It was a year ago today that Pitchfork first published their exposé on Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler, who had been accused of sexual misconduct by four different people throughout the 2010s. Butler’s response at the time was to offer Pitchfork a list of women with whom he’d had entirely consensual encounters, apologize multiple times, blame “a period of drinking and depression,” and quote his own wife as saying, “He has lost his way, and he has found his way back.”

In the year since, a fifth person has come forward against Butler, singer Leslie Feist dropped out of a tour opening for Arcade Fire due to the accusations, and the Juno awards in Canada came under fire for allowing the band to be nominated while these allegations remained unresolved. Even in the absolute best case scenario–that is, even if Butler’s version of events can somehow be proven to be most accurate–the fact remains that Butler is now known to have repeatedly cheated on wife, band co-founder Régine Chassagne, and thus needlessly marred one of the most iconic marriages in Indie-Rock.^[1]This would be like if Alan Sparhawk had ever cheated on Mimi Parker–which you know coming from me is serious business.

As the Pitchfork article itself noted, Arcade Fire wasn’t just another rock band, but one of the feel-good stories of the era: the quirky little band from Montreal that could, who helped spearhead the Indie-Rock renaissance of the mid-2000s; who eschewed Gen X-era irony and detachment for heart-on-sleeve earnestness and uplift; who never compromised their principles, donated to charity, and only licensed their songs to the NFL in order to fund-raise Haitian earthquake relief efforts; and who finished out the decade with a validating Grammy for Album of the Year. These allegations are so depressing, then, because Win Butler wasn’t just another stupid cock-rocker whose sexcapades were taken as a given, no–he was supposed to be better than that, he was supposed to stand for something.

Tale as old as time, apparently: At a certain point, Butler got carried away by the adulation, began to believe his own hype, drank his own Kool-Aid, and “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion”^[2]D&C 121:39 and so on and so forth.

So on one hand, you do with Win Butler the same thing you also do with John Lennon, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jim Morrison, Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Woody Allen, Kanye West, Lizzo, Louis CK, Bill Cosby, Mel Gibson, John Mulaney, Pablo Picasso, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and every other artist who turns out to be a massive asshole^[3]And I mean “asshole” in both its older meaning to be an idiot, and its more contemporary usage to signify someone selfish and cruel–both of which apply to Butler’s behavior … Continue reading behind the scenes: separate the art from the artist, remember to never meet your heroes, to never, in fact, have heroes in the first place. Inevitably, everyone must make the decision for themselves for if/when an artist’s personal life finally makes it too hard to enjoy their art.

Such, in fact, might be a good segue into revisiting the Mormon connections to Arcade Fire.

Win Butler, recall, had been raised LDS in suburban Texas, before running away to Montreal to start one of the premier Indie-bands of the 2000s. I had once catalogued all the LDS allusions I could identify in Arcade Fire’s lyrics for a paper I presented at the Association of Mormon Letters (later published on AML‘s website in 2018); I had even reviewed their most recent album WE for this very site^[4]At the time, I merely dismissed it as “Arcade Fire’s EFY album”., only a few short months before the Pitchfork exposé dropped. It was through my dalliances with Arcade Fire/LDS studies that I became aware of how important this band is to the burgeoning community of ex-Mormons out there–they were something aspirational, who seemed to prove that it was possible to not only survive but thrive outside the Church, to even forge something transcendent and beautiful out of the crucible of religious doubt.

I also became concurrently aware through personal conversations^[5]Including with a Law student I hometaught in Iowa City, and the daughter of a General Authority who married my atheist roommate in Salt Lake City. that many people really have left the Church not because they wanted to sin or whatever^[6]As many of the Orthodox have tried to reassure themselves, but because they were genuinely bothered to learn about the conduct of our religion’s founders–e.g. how Joseph Smith lied about practicing polygamy to Emma, and how young many of those early polygamist wives were, and all the innate power imbalances that those relationships entailed, and etc. Their “shelf broke,” they became disillusioned with the Church, and walked away. These allegations especially distressed them because Joseph Smith wasn’t just another itinerant preacher, but a Prophet of God; he was supposed to be better than that, he was supposed to stand for something.

It is not lost on me that Win Butler now stands accused of some of the same behavior that drove so many of his ex-Mormon fans from the Church in the first place.

Not that the similarities are exact, of course. Win Butler, even at his most arrogant, preachy, Rock Star messianic, has never once claimed to be an actual Prophet of God. He did not seek these extra-monogamous relationships out of some supposed divine mandate, but solely due to “a period of drinking and depression.” To paraphrase Patti Smith, Win Butler’s sins are his own, they belong to him, not anyone else. But then, it is also worth noting that Joseph Smith, even at his most prophetic, never once claimed to be righteous^[7]“I do not want you to think that I’m very righteous, for I am not. There was one good man, and his name was Jesus.” or infallible^[8]“A Prophet is not always a Prophet, only when he is acting as such.” either.

And here I must needs be careful: I am neither trying to use Win Butler to excuse or condemn Joseph Smith, nor Joseph Smith to excuse or condemn Win Butler. Rather, I’d merely like to interrogate for a moment wherever you fall on the believing spectrum (presuming you are also an Arcade Fire fan): if you are among the orthodox faithful who are (understandably) disgusted and disenchanted by Win Butler’s infidelities, how do you respond in turn to Joseph, Emma, Fanny Alger, and more? Do you condemn the latter, or excuse Joseph Smith due to mitigating circumstances, or cling to the good he also did instead? Do you separate the man from the mission, the founder from the Church, the Holy Spirit from fallen man–the art from the artist, in other words? Will you do the same with Win Butler–or are they categorically different, since one was purportedly a prophet of God, the other a mere musician? I’m not asking rhetorically.

Conversely, if you (understandably) left the Church due to Joseph Smith’s actions, does this in turn also mark the end of your Arcade Fire fandom? If so, what other artists do you cease listening to now (remembering that the purported immorality of Pop stars is how our Sunday School and seminary teachers tried to guilt us out of listening to Rock and Hip-Hop when we were young)? Or would you consider that unfair to the achievements of the rest of his band–including his own wife Régine, who is apparently still trying to make her marriage work with him? Could you say the same about the rest of the Church? Or do you simply, as noted earlier, separate the man from the music, the art from the artist? Is it possible to do the same with Joseph Smith–or are they categorically different, since one claimed to be a prophet of God, the other a mere musician? Again, I’m not asking rhetorically.

I’m still not sure where I fall with either of these men. I admit it’s been harder to listen to Arcade Fire lately (although I at least have an ethical reason now, I guess, for why I overwhelmingly prefer only their first two albums), but I have definitely excused Joseph Smith for more, and I am still attending Church today. I also swear that I am not trying to moralize or lecture anyone on how to think about these men, one way or the other, only that you think about them. Perhaps this is why Christ said to judge not, to forgive seventy-times-seven, to forgive us our debts, how unless we repent we will all likewise perish, and etc. These are also all questions we can only answer for ourselves, on a case-by-case basis.