Latest Win Butler Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• There's an obligation to let people know where their money is going, so the tour has an educational aspect, mostly as a way to thank people. But the most practical use is to raise money and do the research to figure out the proper ways to spend it. You want to make sure that the money doesn't just go somewhere where it does more harm than good.

  Win Butler

  Educational, People, Obligation

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• It would get really alienating, to have my face be the face of a cause. So much just comes down to the songs. I just want to give us the opportunity to write great songs. Even our work in Haiti is limited by how good our songs are. We just need to get rid of as much of the bullshit as possible, so we can have a life, so we have something to write about.

  Win Butler

  Song, Writing, Opportunity

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Years ago, in order to stay sane, I had to really make an effort not to think about how people view us. There's just so much noise, positive and negative, and not much good comes out of thinking about it.

  Win Butler

  Thinking, People, Effort

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• In the UK, tons of records are now sold in grocery stores, because there are no record stores - it's iTunes or the grocery store. And almost every band that had an impact on me was on a major label. There's value in people actually hearing things, as well.

  Win Butler

  People, Values

  "Arcade Fire’s Band Aid for Haiti". Interview With Alan Light, www.motherjones.com. January/February 2011.

• Once I got to know what's been happening historically, it's pretty impossible to un-know it. Like right now, there's the outbreak of cholera in Haiti, and people see that as a news headline, but I know there's half a billion dollars of aid that one senator is putting a hold on, that the Red Cross has raised half a billion dollars but has only spent $200 million.

  Win Butler

  People, Impossible, Aids

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• If I was a cabinetmaker or a commercial fisherman, it would be the same question - how to connect to my world. The job we do affords us the opportunity to have people listen to what we say. But a lot of people have a similar situation: They're trying to find a way to do some good.

  Win Butler

  Opportunity, People, Trying

  "Arcade Fire’s Band Aid for Haiti". Interview With Alan Light, www.motherjones.com. January/February 2011.

• I always find live shows on film kind of boring. Even my favorite ones, I kinda zone out for most of it. It's just so different seeing a band in the flesh and then watching a film of it, even if you have a hundred cameras and it's shot from every angle. There's just a communal, visceral thing that never translates very well.

  Win Butler

  Different, Kind, Film

  Source: pitchfork.com

• Whenever you do anything or say anything, you're opening yourself up to criticism. But that's okay.

  Win Butler

  Criticism, Say Anything, Okay

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think when you've been in a band for a really long time, sometimes you don't appreciate what's good about yourself. It's easy to play something and get too focused on some small detail. It's helpful to have somebody around who can say, "No, that was good." Just so you don't get too lost or forget what you do. You need somebody you really trust who has great taste.

  Win Butler

  Thinking, Long, Appreciate

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Actual patriotism has to do with loving a place enough to try and improve it.

  Win Butler

  Trying, Enough

  Source: www.avclub.com

• There's the idea that you have to know how to solve the world's problems in order to feel that something is morally wrong. I'm always back and forth between optimism and depression about the situation.

  Win Butler

  Optimism, Problem, Situation

  Source: www.avclub.com

• A lot of stuff is dark in a way, but unless you're really looking at a situation for what it actually is, it's hard to be hopeful - or meaningless to be hopeful about it unless it's actually based in a real possibility.

  Win Butler

  Real, Dark, Hopeful

  Source: www.avclub.com

• There's this idea, particularly in pop music and a lot of these pop father/manager types, that you're selling the person instead of the song. You basically want to create something that the fans relate to because it's exactly like them. So there's a lot of art that's made to be in the image of the audience, but then the audience is imitating this version of themselves. It's a really weird cultural feedback loop, and it's kind of strange to watch. It's a new thing since I was a kid, really a different thing.

  Win Butler

  Song, Art, Father

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I studied scriptural interpretation, which is more about how people get meaning out of texts, looking at stuff in the Old Testament - Muslims, Christians, Jews, different interpretations of the same texts.

  Win Butler

  Christian, People, Different

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible. The thing that's always been interesting to me about religion is that compared to the more modern spirituality, the West Coast pseudo-Buddhist thing that people go for these days, actual Buddhism and Islam have been looking at these philosophical questions, at really hard questions, for a long time. There's a lot of stuff that philosophy doesn't talk about, and in the secular world, a lot of times, people don't talk about these ideas, and that was always really interesting for me.

  Win Butler

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Buddhism

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think you have to want to be really famous. It's a lot easier to sabotage your career than to have a career to sabotage.

  Win Butler

  Thinking, Careers, Want

  Source: pitchfork.com

• While there are so many beautiful Baroque churches and it's a beautiful artistic tradition, it almost gets hideous and grotesque if you push it further. You can take something beautiful and overdo it.

  Win Butler

  Beautiful, Church, Artistic

  "Arcade Fire". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. October 4, 2010.

• I just wanted to make something in the world and worry about the rest of it later and not get too caught up in rules.

  Win Butler

  Worry, World, Caught

  "Arcade Fire". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. October 4, 2010.

• A lot of artists write about the same things their whole career.

  Win Butler

  Writing, Artist, Careers

  "Arcade Fire". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. October 4, 2010.

• When I was living in Boston I worked in this store that played the college radio station. I had to listen to it all day, and I didn't care for most of it.

  Win Butler

  College, Boston, Care

  "Arcade Fire". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. October 4, 2010.

• I try not get too self-aware when writing lyrics.

  Win Butler

  Writing, Self, Trying

  "Arcade Fire". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. October 4, 2010.

• Major labels just lost their way. It's like the housing bubble. They lost a sense of the fundamentals.

  Win Butler

  Labels, Fundamentals, Way

  Source: pitchfork.com

• It seems like the record industry made so much crazy money in the 1960s that everyone wanted to get in on it. Now it's just become very corporate. So all of these people who despise music end up being in charge.

  Win Butler

  Crazy, People, Records

  "Arcade Fire". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. October 4, 2010.

• When I was younger, bands helped me connect to part of my humanity; bands that had nothing to do with anything political helped to form me. There's a correlation in that: If people can connect to music, maybe they can connect to each other.

  Win Butler

  People, Political, Humanity

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Songwriting is reliant on inspiration, which ideally you don't have that much control over. Songs kind of half make themselves, and then you have to finish them.

  Win Butler

  Song, Inspiration, Half

  Source: www.motherjones.com