RICHARD PARRY Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalist and fold-out bicycle enthusiast, talks to EOIN BUTLER
Congratulations, first of all, on your recent performance at Coachella. Was it as exciting as it looked on YouTube? We’ve played there several times now and, yes, it is definitely one of the best festivals in the world. It’s just a beautiful setting in California and, unlike some of the more corporate events out there, this one is very much about the music. So that always makes for an amazing environment in which to play our songs.
Your last album went to number one on both sides of the Atlantic. Kanye West’s didn’t. Did you demand the biggest dressing room? No. We celebrated when The Suburbs went to number one, for sure. But we have a very modest lifestyle. We’re not remotely bling. We’re not a big drinking or drug-taking crew either. We were raised very puritanically. So it’s all rather tame by rock’n’roll standards.
The summer festival circuit kicks off in earnest in June, I think. That’s right. We have another month of regular touring ahead of us, with a stop-off at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, which I’m very much looking forward to. Then once June and July hit, it becomes a proper festival tour. So we’re bracing ourselves for that.
Green fields, warm beer, good music . . . It all sounds idyllic, until I look at your itinerary. You’re playing something like 60 dates. It’s an epic undertaking, no doubt about it. But we have a policy of never playing more than three shows in a row. That’s our limit for this band. We give it our all every night so we’d probably burn out if we did any more.
The band are returning to Electric Picnic in Ireland this year. Do you remember the last time you played there, in 2005? Very, very well. I mean, we’ve always loved playing Ireland. This band has got a weird crush on the Irish as a people and a culture. But that show at Electric Picnic in 2005 was very special indeed. It was just some strange convergence of magic. It was as though the audience decided to have the best time ever, at the very same moment that we decided to give the best performance ever. And we both just met. Afterwards our tour manager just said: “Wow, that was it. That was the show.”
On return visits, you’ve opted to play Oxegen instead. Why return to the Electric Picnic this year? I don’t know. We played Oxegen previous years, so I guess it was a case of “we’ve done one, let’s do the other”. Certainly, I can tell you we’ve tended to have better weather at Electric Picnic – even though it’s held in September. But that’s such a random thing. You can’t really read anything into that.
Who have you bumped into on this tour that you’ve been most thrilled to meet? I’m going to risk offending all the people I have bumped into and say Mark Hollis, the singer from Talk Talk. Unfortunately, we haven’t actually met each other yet. He was supposed to come and see us in London at Christmas, but there was a snowstorm and he bailed on us. We have a date to meet him for tea sometime soon.
What non-musical gadget or appliance do you most treasure on the road? There is a classical guitar I take on tour with me, which I don’t ever use on stage. I play it by myself when I have some downtime. But you did specify something non-musical, so I’ll have to say my fold-out bike. I’ve only recently started to take it on tour with me. The thing you crave the most in that environment is peace and quiet and tranquillity. Getting out into the woods, away from everything. You really can go crazy otherwise. So that bike has saved my life a couple of times already.
Finally, it’s going to be a long summer. Are you looking forward to it? Yes, we’ll be winging it across Europe going from festival to festival. And while there are lots of individual cities I’m looking forward to playing along the way, I’ll be honest: I’ll probably be happiest when it’s all done. Electric Picnic is the very last date of our entire European touring schedule for this summer. We’re going out there for a week and we’re really looking forward to it. It’s going to be a fun week.
