Win Butler

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Win Butler
Win Butler performing live in 2007.
Win Butler performing live in 2007.
Background information
Birth name Edwin Farnham Butler III
Born April 14, 1980 (1980-04-14) (age 28)
Origin The Woodlands, Texas USA
Genre(s) Alternative rock, indie rock, art rock, baroque pop
Instrument(s) Vocals, Mandolin, guitar, keyboards, Bass
Years active 2000–present
Associated acts Arcade Fire

Win Butler (born April 14, 1980) is the Texas-born lead vocalist and songwriter of the Montreal-based indie rock band Arcade Fire. His wife Régine Chassagne and his brother William Butler are both members of the band.[1][2]

Born Edwin Farnham Butler III and raised in The Woodlands, Texas, Butler is the grandson of jazz guitarist Alvino Rey, a pioneer band leader whose career spanned eight decades. His grandmother, Luise, was a member of the King Sisters, who starred in a weekly variety program on ABC called The King Family Show. His mother, Liza, plays harp and sings.

At the age of 15, Butler started attending the Phillips Exeter Academy preparatory school in New Hampshire. There he played varsity basketball and club softball, and performed with several student bands, including Willy Wanker and the Chocolate Factories. He also worked with the administration to establish "Winter Thaw," in which students got a long weekend's worth of rest in the middle of typically cold, grueling New England winters. Butler was popular; a special section was allotted to him in Exeter's yearbook, which he filled with a poem about Exeter and a photograph of him clasping the hand of Principal Tyler C. Tingley. After graduation he studied photography and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College where he met teacher/author Eireann Corrigan with whom he formed a strong connection, but he left after a year.

Butler moved to Montreal in 2000 to attend McGill University, where he met his future wife, Régine Chassagne, whose family had relocated to Montreal after escaping the war in Haiti.

Butler participated in the 2005 UNICEF benefit project, "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?", along with his wife Régine.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

  • NY Times article that mentions Win Butler's slam poetry at Sarah Lawrence College.