Fan criticises Arcade Fire for spray-painting Reflektor graffiti on wall

As this has been the year of weird promo campaigns (think Daft Punk, Bowie, Boards of Canada and more), Arcade Fire recently got involved with the trend for their upcoming full-length Reflektor, hiring a street team to graffiti teasers all around the world. Now, with the album fast approaching, one fan has complained to the band about the entire affair.

Slate have published an article by one Ian Dille who has criticised the Canadian group for their “guerrilla marketing” on the property of his wife’s workplace, writing “unlike a lot of people, who thought the graffiti campaign was ingenious, when I found out the logo was nothing but a commercial promotion I felt … used. Even—and maybe this is too harsh?—a little betrayed.”

Dille states that a major qualm with the graffiti was that it was in permanent paint, not chalk like in other places around the world. “My wife’s boss spent hours cleaning the posters and paste off the wall”.

“If you’re an internationally renowned band that’s defacing public and private property for promotional purposes, maybe go back to the drawing board, and think some more about how you want to let people know about your music,” he concludes in the article.

Since publishing, however, the band’s frontman Win Butler has contacted Dille, offering up a full explanation and apology via a handwritten letter. In the message, seen below in full, Butler says that the chalk drawings were influenced by “Haitian veve drawings that are done in chalk or in the dirt” and that paint should never have been used. He also offers Dille the proposal of meeting up when they next place his hometown of Austin.

Check out both the graffiti and the apology letter beneath.

[via Pitchfork]