Ahead of her new album, Multitudes, dropping this month, Feist did a new interview with The Irish Times. In it, she spoke about not only her new music, but also her decision to leave Arcade Fire’s tour after sexual misconduct allegations came out against the lead singer, Win Butler, last year.
The news broke just as she was supposed to play a UK and Ireland tour with them.
“I was having an out-of-body experience,” she said. “Not to mention, I had brought all of these new songs. I thought, ‘Okay, maybe I’ll go do this tour and workshop how to play these songs in a bigger context.’”
“I was out-of-body. My body was just doing the songs,” Feist added. “My presence is here. Here is what I’m saying. Here is what I am doing. It was sort of this crime-scene wand. You put a wand up and you can see the fingerprints.”
Feist had completed the tour’s two opening nights in Dublin, donating her merch sales to the local Women’s Aid charity. She then decided to take full responsibility and go home. Beck was also set to support Arcade Fire in North America but dropped out for undisclosed reasons, too.
“It took me until the second show where all of the practical discomfort of having to dismantle this crazy machine and fold it back up and lose what I had invested in being there,” Feist explained. “The whole thing was made so clear to me. I couldn’t continue.”
