Arcade Fire have revealed that seminal Oxford group Radiohead were an important early inspiration.
Emerging from Canada, Arcade Fire always seemed huge in scope and ambition. Whereas most indie groups prefer to dabble with obtuse imagery in front of a limited audience, Arcade Fire seemed concerned with the world at large.
Returning with their third album ‘The Suburbs’ the band are on fighting form. A vast statement, ‘The Suburbs’ won critical acclaim and has already been hailed as one of the year’s finest albums.
Speaking to Pitchfork, the band revealed that Radiohead were an important early inspiration. “The original stuff that got me excited about music was Björk and Radiohead and the weirder spectrum of the bands that were popular and on MTV. Radiohead weren’t small in their focus. It definitely seemed like they were talking about the world at large” insisted Will Butler.
“I think the first indie music I heard was Neutral Milk Hotel and the Music Tapes, who were both Elephant 6 bands on Merge.”
Continuing, Win Butler revealed that he grew up working in a record store. However the prevailing indie scene left him cold. “When I was living in Boston I worked in this store that played the college radio station. I had to listen to it all day, and I didn’t care for most of it” he explained.
“But I remember the songwriting that really connected with me, like Magnetic Fields and Neutral Milk Hotel and early Conor Oberst.”
“To me, it was more about the intent rather than the sound, because I think a lot of Magnetic Fields or Neutral Milk Hotel or even some Superchunk songs would sound great sung by Taylor Swift with slick Nashville production. A song’s a song.”
Arcade Fire are set to return to the UK in December for a series of sold out arena tour dates. The shows include:
December
1 London O2 Arena
8 Birmingham LG Arena
9 Cardiff Arena
11 Manchester Central
12 Glasgow SECC
