Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band led by Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, with Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury, and Jeremy Gara. Former core member Sarah Neufeld, as well as multi-instrumentalists Paul Beaubrun, Dan Boeckner, and Eric Heigle, are part of the band’s current touring lineup. Owen Pallett, the band’s songwriter, and violinist, contributes to each of the band’s studio albums.
Butler and Josh Deu founded the band in 2001 and rose to notoriety in 2004 with the publication of their critically acclaimed debut album Funeral. Their second studio album, Neon Bible, earned them the Meteor Music Award for Best International Album in 2008 as well as the Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year in 2008. The Suburbs, their third studio album, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim and commercial success. Several awards were bestowed upon it, including the 2011 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the 2011 Juno Award for Album of the Year, and the 2011 Brit Award for Best International Album. Arcade Fire released their fourth album, Reflektor, in 2013 and scored the feature picture Her, for which band members Will Butler and Owen Pallett received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score at the 86th Academy Awards. Everything Now, the band’s fifth studio album, was released in 2017, and We, their sixth studio album, was released in 2022.
Indie rock, art rock, dance rock, and baroque pop have all been used to define the band. They play guitar, drums, bass guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, keyboard, synthesizer, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin, and hurdy-gurdy, and take most of these instruments on tour.