Every Single Album - Marcus Mumford on the Making of 'Prizefighter'

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Nora and Nathan sit down with Marcus Mumford, the lead singer of Mumford & Sons, to talk about why their latest album, 'Prizefighter,' is his favorite thing that he's ever done (1:00); working with Aaron Dessner on this record (18:10); and how he came to work on several songs on Taylor Swift's 'Evermore,' including "Cowboy Like Me" (41:21). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullenVideo Production: Belle RomanVideo Editor: Stefano Sanchez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Princiotti. And as always, I'm joined by my friend Nathan Hubbard. But we are very, very lucky to have Marcus Mumford on the show today. Marcus, thanks for joining us. You're very welcome. It's very nice to be here. I'm so glad.

This is fancy. It can't be that nice. It's very nice. You've done 6,000 of these over the last three weeks. You're completely exhausted. I've completely debased myself. You've got me at my ego death moment. Here I am.

That's all here. It's a very nice green room. The beautiful sunset. I had to try out one of your raspberry smoothies from your fridge. This is Spotify money. Let's go. That time they gave some to you, I guess. So I do have to start with a question that has been really on my mind.

We're going to talk about your band's fabulous new album, Prize Fighter, a lot in this conversation. However, a thing that I don't know the answer to is I know you guys know each other. I know your buds, but I don't know how. Can you let me into the Marcus Nathan Origin story? We met through a mutual friend and a colleague of yours, a fellow called Nat Zilker, he's a wonderful man. And we sat down for dinner in Los Angeles about three years ago, was it?

More. And we had a conversation, a more kind of expansive conversation about music than I'd had in a while, which was fun. And I actually enjoyed. I don't really like talking about music and particularly in music business very much.

I don't find it very interesting. You're going to love this podcast Yeah But no it's probably because I don't really understand it all But that was a really fun conversation And since then we've just hung out more So we've kind of We've both known you for kind of the same amount of time

Is it? How did you meet Nathan? Well so we met because When I started working at Spotify and The Ringer My boss Bill Simmons Was aware that I was a big Taylor Swift fan And he said I know someone that. that you need to get to know.

You need to be able to have some conversations with. And it was COVID. And so Nathan and I would just like text each other. We were just text each other all about Taylor Swift and like all the thoughts that we had, like writing dissertations. And then I was going to a wedding in Santa Barbara the summer of 2021, I guess. Okay. This is specific.

Well, you remember this. We had a smoothie. Yes. And that was the first time that we met in person. Yeah. I was getting off the plane and I stopped on the way to this wedding to meet Nathan in person. But Bill basically said you need to do this pod. Yes.

Well, no, first he said that we needed to just text each other. And we did that for a while and then it became a podcast. Interestingly, you and I stayed out until about five in the morning in Las Vegas. Yeah, so I didn't. Yeah, go on. No, finish it. No, well, I didn't realize. I lost a lot of money that night.

I didn't realize how much of a Taylor Swift fan, Nathan was, until I took him with me to that Vegas show. He pleased it kind of close to the best. He pleased it kind of close to the best. He knew every freaking song. And I was like, wow, we should have talked about this before. I had no idea. I didn't know about the poker.

I didn't realize, to all extent, you had studied her work. He's a scholar. You're a scholar and it's, it was kind of funny. It's so red. I deserve it. Yeah. I deserve it. We had a long night after that show.

It was fun. You were the first guest on the Ares tour. I was, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Did you go under the stage? Did you see that little weird slingshot thing? Yeah, yeah, I did, yeah. It was cool.

I think they let me, did they let me ride on it? Or I like, yeah, I think they let me ride on it. And I think I feel myself doing it and then put it, I think someone put it on my socials. And it was like a reveal. It was like a, I think they were part of the Taylor Swift universe that were like, don't do that. It breaks down the fourth wall or whatever. I was not sorry, I just thought it was quite cool. It felt like the great escape, you know, like little tunnel thing.

Was it like, was it a little scary like that or was it just smooth right? No, no, it's very smooth, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, only the best mate. Yeah, I think they gotta have it under control. That's really fun. Well, I have six more Taylor Swift questions, but we'll wait. We'll save it. We'll save it.

I'm sure you do it. This is why you're finally in your safe place. You can just have that out there with all the Taylor's. It was safe until you made fun of me. It was. God, damn. I had it. So you've spent a lot of time talking about this record for a month.

Yeah. But in the aggregate, I think you have said that it is it's your favorite thing that you've ever done. Yeah. Can you sort of articulate, I mean, you and I have talked about this record for a very, very, very long time. But can you tell me why it's your favorite?

I'm sure there's loads that goes into it, including where I'm at in my life and how I feel about my work. But I think, you know, it's a combination between enjoying the process the most I've ever enjoyed a process and enjoying the output. the most I've ever enjoyed the output. So normally you make a record and then you listen to it

six months or a year later and you pick it apart pretty much straight away. Even sometimes like a week after mastering you'll listen to it again and be like, ah, I probably would have changed that. But making records is about committing and that's what's great about them. You just got to commit to a time and a place and a vibe and be like, that's it for this moment. And it might not be perfect and it might not be what I would have done 10 years later or 10 years earlier. But that's the point of making a record of that moment. With this one, I listened to it again,

I had to listen to it again recently, one of these listening things, and I just wouldn't change a note. I'm really proud of the decisions we made to get there. But often you'll make something you're happy with, and the process of getting there was really difficult or sort of strewn with either drama or chaos. And we've had a few pretty chaotic recording experiences,

and even some records where we made, like, I will wait, was a nightmare to make that song in particular. It took ages and got to the point where Marcus Straves, our producer, he tried everything else. He tried all the bad cop stuff, and he sat on the end of my bed in the recording studio in Paris, and brought me a cup of tea. And he's like very Germanic.

You know, he's very straight down the line, and this was him being so nice that I really had to go and finish it that day. And there was a nightmare. And so it doesn't really matter how songs go. come about, but the process can be varied. And sometimes the process isn't very fun, but the output you feel good about. Or sometimes the process is great and it doesn't lead to your favorite. I wouldn't use comparative language around quality because I'm not the judge for that. So I wouldn't say it's the best thing we've done because I don't know. But it's definitely my

favorite thing we've done. And for the process and the outcome to match like that is unusual. Is there an example of something on the record that you had to sort of take one of those leaps of faith and just commit to it? Yeah, like the lyrics on Badlands, I'll tell you everything, Clover, Conversation with Song Gangs and Angels.

Most of the lyrics were written as a first pass and committed to as a concept with any changes within an hour of writing it and then no changes.

There were no like, let's go back and re-record the vocal now, we've got a different lyric. They're all effectively placeholder lyrics because they're instinctive. And Aaron was really helpful. And there's multiple reasons for that as well, because we'd made Rushmear. I'd made my solo record with Blake Mills. Then we'd made Rushmeer with Dave Cobb.

Then we'd spent some time in the studio with Farrell Williams. And through those three processes, I found my confidence again as a writer, I think, which I'd had right at the beginning because I was too innocent to know otherwise. And then I think I lost some because we were around like amazing musicians, doing amazing things. And we'd grown pretty quickly. When did you feel that, really? What, that we'd grown quickly? The loss of confidence.

When did you notice? I don't know. I don't think I knew at the time, but I can look back now and feel like it waned. The confidence waned a bit during Wildermind. Yeah. Okay. That's a thing that my other sort of area of focus is sports and particularly American football. And that's the thing that, because I used to cover the New England Patriots,

and Tom Brady would always say that, like, the first couple of Super Bowls that they won, he thought were easy because he just didn't know any better and he just thought this is what you do. And then the middle section was like the real work of sort of having it be a little harder or having it and then you come out the other side. And you're so grateful for those more grinding moments, right? Because like I think while the mind was effectively our difficult second album, even though it was our third album. And I'm so glad we did it. When we made it, our agent said to us,

now you guys have done that, you can do whatever you want because you're outside of the pigeonhole that people wanted to keep us in. We'd put ourselves in it, but people wanted to keep us there. And we felt more than that. Our tastes were much broader than the sound that you hear on the first two records, which are really like sibling records.

So, and then Delta, I don't think we would have made Delta without wilder mind. And then Rushmir has helped get us to this place. And now I just feel like I know what I want to say. I know how I want it to sound. I know that I want to make it with my mates.

And in that sense, it's like going right back to the beginning. Because those are the three things that I knew for certain early on. And it was the first producer we've worked with that's known us for a long time. Well, let's pull on that thread in a set because I want to hear more about the actual

process with Aaron, but you were gone for seven years. We weren't, though. Well, I know, but Mumford was gone as a band out there. We were on the road, man. You just didn't come. Yes, I came. But the music, right, you made a solo record where you processed. No, no, because we were on the road until 2020.

Yeah. And then. And then COVID. Exactly. But for you coming out of that break of actually making Mumford and Sun's albums, you had the solo record in between where I think you processed lot of things. But coming out of that, did you feel like, I mean, I have an experience of this one way,

but I want to hear your thoughts. Did you feel like you grew as an artist in between those albums? Did you feel like coming out of it, you had to relearn some muscle stuff with the band? What changed in you between Delta and Rushmere? Yeah, I'm sure that making the solar record as a creative experiment was really, really helpful for me because I think a lot of creativity is just about imagination and being able to come up with something you haven't come up with before. And I think, you know, when you're in a kind of system that works for better or worse, it's not necessarily the place where imagination can,

your imagination can run wild. You have to create the atmosphere where imagination's encouraged, not just accepted. And once you've been in the band, you're making a record, every three years, like you're kind of on the tracks. It's quite hard to leap off the tracks in order to access some new imagination. So the solo record was helpful in that it's like, okay, there's a different way of writing songs, there's different people to do it with. That's all really interesting. What does that make me in amongst it all?

How do I serve as an artist in this different setup? Okay, now I know how I can work as an artist in that setup. when I go back to the original setup, now I can be more of an artist within it. And that's just my responsibility. That's not on anyone else's responsibility. I just knew who I was a bit better coming back into the band. And I think I kept learning through the process of making Rushmir as well.

And then it's just about knowing what you like. That's really it. And then pursuing a thing you like and not worrying too much about what other people like. And when you're introduced to producers as an artist, you deliberately give them the responsibility of helping to shepherd your art and be kind of tastemakers for it or gatekeepers for it. And if you don't know what you like, then you can be blown in any direction.

And doing kind of blind date work with producers is dangerous. And the people who can do it, I'm so, like I can admire people that can do that consistently that really admire them. But for me, that's why the moment with, Dave, the moment with Pharrell, was awesome and helped serve the moment where we finally arrived about with Aaron. But you'd worked with Aaron. You hadn't worked with him, but you knew him for a long time.

I mean, even that... We had worked with him. We worked with him on Wildermind. Right. But then on stage in Vegas that night, Taylor came out and said, five or six songs of Evermore don't happen without Marcus because Aaron called him, got us into the studio. That was sort of the start of... I mean, you had obviously worked in studio with him before, but there.

there's a through line then to you go in the studio with him on the back of the Cobb record. What is his job in the studio? Like what was unique about Aaron? He's having a moment now. It started really with Taylor in a lot of ways. That's where it sort of exploded. This year, sounds like the Noah record is him. Sounds like the Gracie record is him.

Prize Fighter is working with you. With you as an artist, what is his job in that room? He basically joined our band for this record. He wrote on every song with us. He played on every song with us. We discussed every chord change and every lyric. And he was just like a band member, which is a very comfortable ground for us

because we know how to work with band members, you know? And so to start with, his job was inspiration and holding a bit of a mirror up to us and saying, look, we played in Russia. mixing Rushme here. Wait, I should go back further. This happened on Wildermyn, because it was like 2014, we'd done Sino Moore, Babel had won album of the year at the Grammys, and then we were like, okay, what's next? And I had been so obsessed with Trouble Will Find Me by the National that I sat down with Aaron for coffee at the Bowery Hotel in New York and asked him a bunch of questions about

their process and his guitar sounds. Then I found myself at his favorite guitar show. Chicago Music Exchange with a blonde telly that had been customized with a Gibson pickup in the neck and an amp that I fell in love with. And I wrote three songs for Wildermind in the shop and sent them to Aaron and was like, hey, what do you think of this guitar sound? He was like, cool, I can help with it. And so then we took those songs to his studio and his garage in Dittmast Park in Brooklyn. That's why we called one of them Dittmust. And we did a couple weeks there sitting on his back porch. while he was really, you know,

he was producing, co-producing all those national records already and had done, Dark was the night, and then he did the Day of the Dead record, which we did with him. So we got to be in the studio with him both on Wilder Mind demos,

and then on Day of the Dead where we did Friend of the Devil with him and 88 Keys, who was an old hip-hop producer. And so I'd seen his process and then cut to, you know, him having loads of success to tell it was awesome, then we're in COVID.

and he called me and was like, do you have a, is this what you want? This is the story you want, right? Am I still answering your question basically? I want that story, but what I really want to know is you talked about with this record it being the favorite thing that you've ever done

because of output and not challenging it, but also because of process. And Aaron, at least my observation from afar, was that Aaron was a big part of that process. Yeah, so sorry. So in wild and mind, he helped us with sounds, and I think he wanted to help more, and maybe we didn't let him, and maybe we should have, right?

But there was unfinished business there. Cut to when we get in the studio, we show him a bit of Rushmere, and then he shows us these ideas he had, and it was inspiration, because suddenly he played me the backing track for Prizefighter as he had at that time, which was like a sketch that he and Justin had done

for fun on one of their magical weekends away. And he played it to us, and I got a pen in my hand, the first run through it and started writing down words, Not even knowing he was playing it to us like we could fuck with it, like just for fun. And it was just imagination and inspiration. And I had this character in my head that was very clear to me what it was about. And I wrote most of the lyrics for Price Fighter on the first listen through to that song in Electric Lady.

The first day we'd reconnected in person since COVID. We hadn't seen each other for a while. Was that a character that kind of already existed in your brain? No. No. No, the music just inspired it, which is so magical. That's so cool. And then he played us the banjo song that he'd done as a sketch with John

And Gracie had heard it and had said, had texted me and said, like, you absolutely have to do something with that song. It's going to be dope if you guys do it. So it was inspiration to start with. And then it became co-writing and co-producing. And we really, like the other lads really accepted it. And we together, we just formed this four-piece band for the whole record. And so then he was coming up with guitar parts, you know, like Rubber Band Man, I'll tell you. everything Clover. These are all guitar parts he'd come up with, you know. And then I'd show him something

and he'd desistnify it, make it sound good. What's his superpower? His finger picking is insane. And he basically, yeah, I remember he sat down after those first two demos he showed us. He was like, I like Rashmir lads, this is sweet and great. But here's what I really want to hear from you. And it was really at a moment that I could accept, because it lined up exactly with what I wanted to hear from our band. And so it was like instantly we were kind of co-conspirators on the same plot to make what turned out. And Prize Fighter went beyond, it has gone beyond my wildest dreams of what I wanted it to sound like. And what he was saying he wanted to do that that was, that was musical elements and textures that you could play in. Yeah, it was in style. He was like, look, I don't want

you to overcomplicate it. At the end of the day, I want to hear an acoustic guitar and a vocal right in my face with his chains of compression and recording techniques and I want to hear but kind of modern sounding and that comes in styles of compression and tempos and stuff

and sometimes scantion of lyrics too and he's got so good at knowing what pops and knowing what and he was just like I can hear this in my head already here's another idea that I think we could work on and then magically I'd go

okay, give me the mornings, go write the lyrics, and I go off, write the lyrics, come back, Ben and Ted already knew the parts. We play that and recorded it at the same day. That's how most of the songs were. Have you guys as a band always been able to welcome someone into the fold fluidly? No, not on record. Never before, actually.

Like even with Collaborative, because you have a number of featured artists on the record, and it seems like it's a pretty open door. Yeah, for the first time. We've always done it live, and we've never done it on record, really. I mean, we've done collaborative. of things outside of our albums, like the Bubba Mali P and stuff with Laura Marling back in the day and, you know, various people. And we've collaborated outside the band a ton, each of us as individuals.

But inside like a band record, like an LP, we'd never done it before. And I think the way Aaron operates is a bit like we operated right at the beginning because our band was born out collaboration. We were all session players for other people. And then we got five So we set up our own band. Had to get a real job. Yeah. And then, you know, our first shows, there were 15 of us on stage. And every live show I think we've ever played,

we'd invite someone different every night to come and play with us. You know, we had mine glass and we had Vampire Weekend at first day. They'd get all up there with us, just, you know, and the vaccines. And we just love collaborating life. But for some reason, have always been overprotective of the recording process. Like, when you're a baby band, you want to set out of your soul. store and show people who you are and not who other people are, you know, you're like, it's the four of us, there's no one else.

And then I think we just got secure enough to open the doors up in the way we do life, but finally on record. Did you take any of that into your work with Maisie Peters? Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah. And then that was different because produced from a producing point of view, not being overprotective either, because Aaron's brilliant at this. Like, okay, we want a, you know, syncopated synth part. We should call James McAllister because he's the best in the world,

and he'll send it back to us in six hours. Well, you want a string pass at this, send it to Rob Moose, he'll send it back the next day and it'll be the sickest thing you've ever heard. Or like, like on Cabo like me, let's get Justin to do the drums. Or play half of the guitar solo,

and Aaron plays the other half. And he's not at all proud about where, and in fact, he's not insecure about where the talent comes from. He's like, let's just go get the best. And they're our friends, too, and it's fun. And so that spirit is something I think our band's always had, but maybe not allowed on record until now. You want to talk about some of the shifty stuff that you were talking about, the changes? Uh-oh.

Okay, Nathan, so we're talking about where do we want to take this conversation? What do we want to know if it's sell them? And Nathan has like nine things about how he says you change a lot of stuff a lot of the time, like names of songs, how you name things. That infuriates him, yeah. Yeah, he said Marcus changes these things like socks. Well, names of songs, yeah, because normally you're in a studio working quite quickly. The engineer will name the song so that no one forgets what you're referring to. Sure.

So one of them was called Greenwood for no reason. And I can't, yeah, I can't, we change, yes, because an engineer will call it something. And then you'll maybe change the name to something more memorable. That's not like my song three or whatever. And then you'll put it like the place or the date. and then, yeah, it'll change a bunch of times. And if you're in the privileged position where you hear demos, you have to be willing to accept that.

That's what I've learned. Control freaks, like our friend Nathan here, is not cool with that. Maybe. Control freak? Most people would never know that's what happens, but that's just what happens in most, you know, the non-Nashville-based songwriting process. But it's interesting because a lot of the lyrics

were almost one-take things on this record, but you did sort of mess with two things. One was the naming. But the second was also the sequence. And I actually don't know. how you settled on this. For me, I put it on... Yeah, but again, that's because you don't often get the dropboxes

to records. Because it's not in the order it's going to be eventually. It's just in the order that the engineer uploads it into that folder. I know a ton about how we got here. I actually have no idea how you settled on the sequence because I actually listened to it last week or earlier in the week. Were you surprised? Yeah, I told you.

I said, like, it turns out for me on this album in the sequence, Prize Fighter is this line of demarcation. Yeah. And from there, you get into these bigger, begin again, stay, Badlands, like these songs that like 8 through 11 are some of the like biggest. Like you could have started the album. Yeah. Right there. Yeah.

And so I just, I never even thought to ask you how and why you structured. I mean, maybe because you were going with here, going with banjo song, going with Robert Bandman. You put those towards the front of that record. But like, how did you ultimately decide to structure these things? Yeah, it was really fun. And that's the bit Aaron likes the most. Like, that's the fun bit where you get to put the puzzle pieces together for people who still listen to records all the way down from the top,

which turns out a lot of people do. I've had so many messages this last week talking about, you know, songs that are deep into the record. Icarus is 10. Yeah. Yeah, I know, that's wild. The crazy song is 11. That's a crazy move.

Yeah, and because I had a very, very strong opinion that he or should, be first. Yeah. And that rubber bandman should be early. And that banjo song should be early because I wanted to start the record with energy and not do a classic Muffin and Sons thing which is like a slow build song to start a record.

Whether it's Sinai Mor or Maliu. Malibu. Yeah. And just hit, like, hit hard and hit early. But I wanted conversations with a conversation with my son, gangsters and angels, to be early. I insist on using the full title at all times.

I wanted that to be early in the running order because it says so much of what I feel like I want to say lyrically and it's a sort of statement of intent that song so I wanted it not to be the kind of like emotional secret track at the end I wanted it to be and also once we had clover we all felt like clover should be the last song but so I wanted it early in the track listing which did shift it and then there's just a lot of quite big songs on it

So, yeah, I think it's inevitable that the back half holds a lot of the energy as well, which is cool. So I was going to save this, but I want to ask him because he just talked about both the two songs, Conversation with My Friends, Gangsters and Angels, and Clover. I think you are like... You can call it conversation. Yeah, you said conversations with my friends. Conversation with my son, sorry. Yeah.

I have to be careful because that song, we had a conversation about what it's about. actually it's the only song that I think I could put a finger on the record knowing what it's about because we talked about how we both had this conversation with our sons about what happens when you die. Yeah. But I think you are loosely aware of the Internet's obsession with your relationship with Kerry. I also think that you have, from afar, you've kept that relationship very private. And I've been waiting just for this podcast. No, no, no, no, no, to fuck it up to talk about it.

Let it all out. But you've kept the kids out. You live in the country. But conversation with my son, gangsters and angels, is about your son. Well, it's not actually exclusively about him. It's about all the kids, but yes. That's a cool or something. Right.

But I guess my question on that song is... And I'm a misogynist, so it works perfectly. Will you tell him about that conversation? Will you give him context or will you let him discover that on your own, on his own? Yeah, no, no, we've had that conversation. Yeah, I mean it's an ongoing conversation. Yeah, we've had that conversation. And I've had it with my older daughter as well because she heard it and was like,

what the fuck? But yeah, no, and those, because it's an amalgamation of a bunch of different conversations. But because I was trying to be specific, I was trying to be more specific and more honest in the writing of the lyrics of this record. Because that story starts with Ted and Ben really sitting me down at the the beginning of the rushment process and being like, look, dude, just be in charge of the lyrics. They both really liked the solar record. They were really supportive of it from the beginning.

And then they really liked where I got to with the writing. And lyrically, they sat me down and were like, we think you're in a good seam. And we think that should be like undiluted. Which is a really honoring and trusting and a beautiful. for example of what like a band, a healthy band can be, where you like believe in someone's strength and then support it. It's a really beautiful thing. And I took it really seriously as a responsibility and I was like, right, A, I'm going to study, B, I'm going to like swim in words as much as I can because the more you read, the more you write. And then C, I'm going to try and be as direct and as

honest as I can be and specific because a lot of my favorite writers in the moment and grace is a good example of one of them are really specific and it's in the specificity that you can really actually relate because you might not be able to identify exactly with the thing that they're talking about the clover or the strawberries in maisie's song or whatever it is but it makes you feel something so real and palpable and that that's where you get universal feeling from so actually i used to think that being too specific puts it too much in a place and time and then actually in 20 years time it's not going to be as relatable

I think the opposite now I change my mind I like changing my mind well so then when you write about love you've been in a relationship for most of your life when you write about love are there pieces of her in these songs are you doing the artist thing

and imagining and fantasizing what love is like and feels like outside of it no I know when it came no when it comes to love on this record. It's very, very literal. Is she in Clover? And it's things that only she and I would know, which is great. And I like it that way. And then the moments of imagination come more in the character writing on this record, which I really enjoyed doing. And a lot of my favourite writers do. And your buddy Taylor is a good

example of one of the modern ones that does it so well, like imagining a character and inhabiting that character. Blake Mills does it really well too, and I'd worked with him on the solo record. But, you know, like, yeah, Cowboy Like Me was studying that song. from its early stages and hearing the process of Taylor at the top of her game, in my view, and Aaron at the top of his, with the support from people like Justin was like, wow, there's an alchemy to this that's really beautiful. But the imagination of the character on that song was very inspiring to me as well, because it was like, yeah, you can write.

You can be a cowboy. You can be a cowboy. You can be. Yeah. And it leaves lots open for interpretation. That's what I love about what Cameron Winters doing right now. There's so much, you know, I saw he did an interview on Zane, I think, where he was talking about not being too prescriptive

with what a song is about and leaving space for imagination on the listening side as well as the writing side, which I think is fun. Yeah. Well, so here's an example of that maybe. because when I was, on my first listen, one thing that popped into my head was a lot of these songs are sort of about these male figures or to be a man or to be a son or the prize fighter. Yeah, it's the misogyny again.

It's not the misogyny. Are you just writing from your own perspective or did you have the sense of, I am writing a little bit about masculinity as a concept, what that means? Yeah. Yeah, I would have instinctively answered your question. question with the former that I's like that's what I know. So that's why I can write. But during that process, I did start thinking more about it and certainly shadow of a man is about that. And the role of masculinity has to play in our culture right now, which I believe

is a diminished one and rightly so because we've been a bit dominant for a while. You know, much as some of our friends on the right might disagree, like, dude's got chill for a bit, You know. And that's what this album is about. No, and there's moments, you know, just studying that or trying to understand that better or trying to understand some of the arguments around the concept of toxic masculinity. Like, I've been a toxic cunt for, you know, some good moments in my life. And I'm in recovery from that, honestly.

And I think a bunch of us are. And we're trying to figure out what health looks like. And, you know, there's not like a ton of great role models for that. in leadership right now. So, I don't know, I was studying it. I don't think I was like trying to figure out what the soapbox looked like. I just, yeah, I did think about it.

Certainly on that song. Yeah. And then in other songs, I was like, I'll tell you everything specifically, I was, I also love being a queen sometimes. Like, for real, you know. And the feminine spirit has been like the most motivating spirit in me.

don't understand how it works for like since COVID basically the women in my life have led me since then and inspired me most since then really in multi-generations and multidisciplines and obviously different kinds of relationship but but yeah that that's why venus is here and i can always see it because yeah what is it that you were saying about sort of picking up a torch from a lot of women who have kind of carried this introspective songwriting. Yeah, it feels to me like a lot of the songwriting we've had over the last five, seven years. Like your album of the year, where do you keep it, by the way? Oh, good question.

I think it's in the downstairs bathroom. They were all in the bathroom. We love when they're in the bathroom. The only statue I have on display in the house is my fourth 11 Player of the Year award for 2003. It might even be most improved player And the fourth is like You know Varsity and then Junior Vastity Two more layers below that

Is where the fourth 11 is And I got most improved I think Or player that maybe it was player of the year And that's the only statute It was on display in my house The bathroom and then the doorstopper Those are the really good ones I think There it is, it's in the bathroom

Your album in the year trophy Was between Adel And Def Punk One on either side of you But, like, one thing about this album for me is it is both a celebration and a tribute of the branches that came out of Mumford and Sons, the artists who sort of were inspired by you. And it feels to me like over the last seven, eight years that a lot of the female singer-songwriters have been carrying the torch of that introspective writing. It's expanded, yes, Taylor, but the Charlie record, the Gracie record, the Olivia record, Chapel's record. Do you, where are you right now?

We've talked a little bit about this. I'm interested to hear what your actual answer is here. Uh-oh. Are you comfortable with those branches coming out from the band? Like, there is a next generation of artists who have actually been inspired deeply by you. A lot of them seem to have been female singer-songwriters. Is that, like, can you acknowledge that? Can you rest easy in that?

You know, it was wild like we did a show in Portland, Maine. about 2014 that both Maggie Rogers and Gracie Abrams were at. Wow. Which blows my mind. I don't think I ever, with any artist, would want to, like, the danger has been, historically, I think people taking ownership of other people's stuff, or being envious of it. And that happened in the 90s all the time, where people started beefs effectively, because they

were like, look, you're doing what I'm doing, and that's not okay. and now we're direct rivals and I'm going to beat you up. It was blur in Oasis effectively. Or Oasis actually and any other band, which I love about them. But so I've always been resistant to the idea of being, of anything I'd say on that,

being confused with like trying to claim ownership or be in direct competition with it. Because I just don't think like that. I think like I get stoked when I see other people doing great, even if someone says to me like, they sound a bit like your band or like they've listened to your band. I'm like, cool. Does everyone know that I listened obsessively to old Crow Medicine show and Arcade Fire and Radiohead?

And you might not be able to hear that all those direct references in every song I write, but man, they're there. Like, I would study that music. And there's a bunch of artists that I'd do that for. So the idea that we might be a band that other people study and get inspired by particularly is radical to me. And I love that. And yeah, I'm doing better at accepting it.

Like we went and did Noah Kahn's Festival down in Mexico and, and Camp were there and this band I'm obsessed with called RSI Drive were there and Noah and Gigi Perez and all of them said really lovely things to me and to us as a band

about the importance of our band in their lives and Gracie said it too just recently she said it on the freaking radio when we were on Radio 1 BBC yeah and you're also Joni Mitchell's drummer like you have done a lot to bring

some of what's even older than what you just described as sort of the trunk of the Mumford tree, or the roots of the tree, which is radiohead and some other things that sort of influenced you. You've sort of brought Joni back onto the... I mean, literally back onto the stage in some ways. I know there's a lot of artists who had something to do with that, but you were her drummer, you sang California with her live,

and you're also very comfortable giving birth to a new artist like Macy. So it feels like it's a... See, I would not call it giving birth to you. because helping her elevate her art because that I think is like quite an old school patriarchal way of looking at and that's the danger I think right like Macy's giving birth to herself like if I get to play some small part

in her like amazing journey as an artist that's dope and she said really nice things right I think there's a lot of artists who would be threatened by that and who would be uncomfortable with the notion of of helping someone else succeed. Right, because of a competitive spirit.

Correct. Yeah, see, I just don't I think there's enough food on the table creatively for us not to be envious of each other. Like when I see someone else write a killer song, it might inspire me in

a slightly frustrating way. Like when I'm like, I wish I'd written that song. But it won't make me go like I'm envious. I wish I had that song. I wish I'd written that song. But I don't want it to be mine. You're giggling about taxes.

About geese taxes. I'll break my own heart from now on. Oh, mate. I mean, like, I cannot. I mean, it's really boring at this point because we've all seen it, right? But like, love will call when you got a love on your arms. Like, what? Love will make you fit it all in the car.

I wish I had the imagination to write that at this moment time. But it hasn't been dropped on me. It got dropped on your man. and that's fucking dope. I'm so glad that song exists and I'm so stoked for him about where it'll take it. So I don't feel like a, yeah, it's a different kind of... Do you feel like there are artists who gave birth to you?

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Not gave birth to you probably, but definitely we're... He doesn't like that. I really zeroed in on that. I tried. Well, do you know what? I once tried to make the analogy with my wife where I was like, you know, sometimes songs like giving birth.

She was like, no, fucking not. Fair enough. So I'm careful for that language. But she's like, well, you start saying that. Yes, I will. But no,

you know, being in some way involved is great. And I just have always loved the way that artists can rub off on each other. Since we were a baby band, you know, like we became a band because Laura Marling,

that I was playing drums for, offered me an opportunity to play two songs in her encore every night. And that is well. I got spotted. I heard a manager who was like, do I want me to manage you? And two weeks later, I brought the other three lads with me and said, actually, we wanted to be a band. He was like, all right, cool, let's go. Then we had a meeting with my lawyer the next day who said,

if you do nothing else for the next 10 years, you might make it as a band if you work really hard. And that was it. But it was because of Laura. And then I went and recorded a demo at Charlie Fink's house, who was Noah in the Whale, which are two bands that in America, people might not know as much. but without them, our band wouldn't exist, for sure. And multiple others as well. Can we talk about cowboy like me a little bit? So I'm just Desirate to? What shape was that song in when it came to you?

It didn't really come to me. They, Aaron called at the end of COVID when it was legal and said, look, I'm working with an artist who needs a disc, do you know, need discrete studios in London? I thought it was Beyonce Right, because right away there's like four people Yeah, and I was like

No, there are no discreet studios in London, you just can't guarantee that. But whoever it is, if they're a friend of yours and you're working with them, they're very welcome to come to my studio in Devon in the southwest of England.

And then a couple days later, he called me up and was like, yeah, Taylor wants to come down and do you have an engineer? So I called up Robin Bainton who'd helped us on, what was it, the first record, or the second record. He helped us, actually, he was the assistant to the assistant on Laura Marling's second record, a real world. But he's amazing, and he was around. So he came down, Aaron sent him the files.

Aaron was on Zoom for most of it. I mean, we were all living on Zoom at that moment. And Taylor came down, and then I left, I was really intentional about leaving them alone, because I wanted them to be able to do the work that they came to do. And you wanted to be cool. No, I didn't. I didn't want to be that, you know, I just didn't want to be weird. And I wanted her to feel welcome and at home.

And they had real work to do him. So, and then at dinner on like the third night, she was like, look, I've been meaning to ask you, you know, she was feeling awkward about it. Because she was, I don't think she wanted to be like, well, you know, we can't. Anyway. We came here with an ulterior road. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she was like, would you listen to a couple songs and sing on something?

And so she played me a couple. And they were pretty done. They were pretty done. Were you aware that she'd covered White Blank Page at that point? Yeah. Yeah. So you knew that she was a fan of the band. Well, I didn't think that necessarily guaranteed she'd be a fan of the band,

but she liked that song enough to cover it. Fair. And, yeah. Yeah, no, that we were made aware of that pretty much immediately. She'd always have those playlists. in the early days that she'd put on Apple Music or Spotify and there were always Mumford songs. I really are.

But so you heard the song and what was it about that one that resonated and you went, that's the one. Well, any song that starts halfway through a story, I'm down. And it starts with and the tennis court was covered up with some tent-like thing. From that first line, I was like, oh shit,

she's on to something really cool. Because it's so imaginative. Like, how do you come up with that. I know. It's so dope. It's such a cool, it's such a cool hook to get you into the song. And then the further the story unfolded, the, and I heard a harmony straight away. I heard a couple straight away and was like, yeah, I can definitely sing on that. I'll sing on that as much as you want. You'll have to edit me a down because I love it so much. I'll sing. I'll stack

them. So I stacked them. I didn't take very long and that was, that was it. And you said she brought a candle? She brought killer candle, yeah What did it smell? It came in a crate. Like a big candle. It was dope. More than one wick?

Yeah, we're talking multi-wick. Multi-wick. I take my candle admin quite seriously. I'm a tin foil guy. Okay. Like if it, what do you call it aluminum foil? Yeah. If you get whaling, which is when the wicks kind of tunnel down in the individual tunnels,

you've got to get your aluminum foil. You're so speaking my language right now. You've got to get your foil like a little tent on the top while it's lit so that it melts down to the same level. because otherwise you're wasting wax or other places and these things are very expensive, you know. And so, yeah, I know I take my candle. I trim.

Are you into any of the candle warmers? Yeah, no, I haven't gone into that. I like a flame. I like fire. I like fire. I've always liked a fire. Yeah. So, yeah, no, I'll take a flame, please.

Okay, but so multi-wit candle. So she brought candle. Like a woodsy thing, that would be very appropriate, I think. It was, it was. Floral? No. I don't know if she'd feel comfortable with, I told you the girl.

This is personal. Yeah. I love candles. It was great. It came in like a, you know, Raiders of the Lost Ark Star, you know, wooden crate.

That's really great. It was gangster. Yeah. That's an awesome house guest. You asked me at a candle. She left me a little, she left me, she brought a ton of merch. So you can't walk around my house by way of,

yeah, there's just key rings everywhere. There's just key rings everywhere, folklore key rings. And then, and then, And then we ate a lot of cauliflower salad. Yeah.

That sounds really nice. Are you satisfied with the level of detail? I'm really thrilled. Everything squeezed out of the rag on that. Multiple wicks on the candle. That's awesome. Fabulous. That's really fabulous.

Take it away. I mean, I'm... You're done. You're good. We can call it's a wrap. I have two more questions for you. And one is, again, this is me being annoying because I heard it early

but I want you to talk about... You did and can we tell I mean people, can we tell people how can... Yeah, so Nathan, I mean outside of the room it was Nathan and Gracie

that I sent demos to as we were going that was it I waited I think to send them to anyone else but whilst they were work in progress because we just talked a bunch about it and I didn't want lots of opinions while we were making the record, but I felt like Nathan got it,

and it was just a helpful conversational foil to talk about things. And I think, I know you were very excited for us to work with Aaron, and you really believed in his creativity and ours aligning. And it was helpful for me during the process not to have multiple opinions, spoiling anything. And also, I would wait until I was happy with it before I sent it to you. but I did. You heard things pre.

You heard things earlier than anyone. Well, you didn't wait on Icarus. You sent it to me the morning. You stayed up all night recording it. I did. Yeah. And you sent it to me. So let's talk about that because that's a very interesting case study for how,

again, I think the words were pretty embedded on this record. But the music evolved a little bit. Like, we freaked out that morning about the trash can symbols. Yeah. And that just sort of starts on the night. Yeah.

But by the time, it got to record you'd written a bridge and in came Gigi taking over that second verse in an amazing way that had started with I think that's where the band came in your feathers on that like the harmonies that

now Gigi took over so just talk about the way that you evolved these things musically Well that one's like the only outlier actually on the record in that I in that I stayed in the studio till like 3.30 in the morning right on my own with Brandon Bosts because

Bella Blasco was on vacation that week, who is Aaron's engineer and is just like the most incredible engineer on the planet alongside Brandon, right? Who we'd worked with a bunch because he was with Tom Elmhurst. He was Tom Elmerhurst assistant at Electric Lady and we worked with him on Delta. And then had helped us around the world on some of the Farrell sessions and some of the Rushmeer sessions. And Brandon came in because Bella was on vacation that week. And because he was there, I couldn't ask Bella to do this because she had an hour's drive every night to get home, whereas Brandon was staying there. So I could ask him to stay out with me. And that day, I'd got a demo sent over by

Kevin Garrett, who's one of my favorite writers in the world. He wrote, Pray You Catch Me, the first song on Lemonade with Beyonce. And had taught with us and has this amazing soulful thing. And he sent me this guitar thing that I was obsessed with. which I couldn't emulate. So from his iPhone demo, that's the acoustic guitar on Icarus. And I wrote the song around it and got so obsessed with it that night that I stayed. Because Aaron was like, we got to finish by 11 every night because we want to be able to work the next day and everyone's ruined.

If you go all the way through the night and then people start drinking and then it's a nightmare the next day and your productivity shrinks. And we did 10 days on the bounce and no days off. And so I stayed up that one night. I stayed up because I was so obsessed with the idea. of finishing the song and demoed, you know, a lot of the instruments and then showed it to the lads the next day and was quite relieved when they didn't throw it out. And then we did feel like it needed a bridge. Then we had the demo in that form that you heard. Yeah. No, before the bridge,

yeah, you heard that. Then we took it to, we had started just playing it live and we took it to Saratoga Springs where Gigi Perez was doing a one-off show with us, supporting us at Saratoga Springs in New York. And We showed her the demo before we went on stage. And she sang on it on stage that night after one rehearsal. And it was so fly that we asked her to sing it on the record. And she said, yes, which I was amazed by. And so that's how that ended up. And then, yeah, and then obviously Aaron did his thing,

and Tenant Band did their thing on it. And it became Icarus. It's one of my favorite ones. I love that song. It's 10th on the record. Yeah. Yeah, what would you have done? on this. I just, I think, like, do you think the tracklisting's wrong? I don't at all. I wouldn't have

done anything different. I just think it's, it's, it's, yes, like you get through prize fighter and then holy shit. But it feels right. It's, it is right. It does to me. There's just, there's another elevation that the record takes after that, that I didn't, when I was listening to them sort of in piecemeal in my head, I was like, wow, there's so much stuff here. How are they actually going to structure it? And the way that it landed on, I love. The smart thing would have been to break it out into two records. That would have been the smart thing to do, but I couldn't wait.

I couldn't wait. So I just thought, like, let's bang it all out and make it, make it a rich record, but not like an overwhelmingly long one. 14 is the long, you know, Delta was 14, but Delta was dense. This one's got lighter.

You know, I'll tell you everything, it's like a nugget. Clover is like a nugget. So it doesn't feel like dodgy to me. No, but begin again, Icarus, stay, badlands. There's just like four face punches. It feels like a prize fighter in that like sixth round going for knockout.

Yeah. To me. Nice. That's why. All right. You play an SNL on Saturday. I went back and watched the performances that you've done before. I texted you this morning.

Yikes. How was that? Yeah. It was great. We were doing it in here before. Did you? I made them watch because I think the last time you were on that stage you did Delta. The last time I was on that stage, I played the beginning of Little Lion Man acoustically when my wife hosted.

For Carrie's. Which was fun. But yes. Yes. Was it Delta? We did. Jason Momoa had his hair and pigtails introducing you guys. Did he really?

Yeah. It was startling. What a legend. Yeah, it was pretty cool. I made him carry me in his arms. I'm sure that's an experience a lot of people want to hold me in his arms like a fucking baby. And he did it. Just as Santa.

It was awesome. It's not a hard thing for him to do. It was not half for him to do. At that point, it was harder. Yeah. But yeah, go on. SNL. You nervous?

Yeah, no, I am. I'm less nervous than I have been before. Yeah. For sure. Like, what you don't see on that show is the levels of anxiety backstage across the board. Everyone is anxious apart from Lorne. Who's just a fucking legend. So it doesn't have to be.

but everyone is scared because that's what like the stakes are because no one else goes live to that many people in the world. And taking risks with things they haven't really fully finished. Because they cut so much between the dress and the real show that no one knows what the show is until it happens. So there's this level of like height. And I think, you know, A, that makes it super stressful work environment. But B, it makes it so special. It's unique. There's nothing else like it.

And it means that I think everyone's operating at a higher level of adrenaline, which is high stakes, including the musicians. Because you don't get a second take. Right. That's it. So then talk about the band and its purpose as a live entity. Right? Last night, you threw something up on reels and said, meet me in Brooklyn at 8 o'clock and you played a show.

Yeah, we were doing this thing, we were doing a pre-tate thing in Williamsburg, and we had a string section for the first time. Rob Moose brought some friends and did the arrangements that he's done on the record, and we had James McAllister, who played a bunch on Pricefite to play drums with this last night. It sounded so good in rehearsals there, two o'clock in the afternoon, I googled, searched whether there was anything happening at the Music Hall of Williamsburg that night, And there wasn't because I love that room and it's closing And I'm sad about it

And it was like our first big headline show in New York And there was nothing happening So I texted our manager I was like, yo Is there any way we can go and play musical tonight And do it totally unplugged Because the string section's sick It sounds great

And we just try and do it pop up Do you think there's any way we can do it And they called them up And they said yes And so we announced it at 7 Yeah And it blows my mind that it was sold out by the time we got there and people had come in the snow and we played fully acoustically.

And it was one of my favorite things we've ever done. I loved it. So fun. So fulfilling. And so you're probably one of the only bands in the world that can do that. They can play most of the catalog without electricity, some wilder mind, maybe not, but everything else you can do fully. I love playing the dimest acoustic version is my favorite version.

Fair enough. but there's also that performance of Delta on SNL which is as hard a rock song as you're going to play live you're going to hear so there's range there there's also your live show where you are I think it was the wolf running I think it was Delta

I think we played Believe in the Wolf well I'll pull it up on YouTube for you when we're done yeah was Delta was it I don't want him to be right but it was I don't know what the first one was in fairness It was probably the world. Yeah. Well, we'll go back and look.

Point is, there's danger in the live show when you run your ass around the arena and try not to get tackled in the crowd. Like there is something that's different about Mumford that is live. How do you think about the purpose of the band in, is there a difference in the purpose of the band in the live part of what you do versus the making records part of what you do? Ted talks about this really well where he says like when you show up live, especially in a big venue. even in a small one. People have different expectations and needs that night. Some people want to go church. And some people want to throw beer in other people's faces and mosh.

And you get everything in between. And so, like, Bono said this sweet thing about our band where he was like, the thing I love about your band is you take people to church and you take them to the fair. And so I do think about that. I like dynamics live. I like being able to go as quiet as we. possibly can and then and then go to 110 decibels which is like what you'd hear at Kendrick the kind of volume you'd hear at Kendrick yeah so I like being able to do both and then

when you're in the bigger rooms I think holding people's attention is is a thing you have to pay more attention to yourself so then you have to start thinking about other elements and this summer we're about to play oh we're doing a stadium tour for the first time we've done some stadiums but we haven't done a tour of them and that's going to be dope and then And yeah, this is like we just put up our biggest tour we've ever done. It seemed to me like you fell back in love with doing this when you get in front of people. Yeah, and I think that started when we got back in the room together at the three of us, and we fell in love with writing songs together.

That's where it came from. And then the serving the purpose live is to show people a good time, to feel something every night that will make us do it again the next night. and I think we now know the kinds of ingredients we need to put into a show to keep our attention. It's like making records, like as long as you love it, you can be pretty sure that someone else will have a good time. They might not love it as much as you do.

We should probably let him sleep so that he can do a good show on Saturday. I've got the most SNL day. I've got the most New York day in the world tomorrow. I'm living my real housewise dream and doing my Pilates class and then going to rehearsals staying in 30 Rock all day, going rough trade, maybe going to hockey.

It's all very New York at the moment. It's a big hockey week. It's a big week for hockey. It's a big week for hockey. Long for going to the Rangers game. Conner Story on SNL. Let's go. Are you doing Matt Pilates or Reformer?

Reformer and Cadillac. Oh, okay. I went home a couple years ago after a week in New York. And I went home and I saw my doctor. I was like, my shoulder's really bad, and it got scanned. It was a labrum tear. He was like, how'd you do it? And I was like, well, I was in this Pilates class.

And then I came out of the place. And I tossed my bag over my shoulder like a real bad bitch. And he was like, wait, so it's not even a Pilates registered. It's a post-Pilates injury. He just totally had to tell him about the Pilates to make it sort of respectable. Oh, it was the sweet one. Well, be careful. Yes, thank you, Nora.

Be really careful with the bag when you come out of there. That sounds like a really nice day. Good day. It's going to be a good day. Thank you for visiting. Even the conversations, we had this conversation earlier on, like even the conversations around this album I'm enjoying more. And again, that might be for multiple reasons.

But yeah, you make this fun. So thank you very much. Well, thank you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you, Marcus. Yes, Nathan. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Pinciotti.

He's Nathan Hubbard. he's Marcus Mumford. Thank you to Bell Roman for production support. Thank you to Kaya McMullen for producing this episode. And we will talk to you next week.