Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Marcus Mumford

Episode Date: November 27, 2022

After founding Mumford & Sons nearly 15 years ago, Marcus Mumford has stepped out on his own with a deeply personal new solo album. Willie Geist got together with Marcus in New York for a "Sunday Sitdown." Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Got a great one for you this week. A conversation with Marcus Mumford. Yes, the founder of Mumford and Sons, that international sensation of a band. With that foot stomping sound, Marcus once described it as all waistcoats and banjos. They had that look and that sound. But now he has stepped away from the band temporarily.

I should point out, he's getting back with the boys soon for another out. album for his own solo album, his first, called Self-Titled. And man, it is really good and it is really, really personal. Maybe you've seen some of the press around it or heard some other interviews or conversations with him where he opens the album by talking about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, not from a family member or a member of the church. He doesn't say who it was, but he does talk openly and publicly about it for the first time. And then the second song of the album. He talks about breaking that news to his mother only recently. Having thought years ago, he had told her about it, but it was the first she had heard of it. Really emotional and powerful

stuff, and it's sort of the full album goes from the first song through 10 and builds from the pain and the trauma of that first song toward forgiveness in the last song. Marcus and I got together to talk about that album at a ping pong joint in Midtown Manhattan. Turns out that's his thing on the road. That's the Mumford and Sons thing on the road. He says he's the best player in the band. So we're sitting in one of those kind of places they have nowadays where you can get a drink and play some like high end ping pong. I don't know what high end ping pong is, but it's like a nice place if you can catch my drift. We also talked about the last time we saw each other, which was November of 2021 when we both ran the New York City Marathon. He did a little bit better than I did. I think we figured it out. He beat me by five minutes. I I was 358, he was 353. But that's where we met near the starting line. We were warming up together, getting loose together. We got to chat.

And I had a few Mumford and songs. I got to show him on my running playlist. And he had something called negative splits, which I learned, training for the marathon means, basically starting really slow and finishing strong. So when we started on that run over the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island, he was going so slow that I kind of left him. I thought, well, maybe he didn't train. I don't know. So I took off.

Sure enough, about mile 15, 16, 17, I'm Dragon, and here comes Mumford and Sons, him, Ben, the keyboard player, a couple of others buddies, just dusting me. So we talked about that first, our shared experience around that, and then we just talk about music and life. I think you'll enjoy a great conversation with Marcus Mumford right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Great to see you, man. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, thank you. Last time I saw you, We were standing over the finish line at the marathon holding our middle. Very salty. Salty.

It was salty. It was salced and solved. And both sub four. Both sub four. She's a real achievement. We should say for people listening, you were a little more sub four than I was. Only a hair. That strategy of yours.

I thought I'd left you in the dust. Ronner's World called it an impressive negative split, which is the finest review I've ever had in my life, the only one I really care about. You seem very proud of that. I'm very proud of that. Well, it's good to see you off the course as well. Congratulations on this album. It's, man.

It's incredible. And it's a story. I was just saying to someone off camera, it's a proper album in the way we don't see them anymore, which is you've got to listen to the whole thing from 110 to hear the full story. Yeah, me and Beyonce, China. There you go. Keep the album fires burning.

You've got to buy the album. Obviously, it's deeply personal, as a lot of people know by now. What made you want to sit down, step away from, Mumford for a bit and tell this story. I didn't think of it. I wasn't intentional about it at the beginning. I just wanted to write songs again. And for me, that meant removing any thought of who it was for what the audience was going

to be, how I was going to release it, what the team was going to be behind releasing it. I just sort of tried to remove all distractions and just write songs for the sake of writing songs again and sort of embrace being an artist. I've been in denial about being an artist for a while. And so when I sat down to write, the first two songs that came out were Cannibal and Grace, which are the first two songs on the record. And as soon as I'd written,

then I showed them to the guys in the band. I said, I don't know if this is a band record. I don't know if it's even a record yet, but it feels like something I maybe should do on my own, and they all completely agreed and supported it. So then the songs just started rolling, one after the other. I spent about 18 months writing and recording,

enlisted more support than I've ever had for anything I've done. So it's weird that it's called the solo record. It's the most collaborative piece of music I've worked on. And yeah, the songs really led it. I was determined to follow the creative where it led. When you say you were in denial about being an artist, what do you mean by that? I think I'd spent a lot of time throughout COVID and before really, like only hanging out with farmers or estate agents,

people who weren't artistic at all. Because I think I threw the baby out with the bathwater in terms of celebrity and artistry and sort of so refused to, I hate the rules of the game around celebrity. I just think it's rubbish. And so was in denial about the fact that I'm actually a creative person.

And you can separate those two things. And so once I sort of embraced the fact that a natural thing for me to do with the things I feel and the things I think about, things I experience is to write songs. That's the natural extension of the person that I am. Once I sat down and started writing songs again, then it all kind of came out in that way, which I was grateful for. So the first song was Cannibal. As personal as a song can be,

writing about extraordinary, extreme trauma in your childhood. Tell me about the decision to make that story public. Was that a difficult one? It's so weird with songs because you take the most private things that you have. And that moment of artist behavior where you write a song about something really personal and then you do the most public thing you could do with it and you go and publicize it play it to people and it goes on the radio or whatever it's just a really weird thing that we do as artists but i the whole way through i was in i i sort of refused to call it a record until i had all the songs because i just didn't want to think about releasing it until i knew there was something there to release and then i

I figured I'd think about that stuff later. So really, I didn't even call it an album until late last year. And then this year started thinking about how to present us to people. And at that point, I started thinking, oh, I'm going to have to talk about this. I'm going to have to. And seeing that more as an opportunity than some sort of punishment is how I've approached it. And it feels good. I feel kind of free and happy and kind of fulfilled by doing the process.

Was it a difficult decision or it sounds like it wasn't really a decision? No, once I'd written it, I'd, you know, just became part of the collection songs along with the other nine on the record. And then early this year, I started to think, okay, this is going to be put out somehow. Have you been heartened by the reaction to it? I know a lot of people have stepped out and said, oh, my gosh, he's telling my story. I can tell mine, things like that. Yeah, it's the reason I called it self-titled rather than using my name.

Because I love the idea that other people might be able to access parts of my story and project their own onto it or feel something, you know, from, their own story in mine, which is really cool. It's sort of the magic of music, I think. And I have been heartened by it. It's been really fun playing shows because the record has come to life at the shows. And there's a lot of joy in it. People are enjoying the shows, I think. I'm really enjoying the shows. Playing the different band is fun. I've always enjoyed collaboration in all its forms. And yeah, I'm just sort of attacking the live thing at the moment. know it's just a period of time in my life and I'll go back to the band next. I'm really excited about

that but for now I'm just trying to enjoy this period. As I say the story sort of unfolds and in the second track, Grace, we hear the story of you telling your mom something you thought you had already told your mother. Yeah. Can you say a little bit more about that story? That's something that perhaps you had buried or your mind had tricked you into thinking. Yeah, the mind's such a powerful thing. Yeah, I thought I'd taught my mom through that stuff and I hadn't. So when I played it. So when I played a that Cannibal was the first time. She kind of clocked it. And so I wrote Grace.

But Grace has also served in the shows, I think, as quite a helpful, like, reset button after playing Cannibal, because I'm playing the whole record, start to finish, it's not very long. And it's sort of a good, I think it's a good turning over the leaf, like the first lyric is,

well, how shall we proceed without things getting too heavy? And that sort of acts, I think, as an invitation for the audience. to join me on what I think becomes a story about freedom and recovery and has a lot of hope in it. I'm a Beyonce guy. She always talks about leaving people with hope. And that's true, I think, on every song on the record.

The first song ends with beginning again. And then it kind of goes on. And then it closes with how where you find forgiveness in the song. Is that how you wanted to bookend this? Yeah. Here's how this started, but here's where it ends. Yeah, yeah. It starts with some anger, which is,

natural. Yeah. And it ends with some form of resolution, more kind of like an intent, you know. The lyric is, if I could forgive. No, I will forgive you now. The first lyric and the first song is if I could forgive you. And the last one is I will. And it's a statement of intent.

It's not necessarily saying forgiveness is done and dusted. I think it's more of a process, like a left foot, right foot thing. More sort of, we could get techy, but more a sort of aristotelian way of like virtue being left foot, right foot, and practicing it makes you become that. Right. That virtue. So I like the idea that forgiveness is a process and forgiveness of self as well is a real process. And there's an intention behind the lyric.

Like, I'm going to choose to do this. Did you feel like you needed to forgive yourself for something? Oh, yeah, for tons of things. Really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was sort of, I was sort of weirdly addicted. It might be too strong a word, but somehow sort of, yeah. I was kind of addicted to shame, you know, for a while.

What do you mean by that? Self-forgiveness is important. I just from a really early age had things hidden in my life and sort of they would cascade into other hidden things and just you get tangled up in it all. And so unpicking that and forgiving yourself for that stuff, I think it's an important part of kind of recovery. Have you found forgiveness, not just for yourself, but beyond?

Is that last song true? Well, I think I certainly find myself in a, I think with more access to compassion for people who behave in ways that seem like abhorrent or heinous to me and behind like all these stories and certainly my own of like bad behaviors or behaviors that really affect other people in negative ways,

there's normally a story underneath that. And so I think I'm able to see, not just see the way someone presents, but think, and I wouldn't project a story onto them, but think like, you've got a bunch of stuff going on in your life. And it seems, by the way, you're presenting to me that you haven't had the opportunity to look at that stuff. So instead of just writing someone off completely and saying, like, you're not a person I want to ever associate with, which is there's a lot of that in our culture at the moment.

Yes. And I get it completely because there are abhorrent things like on show a lot. but the fact that it's more complicated than just one single narrative, normally there's layers of narratives that I think I've got more access to compassion, maybe than I did before. Well, it's a good lesson because you're right. Maybe because of social media, I don't know what, but we take so much at face value now and say,

she's not with me, he's not with me, rather than digging into their story a little bit. There's a song in there about alcohol, about an intervention in your life. was that something that you were aware was a problem for you or did it take that intervention to identify it for you? It wasn't actually specifically about alcohol that one, so I don't know the one you're talking about.

Okay. Well, just the larger intervention where the people come into your life. There's a song, you might be talking about prior warning. Yes, prior warning. In which, yeah, I think it took a moment in my life for someone really close to me, to say like, hold on a minute. The way you're presenting doesn't line up with the person that I know.

This feels Jekyll and Hyde. And that felt like a line in the sand moment in my life, which was really helpful. But, yeah, I think, for me, it started with my closest support group saying, like, there's not something quite right here. You should go and look at that. We were talking about the collaborations. Brandy Carlisle, I'm the last song, who's become a dear friend of yours, and hopefully a future collaborator as well.

She was instrumental in bringing this, not just that song, it sounds like, but this album to pushing you to say, yes, say these things, put this album out. What was her role in the album? Yeah, she was. That's exactly what she was. I played her three songs really early on. We saw each other at dinner without John. Clunk. And she was like, look, you're my friend and you're presenting really differently to me.

I'd love to understand more of why and how. And I was like, let's go for a drive and I can talk you through it. So we did. And then I played her Cannibal Grace, Only Child, off the record. And she kind of put her arm around me and said, whatever it takes to support you getting this music out into the world, I'm here for it. And I was like, well, I'm going to take you at your word. Do you want to come to the studio right now? I have this song I've almost finished.

and I kind of hit a dead end with it. And so she came in that day and we rewrote some of how and recorded it. And that's the version that's on the record. It's all kind of magical. It's beautiful. And you just played it at the rhyme in Nashville. Is that a wonderful thing to stand on the stage with her and play that live? It was a relief playing that venue and not having a panic attack.

It's a lot of pressure at the church. It is a lot of pressure. Those are hallowed walls. Yeah, it was really fun. She came along. We did a sort of surprise show together, really. And she's one of the finest musicians, finest vocalists of all time in my view. And someone I really, really admire and look up to and have a lot in common with.

She's become like a sister, really. More to come. More to come. More to come. We fans hope. We fans hope. You've dedicated the album to your wife. How did she feel hearing something?

of these songs, some of these lyrics, and saying, okay, we're making a decision here, you're making a decision here to put this out and make it public. Was she supportive of you in that? Yeah, totally, all the way. You know, I think Yoko gave creative partners, like, sometimes a bit of a bad rep. I think Yoko's had a hard time in the public. But there was one day actually we were at the studio, and Kerry was showing up, and she was driving, and they had, like, these really fancy little placards to put in front of your

parking spots. So, like one saying Marcus Montford on it, and I park there. And she called me, she's like, where do I park? I said, there's a sign for you. There's a slot allocated for you. And when she showed up, I'd got them to print a yokeo. And I put it in her parking spot, which I was thrilled about. She's like, good gag, babe. She liked it. She liked it. But I wouldn't have made it without her. Yeah. It's a good reason that it's dedicated to her. And she's been phenomenally supportive all the way. It's cool. I think there are people who, when they hear your name. They associate, obviously, with Mumford and Sons. And so when you're putting out an album, they might be waiting for the banjos and the waistcoat, as you put it. Yeah, right.

Was there any consideration of, boy, this is going to be quite a departure from everything I've done. Did that concern you at all? Or did this, did you say? No, I also just see it as like, hopefully one in very many records I make throughout my career. You know, we can get so, I think as artists, you get so focused on the last thing you've made and you think it's the best thing you've ever made, that you forget either that you've made stuff before, which has value, or that you will make stuff in the future that will have value. So I just view it in the long arc, hopefully the long arc of my career as something I'm really proud of, and really glad I did. I think in two records time, it won't feel like such a departure to me or to maybe to the audience.

but I actually right at the beginning of the writing process I studied this interview with David Bowie where he talks about being out of your depth and making your best work when you're a bit afraid and you don't feel comfortable and you feel like your feet aren't quite touching the bottom because if you're comfortable or sort of too safe

you're not going to be making as interesting art and I really really I took that to heart and kind of chased after some of the more scary, you know, ways of making music. For me, like being outside of the band arena, writing with different people was something I'd never done before and felt a bit scary and doing something out on my own. It's been, yeah, I've been outside of my comfort zone. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Stick around to hear more from Marcus Mumford right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Marcus Mumford. I was going to ask you about that. Is it strange to turn around on stage at these shows and not see the boys back there? Yeah, it has been. And then they popped up in Nashville. We played our first show together as a band for almost three years. And it was really wonderful.

When they opened their mouths to sing, I was reminded again why I love being in a band with. Yeah, it was pretty special. There was mild panic when you came out with a solo album that, oh my gosh, Mufford and Sons, what's the future? But you've been pretty clear that there's more music to come. Yeah, and I mean, I'm sure we could have started with all sorts of PR statements and stuff. But I just think songs first, you know, like put the songs out and then you can talk about them. And in the course of that conversation, people will realize that the band isn't broken out and, you know, that stuff.

But I think when you spend more time writing PR statements than you do writing songs, you're in real trouble. Yeah. Let someone else do that. Yeah. Make music. Yeah. Right. Going back briefly, just to the genesis of the band, I was reading through it again when you got together in 2007.

From my perspective, maybe not from yours, how quickly things took off. When the first album comes out in 2009, it goes to number two in the U.S. Did that feel like a rocket ride to you early on or was did it feel like years of getting the moment? It's a little blurry. For various reasons, yeah. Yeah, it did feel quick. It felt like, I think what's unusual is that I've always measured it by the live, by ticket sales, really, because that's the bit I sort of understand a bit better than I don't understand streaming or radio or press at all.

But we only played like theatres once. You know, we did the bar thing once. We did theatres once. And I think normally you'd do like two or three theatre runs and then move up to the bigger rooms. It just went, we climbed that ladder fast, I think. How do you account for that? Because it takes some bands and tech games. Oh, it's definitely someone else's fault.

It's not mine. I can hardly take any responsibility for that whatsoever. We just played shows. We just said yes to every show we were off of right from the beginning. We were playing over 200 shows a year, you know. And we cut our teeth really on stage. And we'd play, this was before YouTube, you know, we'd play live, new songs live every night and see how they went

and really crowd tested them. And if they worked and if they didn't. I remember there was one song called Honor. I think, which is a disaster life. So we never cut it, you know. Right. So, yeah, we just played a lot of shows. We said yes to every show.

We really learned. I think we learned our craft. We at least improved at our jobs by just playing shows. Which meant there were some ropey shows. Really bad ones. You can look back and laugh now. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember, Marcus, when the spark was lit for you?

in terms of music, maybe it was when you got your first guitar or you realized... Pots and pans in the kitchen. The kitchen in my household growing up was the place where we'd listen to the most music outside of the car. So I'd sit and my mum was an amazing chef. So she would sit, she would be in the kitchen, make stuff. And I would sit on the floor listen to music. And I remember pulling out pots and pans because I started on the drums.

Yeah. And then we had a neighbor who had a drum set and I went and played his kit for the first time. And then, yeah, listening to music with my mom in the kitchen. And she had a vinyl player, so I put on House of the Rising Sun by the animals. Slow Train coming. She had those records. Good taste. And then Talas, a lot of vocal music.

She was a kind of singer in a choir. And you'd offer a little percussion behind it. A little percussion and some harmonies. Yeah. Yeah. And then at what point did you say, I know you left college to pursue this? At what point did you say, this is something I really want to go after? In my head I still haven't said that.

I'm still a semi-professional on my head. I'm still going back to college at some point. Yeah, I left college on a sabbatical because I got offered a job playing drums with Laura Marling. And I went and did that. And during the course of that year, we set up the band. Yeah, and jumped up at the end of her shows and played a song or two. And then the first tour of the States we did, half of us were her backing band.

And Wynne and Ben slept in the background. on the bus because there weren't enough bunks for us all. And then from there on, she really gave us the leg up to play our own shows. We went from there. We were talking earlier today about a performance that grabbed a lot of people, which was at the Grammys in 2011. I was watching again this morning the way you all are stomping on that riser and then the horns come in and you have this look about two minutes in

of just complete joy, almost like, can you believe, are boys. Do you remember that night well? Because obviously things changed for you after that. Yeah, Bob Dylan said to me during, because that was the one we did with Dylan and the Avid brothers. And Dylan, pretty much the only thing he said to me during rehearsals was keep that

boot going, because I was stomping and I've considered that a mantra. It's led to a lot of four on the floor songs. But, yeah, I think, it was funny because after we played our song,

The Avitz played their song. We went behind the curtain to get ready to all come on to play Maggie's Farn with Dylan. And I think it was probably when the live broadcast was happening to however many tens of millions of people, I think it was the first time he'd heard our music. But he kind of liked it. And we came back while the Avers were playing and he walked over to me and he went, play that again. And I still had my guitar in my hands. And I was like really quietly because we're behind the curtain.

The Avers are right there. I start playing him in the cave. And he goes, I can sing on that. let's do Maggie's farm to that. And we've been practicing for three days. We're all like, what are you talking? What do you mean? But you're Bob Dylan.

We'll do whatever you tell us to do here. He's like, I'm going to sing it on that. And then his bass player Tony came over. He was like, Bob, we're not doing that. We're practiced. We're literally walking on stage in 30 seconds. Is that an out-of-body experience that Bob Dylan is leaning in and giving new notes? Let's jam this way.

Yeah, yeah, totally. But one, I'll never forget. Do you still have those moments where you're... Yeah, I had a moment. one with Journey Mitchell this summer with Brandon. I was going to ask you about that at Newport. Yep. She said my instincts were good. I'm going to get this stuff tattooed along with the Runner's World Review. The Runners World Review. Yeah. Impressive negative split. Keep that boot going. Your instincts are good. That's it. That's fine. I'm stitched on a pillow. You're ready to go.

Stick around for more of my conversation with Marcus Mumford right after a quick break. back now to the rest of my conversation with Marcus Mumford. So how are you looking at the future? You're going to get back together with Mumford, do your thing. You've obviously got a lot ahead of you. Yeah. What else do you see for yourself? I'd quite like to write an album that was completely nothing to do with me. That would be fun. I think that'd be much harder actually, just sort of an imagination album. Dylan's very good at those, although he says that every song you write is eventually about yourself. So, no, the next thing really is to get in a room with the boys and the band and start playing each other the songs we've written.

So I've got a bunch that are kind of ready to go. And then we'll make a record and tour it and get to do what we love. Do it all over again. It's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, getting pretty. When you were saying earlier about sort of divorcing the music from the celebrity or not liking that piece of it escaping a little bit, do you feel liberated from that now or do you still sort of shy away from that piece? Yeah, I do a bit.

I think I'm taking myself slightly less seriously, which helps. how'd you get there on that? Oh, I don't really know. I think seeing it with a slightly longer lens, I'm sure just experience a bit of time and knowing that like this interview, it might ruin my career, but it likely won't,

and it'll likely be another interview on, you know, the path of many, hopefully, in the future. So I think just freaking out a bit less. and taking things a bit easier. And enjoying it as well. We arrived in New York this morning. I went for a little run around the bus. Some really dodgy car park in Jersey.

We woke up there on the bus. That's where you ran? Yeah, I ran around the Hilton. Opposite MetLife. Did you really? Yeah, and I saw that amazing-looking shopping center. Oh, the mall, the American Dream. I love that it's called that, by the way.

Perfect, right? Yeah, it's completely perfect. And I ran, I did laps of the Hilton car park this morning. Wow. That would be great for someone to have spotted you. Is that Marcus Mumford? Running laps around the car park. It was fun.

And then driving into Manhattan, I just got the buzz. I haven't been here in a minute. And I love this place. So I'm sort of just excited to be here. Well, we're happy to have you here. It's great to see you, man. I'll see you the next marathon. Yeah, exactly.

My big thanks again to Marcus for a great conversation with just a great dude. you can check out his solo album self-titled wherever you stream your music. My thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of our conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click Follow so you'd never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.