HEART OF THE MATTER
Mumford & Sons on power of song
It has been a decade since Mumford and Sons broke through to the mainstream with their banjo-driven folk-rock songs, exploding into one of the biggest-selling acts of the 2010s. They won Grammys, entertained Barack Obama and shared stages with legendary artists such as Bob Dylan and U2.
With their fourth and latest album, Delta, Marcus Mumford and his unrelated bandmates — Winston Marshall, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane — showcase an expanded arsenal of sounds, from banjo to synthesizer, with a skilled producer tying it all together. They’ve also embarked on their biggest tour yet, an in-the-round extravaganza designed to get arena audiences closer to the action.
In this edited interview, keyboardist Lovett, who’s 33, discusses the new album and the rough start to their ambitious world tour, which lands in Canada next month.
Q What did you set out to do with this record?
A I’d say it was to find our way closer to identifying who we are. I think that’s kind of what we set out to do with every record. And interestingly, it’s a moving target. We were very much trying to explore the sounds we felt passionate about, and (work them) into the songs. It’s not necessarily about trying to make any sort of statement beyond, like, pay attention to what each of us has written about, and create music that supports it, and capture the mood and the energy as best as possible with whatever instrument feels appropriate to do that with.
Q Was that what you were hoping to achieve with (producer) Paul Epworth?
A Funny, that didn’t enter any of our minds, what the outcome would be like. Which is strange, I suppose. It’s like a sculptor when he sits down with a piece of clay. He has a pretty good idea, I would imagine, what the sculpture is going to look like so he knows he’s heading in the right direction. Whereas our process is a lot more fluid. It’s pretty hard to articulate, but I think the main point I’m trying to make is we are wholly unintentional in our approach. And I find that means that you can be more honest and more authentic with your feelings if you’re not overthinking it. We weren’t trying to achieve anything other than just being as close to the source of the happiness or the pain or whatever it is, the emotional core we were trying to extract from each song.
Q There is a sense of growing up, too, in the music.
A Yeah, we’ve taken on more life, and talk about that on this album more than we have previously. There was a lot of life lived between Wilder Mind and Delta. Boyfriends and girlfriends become husbands and wives and everything, it seems, gets more extreme and larger in all directions, good and bad. We’re still pretty young but, yeah, we’re older than when we made our first album. We were in our early 20s. We thought then that we were grasping some big stuff. We’ve always written very autobiographical songs. The albums are windows into our lives as we go along the journey.
Q What’s the significance of the album title, Delta?
A Album naming is always kind of tricky. I remember quite specifically Marcus brought us in one day, and he was saying it felt like we’ve come away from the comfort and the shelter of the meandering river and we’ve now reached that point of getting to the ocean, where everything is wild and you have no idea what’s going to follow and there are no riverbanks left, and anything can happen. Then to just double down on that, the concept of it being the fourth record, and Delta is the fourth letter. Being geeky as we are, we liked that.
Q Does this one feel like a new chapter for the band?
A I think there’s a sense of space that comes with this album. I think you get it in the tempos. Perhaps life is a bit more of a journey. It’s a less frantic record. There are instrumentals on it. There’s mid-tempo songs that just cruise along. But I think the reason it feels like a new chapter is there’s a comfort in our own skin and a willingness to accept who we are that I think maybe we haven’t felt before. So we feel great about it. And I would say the band feels closer than ever because of it, which is cool because that doesn’t always happen with bands.
Q You cancelled some shows
recently due to “unforeseen technical and logistical challenges.” What was happening? A We’ve rescheduled those three shows. The reality is that we’re trying to pull off a lot with this show. It’s the first time we’ve done gigs in-the-round. And there’s a lot of our crew we’ve grown up with since our first show so we’ve all gone on the journey together. We were all smashing our heads together simultaneously trying to figure out how to do it. We’ve now figured it out and we’re really enjoying it.
Q How are audiences responding ?
A For those people who have seen us before, it’s not changed but it’s a little bit different. I think part of that was inspired by a few different things. When we went (on tour with U2) for the celebration of Joshua Tree, one thing that struck us about that band is their live show, they don’t phone it in. Some people prefer watching us onstage, the four guys in a line. But I think we’ve got to keep expressing in the live environment as much as we are in the studio environment.
Q What are your thoughts on coming back to Canada for a couple of shows?
A It’s amazing ... it’s actually become our No. 1 market in the world in terms of ticket sales and record sales.