Régine Alexandra Chassagne (; born 19 August 1976) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and multi-instrumentalist, and is a member of the band
Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, consisting of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, alongside Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury, and Jeremy Gara. The band's touring line-up includes former core ...
. She is married to co-founder
Win Butler
Edwin Farnham Butler III (born April 14, 1980) is an American-Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and multi-instrumentalist. He co-founded the Montreal-based indie rock band Arcade Fire with Josh Deu and his wife Régine Chassagne.
Early l ...
.
Early life and career
Régine Alexandra Chassagne was born in
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
,
Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
, Canada, and grew up in
St-Lambert, a suburb south of Montreal.
[Carpenter, Lorraine. (16 September 2004).]
Hot property
." ''Montreal Mirror
''Montreal Mirror'' or just ''Mirror'' was a free English language alternative newsweekly based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada which was distributed every Thursday. It had a circulation of 70,000 and reached a quarter of a million readers per week. ...
.'' Retrieved 19 October 2007.[Arcade Fire talk about their music]
" (6 March 2007). '' Raidió Teilifís Éireann''. Retrieved 16 March 2007. Her parents, who were Haitians of mixed French and African descent, moved from Haiti during the dictatorship of
François Duvalier
François Duvalier (; 14 April 190721 April 1971), also known as Papa Doc, was a Haiti, Haitian politician and Haitian Vodou, Vodouisant who served as the president of Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971. He was elected president in the 195 ...
, which is alluded to in the Arcade Fire song "Haïti", in which she sings, ' ("My unborn cousins haunt Duvalier's nights"). The line is in reference to the relatives who were killed during the
Jérémie Vespers massacre.
Chassagne attended before earning a B.A. in communication studies at
Concordia University
Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...
in 1998, and went on to study jazz voice briefly at
McGill University
McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...
. She was singing jazz at an art opening at Concordia in 2000, when Win Butler met her and persuaded her to join his band. They married in 2003. Ten years later, their son was born on 21 April 2013.
Chassagne has also been involved with a medieval-themed band called and with Jimmy Rouleau in the jazz duo Azúcar. She also wrote the music for the two-minute
David Uloth short film "The Shine", and she contributed to the UNICEF benefit project as part of the North American Hallowe'en Prevention Initiative, performing the song "
Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" along with Win Butler.
She plays many instruments on stage, including
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...
,
drums
The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...
,
xylophone
The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...
,
hurdy-gurdy
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-turned crank, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin (or nyckelharpa) bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar ...
,
keyboards,
organ
Organ and organs may refer to:
Biology
* Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function
* Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body.
Musical instruments
...
and
guitar
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
. In
Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, consisting of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, alongside Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury, and Jeremy Gara. The band's touring line-up includes former core ...
, Chassagne performs lead vocals on some songs, including "Haiti", "In the Backseat", "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations", "Empty Room", "Abraham's Daughter", "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)", "Creature Comfort", "Electric Blue", and "Unconditional II (Race and Religion)".
In March 2015, Chassagne, along with Win Butler, attended the launch of
music streaming
A music streaming service is a type of online streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to s ...
service
Tidal, and revealed themselves, along with other notable artists, as
shareholder
A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of corporate stock refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the ...
s in the company.
Personal life
Chassagne has been married to fellow Arcade Fire member Win Butler since 2003. They had a son in April 2013.
References
External links
Inter Press Service on the Arcade Fire and Régine Chassagne's Advocacy for Haiti
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chassagne, Regine
1976 births
Living people
Arcade Fire members
Canadian rock drummers
Canadian indie rock musicians
Concordia University alumni
Canadian women rock singers
Haitian Quebecers
Canadian people of Haitian descent
McGill University School of Music alumni
People from Saint-Lambert, Quebec
Singers from Montreal
Hurdy-gurdy players
Grammy Award winners
Canadian women drummers
French-language singers of Canada
21st-century Canadian multi-instrumentalists
21st-century Canadian pianists
21st-century Canadian keyboardists
21st-century Canadian drummers
Canadian percussionists
Canadian recorder players
21st-century Canadian accordionists
Canadian women accordionists
21st-century Canadian women singers
21st-century Canadian women pianists
21st-century Canadian flautists