhinestone cowboy, dude.'
'Yeah, I know him. So he looks like Win Butler?'
'He did...but you won't hear from him much longer. Win told us, see, nothing against the man, but there can't be two people who look like Win Butler on the stage – So he fixed that.'
'No man, Campbell's got Alzheimer's.'
He looks at me intently.
'Win Butler gave Glen Campbell Alzheimer's?'
'I didn't say it.'
'But that's impossible.'
'If you say so, dude.'
'That's crazy.'
'Look, there's more stuff like that. I mean, do you really believe David Bowie went into retirement?'
'But he did.'
'Ha, of course, he can't very well record from the cellar.'
'David Bowie's in the cellar?'
'That's not all, man. Strange things going on. There's weird moaning in the halls.'
Finally, I'm ahead of him there. 'It may be the whale.'
'Fuck man, you think I don't know what a whale moaning sounds like? We go to sleep to the sound of the whale crying here. That ain't it. There's more...'

Just then Rhett interrupts us with a curt 'Jed, you've got work to do.'
He half-whispers 'Hey, won't you remember, little man, right?' and he shuffles off.
Rhett looks down at me.
'I got lost,' I offer.
'Let's not do it again, right. Now hurry, hurry, Win wants to see you.'
I'm almost bowled over. 'He wants to see me?'
'Yeah, encyclopedia guy, come on. He doesn't wait.'
And so I'm ushered into the presence of the great man – and I mean great literally, he looks like an oak tree dressed in Mormon clothes. I wonder how he can even fit inside a whale's bladder. He shakes my hand. I feel the coldness of his skin. I smell the whale oil, and he asks 'Do you doubt me now?'
I don't know what to say.
I stammer, 'Why a whale?'
And he explains. It's not the whale per se, it's the possibilities, the transformation. Like on their new single 'Pupils of the Win', they have David Bowie duetting with the whale on backing vocals. Cause whales used to be land mammals but they reverted to the sea. And David Bowie used to be a reptile but now he's human. And Win used to be human but now he is the new Messiah. It all ties together.

Listening to his tremulous, passionately quavering voice is like having your critical faculties sedated. One by one your defenses fall and you soak up the Win.
'So, any more questions?' he offers.
I try to remember the questions I prepared. No luck.
Finally, I stumble into a half-question. 'So, on your first album – it's about the death of your grandparents, you've said. The record's dedication... And, I mean, I'm wondering, of course most people go through the death of their grandparents, right. It's sad, but it's the way of nature, I guess. It doesn't seem as tragic as when, you know, famous popstars who lost their mothers and so on. Are you saying we should pay more attention to these thing, like life's eventualities. That life itself is mired in tragedy?...'

You have to know he stares into my soul all the while, examining my intentions. Then he snaps up. 'Encyclopedia guy, I don't care about anyone's grandma. They're like flies in the web of life. But 'Funeral' is about a historical paradox. You see, when my grandmother passed, it was the passing of a great woman. The grandmother of Win Butler! But it was her passing which unlocked in me the gift of prophecy. The theme of her passing brought me on the world's stage and that's what allowed me to set up the New World Center of Free-Losophy and so we will bring the New World into being and I will achieve my greatness. So, the events which made her passing so momentous to the world were set in motion by her passing. Do you see the importance? Do you see the paradox?'

I'm getting uncomfortable. Fortunately his time is up. 'Spread the word,' he says, 'Your heart is convinced. Now let your heart convince your mind.' I just barely remember to ask him if I can meet Régine. 'I'm afraid she's on another plane;' And he's off.

Rhett wants to talk me through the schedule for the coming days, but something inside me protest. I know Cousin Jed's right.
'Look, Rhett, I'm sorry, I'm leaving. I can't stay.'
I take big steps through the corridors. Fortunately I know my way in this part of the Center. Rhett hurries after me. He protest, but I see something inside him is relieved to see me go. Good old Fireman Rhett. 'Sorry, Rhett,' I cut him off, 'It's just impossible.'
'OK, encyclopedia guy, remember to check out at the desk.'
I stop at the desk. They hand me back my luggage. 'Do you have any parting message for Win, sir?'
'Yeah, tell him Glen Campbell's better looking than him.'
'Sir?'
I'm outside already.

Is there a presence behind one of the top floor windows watching me go or do I just imagine it? I have to walk a long time to find a cab, and it's worth it.

Post-script:
Three weeks later the news tells me a large building in Montreal collapsed. They found a dead whale under the debris. The owners of the site were on tour as the incident occured.
Two weeks after that, David Bowie announces his new album.