Win and Will Butler of Arcade Fire aren’t your average brothers. Sure, they spent their youngest years at odds, as brothers will. But early on they discovered something that would inform the rest of their lives as creative partners at the heart of one of rock ’n’ roll’s most creative and single-minded bands. “I left the house when I was 15 to go to boarding school and would come back in the summers, and I started to realize he’s the only person I related to in the whole everywhere,” Win Butler, 33, said. “There’s not too many people in the world where you literally have the exact same influences, so we kind of developed this language to work together where it’s really easy.” Will Butler, 31, said, “That doesn’t mean we see everything identically. … But it means that, certainly in artistic endeavors, there’s a bit more empathy and compassion for each other because we see where they’re coming from.And we tend to agree more than two random musicians would.” That relationship is at the heart of Arcade Fire’s success and creativity, something that is on full display this week as the Grammy Award-winning group flies from one end of the continent to the other and back. In the space of three weeks, Arcade Fire members will have played in a Mardi Gras parade while in New Orleans, played The Tonight Show, performed in Haiti, and then returned home to Montreal for two days to pack for a trip to Los Angeles and the Academy Awards, where the band is up for best original score for its work on Her.

Australian actor Sam Worthington has been arraigned in New York on counts including misdemeanor assault, accused of punching a photographer, who also was charged in their encounter. The 37-year-old Avatar star was ordered Wednesday to stay away from photographer Sheng Li for six months. Worthington was released on his own recognizance. Prosecutors say Worthington punched the photographer in the face in a scuffle Sunday in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. They say he told officers he was protecting his girlfriend. Defense lawyer Stacey Richman told the judge that photographers have relentlessly followed Worthington. Earlier, the actor had no comment when he entered Manhattan Criminal Court. Li was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment, assault and harassment.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 02/27/2014