Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler has said he hopes Eminem wasn’t upset when the band replaced him at number one on the US album chart earlier this year.

The Montreal-based group scored their first US chart-topper with ‘The Suburbs’ after initially being behind Eminem’s ‘Recovery’ in sales.

Butler said the album’s success was down to the support of independent music stores, who helped them over the defect.

“The indie stores totally came through and pushed us just over the edge,” Butler said.

Asked if he thought Eminem would have been upset, the singer told Pitchfork: “I hope not. He did sell like 29 million [copies] of his first album.”

‘The Suburbs’, which is the follow-up to 2007's 'Neon Bible', also topped the UK album charts in August.

Meanwhile, Arcade Fire are set to embark on their first ever UK arena tour in December, including two shows at London’s O2 Arena.

(by Jason Gregory)