Mumford & sons
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Mumford & Sons are a British rock band.
Some fourteen years ago, a few young men from London formed a band. It was a happy accident, with nothing unusual about how they formed; shared musical interests, an interest to both make and perform music whatever the occasion, and this comparatively unique passion for community and collaboration. They called their band Mumford & Sons, and have jokingly regretted it ever since. You can’t get everything right.
But there was plenty they did get right. The live show for one. Stood in formation across the front of the stage, like a solid back four that nobody’s finding gaps in, they clasped those instruments like their lives depended on it. Leaving their hearts up on those stages, and having won the hearts of all those in the crowd, the growing fervour around Mumford & Sons became inescapable.
When Marcus Mumford once spoke of putting college studies on the back burner to focus on ‘being a band’ whilst tearing up a staircase at the band’s old rehearsal rooms by London Bridge, it was a day or two ahead of the band’s first Glastonbury performance. It was a show that typically laid down another stone from which to step; a heaving John Peel tent, steam teeming from those vinyl walls and from the stage, and from the crowd.
To summarise the next decade in a few short sentences is to do the band a huge disservice to what is broadly considered a global phenomenon. But if we told you that just a couple of very short years later Mumford & Sons were to return to Glastonbury to headline its prestigious Pyramid Stage? Well, that should say it all. Britain’s most likely to became Britain’s already have.
Breathe in, let’s go: Number 1 albums around the world. Grammy Awards. BRIT Awards. Ivor Novello Awards. Q Awards. Billboard Awards. Sold out arena tours. A debut US stadium tour. Festival headline slots. Bob Dylan’s backing band. Backed by Bob Dylan. John Fogerty’s backing band. Backed by John Fogerty. Sharing riffs with Tom Morello. Adventures with Baaba Maal. Trips to Senegal. South Africa. Europe. America. South America. Japan. Australia. New Zealand. Asia. Gentlemen of the Road; their own community-minded, self-curated festivals. Wilder Mind. Babel. Sigh No More. Memories. A massive, massive success. Breathe out. Decade 1. Tick.
In 2018, Mumford & Sons released their substantial fourth album, Delta. Helmed by producer Paul Epworth, it’s a record finding Mumford & Sons at their most adventurous. Men now, with responsibilities far removed from the day job, but men who feel at their most comfortable with who they’d become. In a studio. On the road. Making music. Collaborating. Trying different things. Leaning on their strengths. Brothers. United.
Mumford & Sons are a British rock band. Their new chapter’s just being written.