Arcade Fire's Win Butler Is a Jock, Bandmate Says

Arcade Fire lead singer Win Butler has won Grammy, Juno, Brit and Polaris awards and played his soaring indie rock to sold-out arenas around the world. Apparently, he can play basketball way better than you, too.

As Colin Stetson, the touring saxophonist for Arcade Fire, can attest, both Win and his brother Will play a mean game of hoops.

"Those dudes," Stetson starts, "Win in particular, is not only good at the game, but he's competitive as s---, and you will be battered when you go up against that dude. Especially if you're almost a foot shorter than him."

"He's not a dirty player, but he knows the game," he added. "He's great."

Stetson should be able to spot a not-so-secret jock when he sees one. The sax player's no slouch himself when it comes to staying in fighting shape. In order to execute the musical gymnastics on his solo album 'New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges,' Stetson does a daily routine that involves an hour of breathing exercises, an hour and a half of yoga, plus running and up to four hours of practice.

Stetson says the Butler brothers' game has even been pro-approved.

"Those guys play all the time, and actually, one of our good friends, a yogi named Ryan Leier, went out on the road with them for a little while hanging and playing a lot of basketball," Stetson says. "He's an ex-pro basketball player turned yogi, so he was playing with them and he was like, 'Yeah man, those motherf-----s can play.'"

It's a good thing they can, because the Butlers have thrown down a b-ball challenge set to happen today (Sept. 24) as part of Pop Montreal, where they, along with the likes of Vampire Weekend's Chris Tomson, will post up against current and graduate players from the McGill Redman and Concordia Stingers university teams for charity.

Lest the university team thinks they're going to have it easy, Win Butler has been warning people that the musicians have been augmenting their squad.

"On the indie-rock team, there are a couple ringers," Win warned at a press conference for the Polaris Music Prize earlier this week. Matt Bonner of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs will be one of those ringers.

Along with the ball, there'll be performances by Kid Koala, Arcade Fire's Régine Chassagne doing arena-style organ bits, and the world premiere of Arcade Fire member Richard Reed Parry's bicycle symphony called DRONES/Revelations.

Parry's project sounds like it'll be unique.

"It's the half-time show of the charity basketball match," said Parry about DRONES. "I'm doing this installation piece where a whole bunch of cyclists will bike around in the dark with boomboxes strapped to the bikes."

"It's a song-cycle composition," he added.

For his part, Stetson doesn't think betting against the Butlers would be a good idea.

"They travel with a basketball hoop," says Stetson. "They're constantly playing. That and ping-pong. They're really f------ good at ping-pong, too."

Watch the Video for Arcade Fire's 'Ready to Start'

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