From playing giggs to now performing all around the world, who are Mumford and Sons?
For a band who had gigged pretty much nonstop since forming, Mumford & Sons’ five-month hiatus – which began when they completed their world tour for the Babel album in September 2013 – was their first proper break in almost five years. Yet their decision to step off the merry-go-round was born as much of confidence as it was exhaustion, or a desire to catch up with themselves. In the months leading up to the end of the tour, Marcus, Ben, Winston and Ted had spent time with The National’s Aaron Dessner, recording demos in his New York garage, pottering around guitar shops, experimenting with his vintage amps.
The band reconvened in February last year at Eastcote Studios in London, where they had recorded their debut album, Sigh No More. So began an eight-month period of writing. Joining them at these sessions was the producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence + The Machine, Klaxons). “He’d listened to a few of the new songs,” says Marcus, “and just said, ‘Yeah, I like them.’ No more than that. He’s so understated, but it was good for us. So we started playing, he sat behind the kit, and off we went. It felt like having an older brother in the studio. And he made it fun. It should be fun.”
Right from the opening bars of Tompkins Square Park, it’s apparent that those early sessions in New York and London witnessed a change in the band’s approach not just to writing and recording, but to texture and dynamics, too. There is a minimalist yet panoramic feel to the new album, whose sound Marcus describes as “a development, not a departure.” Which came about how – by accident, or as a result of a conscious decision? “It was a bit of both. Towards the end of the Babel tour, we’d always play new songs during soundchecks, and none of them featured the banjo, or a kick-drum. And demoing that song with Aaron meant that, when we took a break, we knew it wasn’t going to involve acoustic instruments. We didn’t say: ‘No acoustic instruments.’ But I think all of us had this desire to shake it up. The songwriting hasn’t changed drastically; it was led by a desire not do the same thing. Plus, we fell back in love with drums! It’s as simple as that.”
Inevitably, after such a long break, they are itching to play live again. This is, after all, the band that responded to the glaring spotlight of the Grammys, the Brits and playing a gig at the White House by heading off to the Scottish Highlands for a series of small-scale, ad-hoc shows. And who, in 2012/13, staged the Gentleman of the Road Stopover festivals in out-of-the-way locations across the world, supporting local musicians and businesses, and in the process reconnecting with their reasons for forming a band in the first place.
“Our enthusiasm for just dropping off and playing gigs was really inspired by touring in the Highlands and going to Orkney and Shetland,” says Marcus. “Those places were so welcoming, they seemed so pleased to have us there, so, when it came to planning a tour, we all thought as one: ‘Let’s do more of those.’“Doing it that way takes you away from this small nucleus of the band,” says Ben. “You start coming up with ideas, concepts, collaborating with new people. We are proud of them, there’s no point denying that; it feels like something not many other bands have done. Whenever I speak to people we work with, they seem proudest of that. So they’re the vehicle, rather than the other way round. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to do the Stopovers without the music, but in a way, we create the music so we can go out and do the shows.” As we meet, new Stopovers are being planned. The open road beckons.
Now, though, there’s the small matter of learning to play the new material live – a task lent greater urgency by the announcement that they will headline the Reading/Leeds festival this August. When we meet, the band are one day in to a 20-day rehearsal period; endearingly, they betray the nerves of first-timers. “We’ve never played these songs live before,” says Marcus, “which is another reason the new album is so different.
“But it’s not just a case of learning to play them; we’ve got to learn how to perform them, too. We’ve got a lot of work to do.” They have, but it will be worth it. There is a clutch of new songs – Only Love, Believe, Ditmus, The Wolf, Wilder Mind, Just Smoke – that are going to soar in a live setting, and take us with them. “There was this moment yesterday,” says Ben, “on Tompkins Square Park, where there’s this countermelody I thought I’d played on the recording, and it turned out I hadn’t. So I was like, ‘Well, what am I doing on the chorus, then?’” Amid the gales of laughter that are always feature of hanging out with the Mumfords, Marcus adds: “And I realised that all I have to do is strum my guitar, one chord every four bars. I did think, ‘Can’t I do that on all the songs?”
