Win Butler appeared on Zane Lowe’s Apple Music 1 show on Tuesday (May 3), where he talked about his work with Arcade Fire and the band’s forthcoming full-length WE. He also discussed the departure of Will Butler from the band, which the younger Butler announced in March. Watch the full interview below.
Arcade Fire returned with “The Lightning I, II” in mid-March, with Will Butler revealing his decision to leave the band two days later. Speaking with Lowe, Win Butler noted that his brother has three young children, and that the enterprise of Arcade Fire had subsumed him early on. “I think that there’s things other than music that he has interest in,” Win Butler said. “But I think fundamentally you only have one chance to raise your family and to kind of have a life with your family…I’m proud of him for doing his own thing.”
Though Will Butler appears on WE, he said that he left the group late last year after the album’s completion, and he did not join the group for their semi-surprise Coachella appearance. “There was no acute reason beyond that I’ve changed—and the band has changed—over the last almost 20 years. Time for new things,” Will Butler wrote in his departure statement on Twitter. He issued his third and most recent solo album, Generations, in 2020. Since releasing “The Lightning I, II,” Arcade Fire have shared “Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)” from WE. The rest of the album arrives later this week on May 6, with the band performing on Saturday Night Live the following evening.
