Mumford & Sons
I’m not sure if it’s because it’s a perfect antidote to the cluttered, invasive, heady nature of the Big Smoke, but you’ve probably noticed that there’s a soothing wave of intelligent and timeless folk coming out of the streets of London, the latest exponents of which are Mumford & Sons, a fabricated family by name, but sonically and personally as tight as any dynasty. Currently on the lips and in the ears of the DJs in the know, even before the release of their first album, it’s a fervently fruitful time for these boys, so we were delighted when Country Winston from the band gave us a little of his time…
Hello Winston, how are you?
I’m very well thankyou, and you?
I’m good, thanks. Where are you at the moment?
I’m just at a friend’s house, not far from home in London. Where are you? Are you in Norwich?
Yes, we’re in Norwich, so thanks for your time today.
Not at all, thank you for giving us a call – we appreciate it very much.
So you played a gig at The Borderline yesterday to preview the video for the new single, ‘Little Lion Man’ yesterday, didn’t you?
Yeah, well we didn’t actually end up previewing it; I don’t quite understand but it was like the sound wasn’t quite right and it was a bit weird, but it was basically still a good excuse to do a gig – we really love playing and it feels like a long time since we played. It’s been festival season and so we’ve been doing loads of shows and some of them have been small and really nice, but to do a really intimate gig in a small venue, we haven’t done that all summer really, so that was an excuse to do it. We didn’t end up playing the video, which is a real shame.
It’s a good warm-up for the tour as well though…
Absolutely, yeah – that was the idea.
For anyone that doesn’t know already, would you mind telling us how you got together?
Sure – well, we all know each other through Marcus, the lead singer; so, Marcus met Ted who plays double bass and a bit of drums when playing with a guy called Alan Pownell a couple of years ago – Marcus was playing drums and Ted was playing bass. Then Ben, who’s the keyboard player, went to school with Marcus and I met Ben two or three years ago – our old bands crossed paths quite a lot and we played gigs together. Then I met Marcus, I think it was five years ago this summer, but then I didn’t really see him again ‘til a couple of years ago when my old band was going through Edinburgh; he came along and seemed to be really enthused as it was a country band and I guess that’s the moment when we came together. A couple of years ago, we started jamming in London, playing Marcus’ songs originally and practising everywhere we could, working out arrangements to songs that Marcus had already written. Then we got a little repertoire together and just tried to tour and play as many gigs together as possible, which is what we’ve done for the last year and a half. Was that a good description? I felt it was a little long-winded… I would’ve liked to have said something cooler!
I read that you used to practise on pavements outside venues – is this true?
I think that story came from the fact that we used to all play this one night in London where you’d play your own songs; you’d turn up with your guitar or your sax or whatever – not that I can play sax – but you’d turn up and play your song, then someone else would play theirs, but you’d want to play with them, so you’d quickly run outside and work out the chords and the chorus, go in and play the song, then run back out again ready to do the same with the next band. So that’s how it all started for us.
You mentioned that you used to be in a country band and your nickname is Country Winston, but if I was to tell you I’m allergic to country music – I actually think I am – what albums or singers would you recommend to cure me?
I think the trick is to stick to the rootsy stuff, so one of the greatest guys is Steve Earle. He did a bluegrass album with the Del McCoury Band called The Mountain and that’s a great start ‘cause it’s a beautiful album, full of beautiful songs – not cheesy at all. I don’t know if you know Gillian Welch at all, but she’s got an album called ‘Soul Journey’, which is a great record; if you like folky stuff, this is more on the folky side of country. I know what you mean though… I don’t particularly like all that “So I was riding down to Texas…” stuff, you know what I mean? But in context it’s good – like at SXSW we did see a band who were so funny and we had a few beers with them and it was like a proper hoedown – pure country which you can’t listen to anywhere else, like it’s too painful to listen through your headphones, but if you’re in the right mood, it works. Like, I don’t really want to say this, but it’s like those horrible disco tunes that you can’t listen to on your own, but with friends you can have so much fun with it.
I knew you could educate me and I’d like to be cured. What I do like the sound of though is ‘Hick Hop’, something you jokingly mention on your MySpace blog. So if you were to take a Hip Hop track and give it a Mumford & Sons twist, what would you choose?
Haha, erm… I’d quite like to do some M.I.A. or maybe – I know it’s a bit obvious – that Dr Dre album ‘2001’; there’s so many good tunes on there, like maybe ‘Forgot About Dre’. It’d be great to do that in the studio… and then live – maybe we could do it live, with like a loop peddle… that’d be great, man!
I was thinking Bonita Applebum by A Tribe Called Quest, just ‘cause the name of it sounds quite ‘hicksville’…
Well do you remember that ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ by the Rednecks? They basically took a country track and put a house beat over it; I think these things come in cycles, so after this folk wave, they’re gonna start wacking dance beats on to the folk stuff and then it’s gonna hit the mainstream!
Those wise folks at The Guardian said you do a “convincing impression of musicians from another time and place”, but if you could choose that time and place yourself, what would you go for?
You know what, I’ve thought about this before – not in relation to the Guardian, haha, but I actually really like this time and place because we can still see some of the old bands; I’ve got to see so many of my favourite bands like ZZ Top and The Rolling Stones and stuff, yet I’m still excited about the future, ‘cause we’ve got some great bands coming out, so I’m pretty content with this period in time just because we’ve seen the path laid before us and we get to see that. I mean, I’ve seen Dylan playing, yet I still get to be part of the future.
It’s obviously very exciting that your debut album has been produced by Marcus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Bjork, The Maccabees) – how did that come about?
Well, with all the stuff we recorded ourselves it sounds like we recorded it ourselves! There’s quite a rustic feel to it and we wanted to recreate what we were doing live as much as possible, but Marcus Dravs called and said that he wanted to do it like you’d do a Hip Hop album, like, so that it’s really tight, because a lot of folk albums are recorded live, but we’ve made sure everything’s really tight. That was really exciting for us because we’d never approached it in that way; we joke about Hick Hop, but I really like all that Hip Hop production – you get really solid bass and the whole spectrum of frequencies worked, so we wanted to get it like that and get the sounds really amazing. His other works are unbelievable, like Arcade Fire’s ‘Neon Bible’ and The Maccabees’ ‘Wall of Arms’, like, that’s amazing and that’s what got us really excited about wanting to work with him… you’d have to ask him why he wanted to work with us, haha!
I’ve heard some of your early recordings that you recorded yourself and in a way, the DIY approach adds to that rustic sound – were you worried about losing that with the new production?
Errm, hmmm… no, I don’t think we did really, ‘cause with the rustic feel, we still tried to get it as tight as we could, so I don’t think we worried. I think with the instruments we use, you’re still gonna get that feel because banjos aren’t very often used – and mandolins and stuff – but we didn’t want it to sound ramshackle like a lot of our early gigs, but we had no real worries.
You recorded in the legendary Eastcote Studios – could you feel the legacy of the place while you were there?
There’s a lovely man there that runs the place called Phil; he’s a very warm man that filled us with anecdotes of previous people who’d been there. Oh, and Ian Brown was there for a day while we were there; there was a pretty funny episode where I asked him if he had a filter for a cigarette, but I think that’s about it. It’s a very lovely studio, very homely and there’s a guy there called Sam who was cooking for us and helping us engineer… it’s a very warm place, like being at home.
You came to Norwich when you supported the Maccabees – do you have any memories of our fine city?
Ooh, Norwich… I went down to the river and went to a great bookshop actually; I got a DH Lawrence book for a pound – it was a really old edition, like one of the early classics. You know what I did when I was in Norwich, I went to Carrow Rd and we managed to blag our way onto the pitch and we got a tour of the stadium!
You’re about to embark on a full UK headline tour, but are you worried about post tour blues? I read on your blog that you often suffer…
Yeah, well there’s been different ways of dealing with it, like we came off one tour and we were like ‘how do we stay on tour’? A couple of us decided that we’d just go round the country in a car and go to different towns and do open mic – like look up where it’s on and go and find it. But being on tour is the best cure for coming off tour! Like, when you come off tour, when you come home, there’s so much admin to do – especially if you’ve been away for a while, all the rubbish things about living in England catch up on you and you’ve got to do it all at once. That’s the worst thing!
Emma Roberts
Catch Mumford & Sons when they come to the Norwich Arts Centre on October 2nd. For tickets, go to www.norwichartscentre.co.uk or call 01603 660352.
