Arcade Fire are set to record new material over winter, Will Butler has said.

The band are scheduled to tour the UK throughout November and December, but the instrumentalist said they planned to hit the studio in the New Year.

"We're going to experiment this winter," he told the Wall Street Journal. “We're not quite sure what we're doing in February, but January and March we'll probably be off."

"We've never successfully written or done anything really in a middle of a touring cycle."

He added: "We're going to see if we can maybe get into a different rhythm besides the tour, tour, tour, rest, rest, rest, tour, tour, tour, rest, rest, rest. We're going to see if we can intertwine them a little bit."

Butler was speaking ahead of a speech at his former University, Northwestern in Illinois on Tuesday (November 2).

Arcade Fire topped the UK and US album charts in August with their third album, 'The Suburbs'.

(by Holly Frith)