Folk rockers Mumford & Sons discuss how their newly released album “Rushmere” highlights an era of creative, spiritual revival.
To describe Grammy-winning folk-rock trio Mumford & Sons members as anything less than well-rested would be missing much of the point of their reunion.
The reunion was inspired by the trio’s presence at an encore featuring Dwane, Lovett, Brandi Carlile and Jerry Douglas at Marcus Mumford’s solo gig at the Mother Church of Country Music, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Oct. 22, 2022.
It was there that Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, and Ted Dwane played music together live in public for the first time in nearly three years. By the time they closed with a cover of Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel,” they’d committed, in essence, to releasing their first new music since their chart-topping 2018 release “Delta.”
“When these boys popped up there for support and we sang together, what’s contained in the Ryman Auditorium’s walls (allowed for) something magical to happen when we physically saw each other for the first time in years,” says Mumford, in an interview alongside his bandmates.
The band released its fifth studio album, “Rushmere,” March 25. More than an album, it’s a representation of their personal and professional journey.
They discovered the connective ties between youthful nights in southwest London and being older and wiser while standing in the shadows of folk music’s progression on Nashville’s Lower Broadway. This personal growth yielded a new album’s worth of material inspired by the curiosity that spawned how far they have traveled as artists and people.
“We’re now more self-aware, self-controlled and (even)-tempered as people, too,” Lovett says. “That allows the energy we give to our performing and songwriting to feel more relaxed. Learning to slow down was important because playing and touring almost non-stop for a decade forced us to not do so well at managing our (bodies and lives), which led to us all burning ourselves out. Being well-rested allows us to be more honest with ourselves and our music.”
Mumford & Sons guided by a rested, renewed and creative spirit
“Rushmere” showcases Mumford & Sons as not the driving stadium act they became by 2020, but rather their best and most recovered selves. They’re at their best when crafting thoughtful, acoustic melodies and rhythms.
This appoach showcases what rest, reflection and refocusing your spirit can occur from an unflinchingly honest mindset.
Four years have elapsed since the group’s former banjo player, Winston Marshall, left the band because he believed his conservative political beliefs were too potentially “controversial” to continue without his ideals personally and professionally affecting his bandmates.
Meanwhile, lead vocalist Mumford in a 2022 solo album revealed that he was sexually abused as a child in “Cannibal,” its lead single.
“I can still taste you and I hate it / That wasn’t a choice in the mind of a child and you knew it / You took the first slice of me and you ate it raw / Ripped it in with your teeth and your lips like a cannibal / You [expletive] animal,” he sings.
Emotionally devastating moments followed the frenetic pace of spending much more time performing and recording music than relaxing and enjoying the spoils of success. This makes asking about the group’s current mental health an essential framing for the conversation.
“Because we’re no longer as rushed as we used to be, the creativity of ‘Rushmere’ comes from us carving out more space for our (best) artistic selves,” Mumford said. “Having the time to explore our emotions and dive into how they inspired our creativity (developed) songs that feel like they’re doing as much breathing and (engaging in as much) freedom as we are as a band.”
Recording ‘Rushmere’ with Dave Cobb
Being artistically refocused married incredibly well with the production ethos often used by the producer of “Rushmere,” Grammy-winning new Universal Nashville co-chief, Dave Cobb.
Alongside work done in Marcus Mumford’s UK-based studio in Devon, the album was completed at RCA Studio A in Nashville and at Cobb’s Savannah, Georgia home. Cobb’s the producer-in-residence at Studio A and has built a home studio amongst his hometown’s Spanish moss-draped oak trees a half hour’s drive from the Atlantic Ocean.
Cobb’s a soul reclamationist whose songs are driven by discovering how an artist’s heart interacts with silence-draped ambiance.
Revived via a magical Nashville moment, the group then set upon recorded demos highlighting how they had rediscovered the folk stylings that governed their initial dives into indie rock grooves. Like the trio, Cobb dialed in on focusing on the band as more an intimate, thoughtful unit as opposed to the group that, after only five years together, had sold over 10 million albums worldwide, including songs like their anthemic 2012 single “I Will Wait.”
The success of that song led to the band headlining the Glastonbury Festival in front of 80,000 people in 2013.
Recording at Cobb’s Savannah home often reduced the size of the audience, band and producer included, to a factor much smaller.
“Once we arrived at Dave’s house in Savannah, we began recording in his living room,” Mumford said. “From there, we played five songs at first. That (empowered us to) step out in the faith that if we continued to play the chords and sing the songs we’d written, more would come.”
“We (revived) the intangible excitement that happens when we come together,” Dwane said. “By having us record in an intimate, domestic setting, Dave simplified our creativity and inspirations.
“His steady and safe pair of hands created the spontaneous alchemy (reflected in) the energy in the room that we needed at this point in our careers. Dave’s animated spirit encouraged us to chase down the truth about how we played and wrote.”
Mumford & Sons ‘Rushmere’
Dive into the songwriting on “Rushmere” and alongside the title track, songs like “Malibu” and album closer “Carry On” reflect notes of redemptive salvation governing the band’s mindset.
“I’m still afraid / I said too much / Or not enough,” Mumford sings on “Malibu.” “Don’t you miss / The breathlessness / The wildness in the eye?”
When the album hits “Carry On,” he sings, “I will take this darkness / Over any light you cast / You and all your original sin.”
Being saved isn’t being healed but reflects a step along that path.
“Songs are opportunities to express your deepest feelings in a way you can’t articulate with words in a conversation,” Mumford said. “I’m excited that every creative act I take is me walking along a path to redemption, I suppose.”
He adds that his picking and playing through “Monochrome” reflects how plugging into reflection alongside his creativity yielded a new, soulful path along his artistic journey.
“Then, when we’re singing together, you’re honestly hearing what sounds like the three of us healing as a band and human beings.”
Rediscovering ‘the collaborative spirit’
Lovett describes Mumford & Sons as a band that, by 2019, was virtually driven to delirium by exhaustion caused by rising expectations.
“Every time we wanted to set down the reigns, something incredible would happen,” he said.
The keyboard player describes a process where the mental and physical work required to collaborate, create and perform at a level commensurate to five consecutive years of award victories, world tours, a platinum album and pair of platinum-selling singles eventually wore the ties that bound Mumford & Sons together too thin to allow for them to continue to soldier forth.
“Time has allowed us to discover the beauty that comes from checking out and surrendering (to that pressure),” Lovett said. “Because we rested, the sun rose again (on Mumford & Sons).”
Mumford said this recording process allowed the band to rediscover their most creative selves.
“(Rediscovering) the collaborative spirit that guides this band celebrates how, at the heart of what we do, our friendship is driven by storytellers (who succeeded) at creating songs that welcomed the world into the beauty of our intimate, personal creative process,” Mumford said.
