Mumford's The Word

In 2008 there was an incongruous eruption of harmonies and banjo-plucking from the congested streets of West London. Johnny Flynn, Laura Marling, Noah and the Whale and Mumford & Sons represented, according to media lore, a folk community akin to that of the Laurel Canyon songwriters of the late 1960s. Marcus Mumford (vocals, guitar, drums and mandolin) and Ben Lovett (vocals, keyboard, organ) of Mumford & Sons, writers of anthemic, muscular folk ballads, shift uncomfortably and hum and haw at this notion. They’re both seated upstairs in The Academy, where they’re playing later that evening, smoking out a big window as a tram rolls by outside.

“That’s definitely a bit hyped up,” says Marcus. “I’m not sure it was a scene. The image presented in the press is that we all go back to London and hold hands with Noah and the Whale and Laura Marling and talk about music and hang out and don’t invite anyone else along. In truth that’s not how it works. We’re connected to those bands through our origins, they were the people who invited us along on our first tours, and we’re still admirers and friends but we get worried, that that whole ‘scene’ thing makes it seem quite exclusive, with us all working together and nobody else getting a look in. But if it had been like that we’d never have got the band off the ground in the first place.”
As well as the word “scene” the softly spoken (for such strong singers), self-effacing men of Mumford & Sons are also uncomfortable with the word “folk”. Marcus himself wouldn’t use the word to describe the band at all, he says.
“I started to listen to country music towards the end of school. I was given a mix tape with Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch and my mum was a big Dylan fan. I really enjoyed the vibe of the music and the instrumentation and the melodies and the lyrics. We came together under a banner of folk music but we also love many other genres. We also play jazz together and it’s not specifically one type of music that we’d be listening to on the bus. Also I think there would be a bunch of people who’d be pissed off if we called ourselves folk musicians because we’re not really good enough and we don’t have the heritage.”
A touch of insecurity drifts into the conversation.
“You should have seen us at the Cambridge Folk Festival,” says Ben. “We were so scared. You do feel like young pretenders sometimes. But we never said that we were the next wave of folk, we played the music we want to play. We’ve got quite an eclectic crowd. Most of the early fanbase came from gigging in pubs, not indie clubs, and they’re a bit older. The more youthful side came along later.”
And the two sides of the fanbase don’t always get along.
“We met people last night who were saying, ‘We’ve loved you since the beginning and now we see people that love your band and they’re real dickheads!’” he says. “But we’ve never been picky about who we played to. The first year we were together we never said 'no' to a gig. Whether that was in a Woodlands Centre on the Isle of Lewis or a club night in London – we were happy to do it. Our audience is pickier than we are, it seems!”
In the self-effacing world of folk music even the vaguest hint of popularity can be seen as suspect, and so the prospect of four middle-class city boys strumming mandolins and getting more airplay than the rest of the folk community put together is like showing a red-flag to a particularly boring bull.
“Oh, I hate when people ask whether or not we’re authentic,” sighs Marcus. “I hate those questions. Dylan started with an album of covers and he stated himself that he wanted to be Woody Guthrie. How authentic is that? But we’re trying to not pay too much attention to what people say about us because I don’t think it’s healthy. We’re still a baby-band really, trying to solidify our roots and get our foundations strong through the music that we play. We never wanted to be about anything other than about the songs we play.”
Indeed, Marcus and Ben paint a picture of a band who will happily break into song with or without record company support or critical approval. They play in other people’s backing bands (Marcus was Laura Marling’s drummer), write songs together on tour (“It’s nice to be able to test them out live,” says Ben), have tracks remixed by members of electro-popsters Passion Pit, and have even been known to jam with Rajasthani folk musicians.
“The British Arts Council organised for us to go on tour in India with Laura Marling and the first few days of the tour involved collaborations with folk musicians,” explains Ben. “We recorded it and hope to get it out there. I hope people can get access to it.”
“I loved it,” says Marcus, his eyes lighting up. “Those guys were amazing musicians. It was done through translators and it was communicating more through playing our instruments and smiling and making thumbs-up symbols than anything else. There was this moment where we were trying to figure out how many bars their melody lasted for and we all played it and somehow stopped together at the right time. It was awesome.”
And the collaborations don’t end there.
“We always tour with crew who’re musicians too,” says Marcus. “Some of the best times in my life have been in the tour bus with guitars after gigs. We’ve got this idea at the moment of recording a cover on each tour with the road crew – ‘Sons versus Crew’. Our guitar tech is a better musician than all of us put together and he’s got a really cool idea for a cover of ‘Don’t Think Twice’ by Dylan. I think we might try that.”
In short, Marcus and Ben, unlike more fashionably-glum members of the indie-music community, are openly and refreshingly grateful for what they’ve got.
“We love travelling and going around seeing different places,” says Marcus. “I mean, being in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day – who gets to do that? (‘Irish people do,’ I say, and they laugh charitably). We get so many opportunities to see the world and to meet different people in different places and we’re thankful for that. It helps you to learn who you are. And the ecstasy of people in a room, in this age when so many relationships are done over the internet, to have people willing to pay twenty quid to come see us play a gig... to have people willing to engage with us, and us trying to engage with them, that’s amazing to us.”
And he smiles so sincerely I really believe it.