Last year, Feist opened for two shows for Arcade Fire before exiting the tour in response to allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against the band’s frontman, Win Butler. Now, she’s opened up about her initial decision to stay on the tour, and her eventual choice to leave, in an interview The Irish Times.
Detailed report from Pitchfork reveals Butler’s extramarital affairs – where he used his power as a rock star in inappropriate ways with younger women – published August 27, 2022. Feist was scheduled to open for Arcade Fire in Ireland on August 30, and went along with performances After considering the money she had invested in getting her band across the Atlantic, as well as the possibility of trying out new songs for the public.
“I was having an out-of-body experience,” Feist recalls in the new interview. Not to mention I brought all these new songs. I thought, “Okay, maybe I’ll go do this tour and workshop on how to play these songs in a larger context.”
advertisement
Soon, though, she felt wrong with her initial strategy of “getting out of my head and getting over this.” “My body was just performing the songs,” she said, as opposed to normally performing in the usual way. She loved being on the tour because she was caught at a crime scene.
“I’m here,” she said. “That’s what I say. That’s what I do. It was kind of a crime scene stick.” [a device used to dust for finger prints]. You can put a stick and you can see the fingerprints.”
On September 1, Vest announced her exit from the tour through an Instagram post. “It took me until the second show where all the practical annoyance of having to take this crazy machine apart and fold it back up and lose what I had invested in being there,” she recalled. “The whole thing was made clear to me. I just couldn’t go on.”
advertisement
And the artist continued, “Actually, no… I can’t shirk my responsibility here.” Not to mention every word that came out of my mouth, I was hearing through an ear that wasn’t mine. I could hear how twisted and perverted it was… In the context they were in, the songs weren’t safe. And I wasn’t… It was just too hard.”
Read Feist’s full interview with The Irish Times here. Beck was scheduled to open for Arcade Fire on the North American leg of the same tour, but dropped the bill without comment weeks before the shows were due to begin.
next album by the artist, multitudes on April 14, and tickets for her North American private tour are now on sale via Stubhub.
advertisement
