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\u201cWe really tried to just make something real,\u201d Butler said during an interview in the small, cluttered green room at Amoeba Music before he joined the cast of the show for a brief in-store performance. \u201cThis is three hours of what it\u2019s like to make a record.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is it ever. There is something inherently combustible about being in a band. (Full disclosure: I played in a semi-popular indie band for a decade, which imploded with huge amounts of drama right on cue. I know at least a dozen other groups that have unraveled in similar fashion.) Despite, or rather because of, Arcade Fire\u2019s massive popularity, Butler knows the crash-and-burn nature of being in a band. He joined Arcade Fire after one of its original members quit in the middle of an encore following a fight with the lead singer \u2014 Butler\u2019s older brother, Win Butler.<\/p>\n
Will Butler left Arcade Fire at the end of 2021, saying at the time that the decision came about organically. \u201cThere was no acute reason beyond that I\u2019ve changed \u2014 and the band has changed \u2014 over the last almost 20 years. Time for new things,\u201d he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
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Will Butler performs at Amoeba Music with Claire DeJean and the stars of the Broadway tour of \u201cStereophonic,\u201d which follows the rise of a struggling 1970s rock band. <\/p>\n
(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cStereophonic\u201d was one of those new things, and Butler has brought his understanding of volatile band dynamics to bear in his work on the show, as well as his thoughts on the fragile, ephemeral nature of recording in a studio.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a little booth, and you go into the booth and you lose your mind,\u201d Butler said of the experience of laying down a track. \u201cAnd you exit the booth and you\u2019re just a boring human.\u201d<\/p>\n
The boring \u2014 and boorish \u2014 parts of that humanity are on display in \u201cStereophonic,\u201d where there is more control room conflict than actual music making. This also feels true to form. Romances blossom and bottom out in spectacular fashion. Drugs are consumed in copious amounts \u2014 particularly cocaine. This is 1976, after all. The long-suffering recording engineer reaches his breaking point after becoming totally fed up with the band\u2019s self-absorbed, self-destructive behavior.<\/p>\n
Human beings weren\u2019t meant to create art in this particular kind of pressure cooker. Until they do. There is a moment in the making of every great song when each musician becomes part of the whole during the act of recording, and the band\u2019s genius is temporarily realized. The song can\u2019t be made by any one member \u2014 it can only come from the spontaneous transcendence of the group.<\/p>\n
This moment happens in \u201cStereophonic\u201d after a truly frustrating number of stops and starts, when the group plays a song so beautifully that the theater erupts in effusive applause. This is why the band stays together despite its constant feuding \u2014 and why the audience has come.<\/p>\n
![\"Musicians](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765974915_358_\")
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\u201cWe really tried to just make something real,\u201d Will Butler said of \u201cStereophonic.\u201d \u201cThis is three hours of what it\u2019s like to make a record.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe music in this show has to crack open the world because it\u2019s so much talking and it\u2019s so much sitting around,\u201d Butler said. \u201cAnd then when they play music, you have to instantly realize why they\u2019re together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butler first met playwright David Adjmi and heard his idea for the show in 2014. Butler was intrigued, but had to wait for the script before he could work on the music in earnest. The songs needed to fit into the script like puzzle pieces, Butler said. Sometimes he needed to write a whole song and other times he needed to focus on composing the first 30 seconds of a song \u2014 which would be heard on repeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then we cast it, and now the music exists in a different way,\u201d Butler said, noting that the music changes with every new cast. A cast \u2014 like a band \u2014 has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. No rhythm section is ever the same. You know John Bonham\u2019s tom fills when you hear them, just as you can immediately recognize the sound of Ringo Starr\u2019s hi-hats.<\/p>\n
![\"Musicians](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765974916_43_\")
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None of the actors in the national tour cast of \u201cStereophonic\u201d \u2014 except for the drummer \u2014 are trained musicians.<\/p>\n
(Julieta Cervantes)<\/p>\n
The whole process of constructing \u201cStereophonic\u201d as a play is very meta \u2014 with Butler producing the band that is in turn producing itself onstage in the studio. During the course of the show, one of the songs is actually recorded live and played back from the control room. It is slightly different each time, in ways both meaningful and incidental. Just like in real life.<\/p>\n
The in-store performance at Amoeba, however, is wildly different from what happens onstage at the Pantages. The cast members are not \u2014 with the exception of the drummer \u2014 trained musicians, and stripped of the confidence that comes with costumes and a set, they appear somewhat vulnerable in the process. <\/p>\n
This is in stark contrast to Butler, who displays all the verve and conviction of a bona fide rock star. The cast will do the same across the street later that night. For the moment, however, Butler is showing them just how it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The singer of the band lights up a cigarette and smoke drifts into the theater. Ditto for the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":453214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[207932,26949,1582,276,25377,56718,2961,224,5337,5349,975,5996,187691,4370,19514,207931,17823,6620,207933,207930],"class_list":{"0":"post-453213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-arcade-fire","9":"tag-band","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-cast","13":"tag-cue","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-moment","18":"tag-music","19":"tag-part","20":"tag-rock-band","21":"tag-show","22":"tag-song","23":"tag-stereophonic","24":"tag-thing","25":"tag-time","26":"tag-volatile-band","27":"tag-will-butler"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115734940098938197","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}