This month, Arcade Fire celebrates the 10th anniversary of their landmark debut album, Funeral. To mark the occasion, French music publication DumDum has penned an extensive 9,000 word oral history on the album, which includes exclusive photos and interviews with AF members Win Butler, Richard Reed Perry, and Owen Pallett, along with Superchunk member and Merge Records founder Mac McCaughan, Wolf Parade’s Dan Boecker, and many others.

DumDum plans to publish an English version of the oral history in the near future. In the interim, they’ve provided us with 13 tidbits about the band and the album that you probably didn’t know.



1. Arcade Fire almost renamed itself The Visions

Brendan Reed (former band member): I remember Win, Richard and Régine went to this somewhat religious retreat that Josh Deu’s family ran in New Hampshire. It was after the recording of our EP in Maine. When they got back, they seemed to have sharpened their vision of the future, or have some new toolset to achieve the vision. They actually talked about changing the band name to The Visions, we talked about many names, wolf names, scary names…