Phillips Exeter) and project different personas
(Springsteen fronts the world’s best-paid bar
band; Butler and crew can come off as austere and
vaguely Amish), there is a natural kinship. When
Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible was released in March,
much of the praise cited “Keep the Car Running,”
“Intervention,” and “(Antichrist Television Blues)”
as exercises in Boss-worship, and though Butler is
quick to admit this is no coincidence, the strongest
parallels are not strictly musical. Both men front
large bands composed of friends and family, engi-
neered to operate insulated from and autonomous
of the vagaries of the industry. Of all the highly
touted acts to debut in the past few years, Arcade
Fire are perhaps the easiest to imagine still at it
in 30 years—hair thinner, waists thicker, but still
kinetic, even if Richard Reed Parry has to, as his
E Street counterpart Clarence Clemons now does,
take the occasional time-out on a stool, stage right.
Shoulders hunched in a black hoodie, blond
hair falling over his eyes, Butler not only doesn’t
seem austere or Amish, he doesn’t even seem 27.
Determined not to wear out their welcome—or
wear themselves out—Arcade Fire are winding
down after nine months of touring and will likely
spend chunks of 2008 writing and recording at their
studio, a converted church outside Montreal. “The
real test is finding your own life within the bubble of
shit,” Butler said at a Manhattan café before leaving
for Jersey. “The hard work we did last record to set
up that studio was so that the creative ebb and flow
of the band could happen in a natural way.” (He and
Chassagne will perform one more time this year on
North American soil—they just don’t know it yet.)
Butler met the Boss once before, at a Grammy
after-party in 2005, but wasn’t sure if Springsteen
would remember. He does. In fact, it is his interest
in speaking to Butler that brings us here today. I
am not interviewing so much as eavesdropping.
Standing sentry on a metal folding chair outside
Springsteen’s dressing room is a giant stuffed
panda, a tribute to Terry Magovern, Springsteen’s
longtime aide de camp, who died this summer.
The panda grants us safe passage, and as we sink

into the black leather sofas, Butler offers a gift of three books: George Orwell’s manifesto Why I Write, Cormac McCarthy’s postapocalyptic The Road, and Tracy Kidder’s inspirational Mountains Beyond Mountains. Springsteen leafs through the pages,

grateful and beaming. On a wardrobe rack against
the far wall hang black vests, black shirts, and black
jeans. “Think I’ll go with the black tonight,” he says.
Arcade Fire, from left: Régine Chassagne, Tim Kingsbury, Win Butler, Richard Reed Parry,
Will Butler, Sarah Neufeld, Jeremy Gara
>SPIN You both encountered a lot of hype very early in your careers. How do you
handle that sort of attention when you barely even know what you’re doing yet?

GROOMING FOR BU TLER BY SCO T T MCMAHON FOR AR TIS TS B Y TIMO TH Y PRIANO

>WIN BUTLER Having my wife [Chassagne] on the road and having the whole band around to share that experience made the noise a little less pervasive. We’re in our own world, putting songs out to people, and all that was coming from the outside world. It was almost like watching a movie. >BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN That’s true. When I was 24 or 25, I ended up on the cover of Time and Newsweek, which I found both thrilling and embarrassing simultaneously. Everybody had different responses—I remember [guitarist] Steve [Van Zandt] buying copies and handing them out by the pool at the Sunset Marquis. He was like, “This is the greatest, we’ve hit it!” And I was more like, “I’m going to go up to my room for a little while.” I think if I had been by myself, it would have been a lot tougher. Having the band there—knowing that ten years have gone by before this moment, knowing that tonight we’re gonna go out and do the same thing we did in Asbury Park for 150 people—provided an element of sanity. It’s the bargain you ask for, but at the same time, it’s nice to have your friends around you.

GROOMING FOR SPRINGS TEEN B Y MATEO AMBROSE FOR WARREN- TRICOMI MANAGEMEN T USING REDKEN;

Not only do you have your friends around you, both onstage and on the business
side, but your wives are in your bands. And Win’s brother Will is in Arcade
Fire. Does that extended-family construct make things easier or just raise the
potential for tension?

>BUTLER For us, the closest the band has ever come to not working was when we first made a leap and started to need people on the road in order to function. The first couple guitar techs were total lifers; we didn’t know any of these people, and we’re spending all this time with them on a bus, and it was like, “Who the fuck are we? This doesn’t have anything to do with why we play music.” Over the last few years, we’ve made it so a lot of the people we work with have personal relationships with us; we can really be in our own skin. That’s why we have so many women with us on the road—otherwise, it just turns into this weird, horrible dude party.