Mumford & Sons on ‘White Blank Page’ soundtracking anti-ICE videos: “One of the great privileges of our career”

Mumford & Sons have said they are “incredibly proud” to see their 2009 track ‘White Blank Page’ being used in videos protesting the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on social media.

The band, who released their star-studded sixth album, Prizefighter, on Friday, made the comments during a recent interview with Hot Press – available to read in full here.

Ahead of the release of Prizefighter, the band were surprised to see a major resurgence of interest in ‘White Blank Page’, which featured on their 2009 debut album, Sigh No More – as social media-users featured the track in videos decrying the state of the world, including the recent ICE shootings in Minneapolis.

“I only found out about it fairly recently, with the anti-ICE protests in the States,” Marcus Mumford told Hot Press. “We’re incredibly proud to be any small part of supporting that. For our music to be used – very strangely, and completely out of our control, to be honest with you – as part of a protest movement against that particular policy, has been one of the great privileges of our career, I’d say.”

Marcus – who holds dual UK/US citizenship, having been born in California – went on to state that the band “love America.”

“We’ve travelled that country more than a lot of our friends, particularly on the coasts, have,” he resumed. “We’ve gone deeper into what they’d probably call ‘flyover states’. And the policies of Trump’s government don’t reflect the nature of what we see in those towns – and the sense of hospitality and good neighbourliness that we experience. We’re shocked by it – and we’re stoked that our music is playing a small part in the resistance to it.”

He also acknowledged that this is “a very strange time” to be in the US – noting that “people are afraid.”

“And it’s vulnerable communities that are afraid,” he continued. “That doesn’t seem to line up to these guys’ Christian ideals – to me, anyway.”

ICE Agents in Minneapolis. Credit: Chad Davis

While he argued that the world would be in serious trouble if we started “looking to artists to tell you who to vote for, exclusively”, Marcus also said that “we’re always going to want prophets, priests and poets.”

“We’re also going to need political leaders with greater moral imagination than I think we have at the moment, to be able to bring peace to places like Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan,” he remarked. “So we wouldn’t claim that artists have a role to play in diplomacy and politics necessarily, but I think we need culture, and I think we need opportunities for human connection, particularly in places where it feels like we’re all pointing at each other saying, ‘They’re the problem’ – and othering people.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Marcus Mumford and Ted Dwane discussed their love of Irish acts like Hozier, CMAT, The Cranberries, The Dubliners and The Pogues – and looked ahead to Mumford & Sons' headline show at Dublin's Marlay Park on July 5.

Read the full interview here.