Arcade Fire was charging full steam ahead on a new album when proceedings were brought to an abrupt halt, thanks to a little virus called COVID-19.
“Arcade Fire was recording. Well, we were recording… But now our drummer is in Australia, two of us are in Canada, and the rest are in America,” the band’s Will Butler revealed to NME in a new interview. “Australia are having a crazy outbreak, the border to Canada is sealed right now… like, Jesus Christ. It takes more logistics to get together. It always took a certain amount of logistics, but right now it’s insurmountable.”
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The band was so deep in the creative process that Butler can’t really determine just how far along they actually were. “I’ll only know that when it’s done,” he said. “Like, ‘Oh, half of it came from before [lockdown],’ or ‘None of it came from before!’ Who knows.”
Ultimately, the global pandemic has had more of an effect on Arcade Fire than just physical proximity. The way Butler explains it, another obstacle is something many of us are very familiar with right now: “None of us quite have the file management skills for it to be creative at the moment.”
In the meantime, Will Butler is busily preparing his second solo album, Generations, which is set for release in September. For now, we have the first single, “Surrender.” Watch the video below.
