Know EP) was sold at early shows. After the band achieved fame, the EP was subsequently remastered and given a full release. Howard Bilerman joined the band on drums in the summer of 2003, and they began to play shows together, and record the album that would end up becoming Funeral. The promise shown by the new band in their early live shows allowed them to land a record contract with the independent record label, Merge Records, before the end of their first year together. When asked about the rumour that the band's name refers to a fire in an arcade, Win Butler replied: "It's not a rumour, it's based on a story that someone told me. It's not an actual event, but one that I took to be real. I would say that it's probably something that the kid made up, but at the time I believed him." 2004–2006: Funeral Funeral was released in September 2004 in Canada and February 2005 in Great Britain. The title of the debut album referred to the deaths of several relatives of band members (prominently the Butlers' grandfather, composer/arranger Alvino Rey) during its recording. These events created a somber atmosphere that influenced songs such as "Une année sans lumière" ("A Year Without Light"), "In the Backseat", and "Haïti", Chassagne's elegy to her homeland. It received widespread critical acclaim and topped many year-end and decade-end lists. According to the website Metacritic, the album had the second most appearances on end-of-decade Top 10 lists, only behind Radiohead's Kid A. In the updated version of [[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time|Rolling Stone'''s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]], it was ranked at #151. The album was critically and commercially acclaimed. It appeared on many top ten album lists for 2004 and 2005 (due to delayed international releases), with Pitchfork, Filter, No Ripcord, and The MTV2 2005 Review crowning it the album of the year. NME named Funeral second in their list of 2005's best albums. NME also named "Rebellion (Lies)" the second best track. By November 2005, Funeral had gone gold in both Canada and the UK, and sold over half a million copies worldwide, a very large number for an independent release with minimal television or radio exposure. The album became Merge Records' first in the Billboard 200 chart and the label's biggest selling album to date, surpassing Neutral Milk Hotel's In the