Mumford & Sons have a new album out today, and the band have been talking to the Daily Star about how their attitude to making records has changed over the years.
Previously, it seems, albums very much took a back seat to the band’s gigs.
“I guess the first few years of our life as a band, we were like, ‘We’re touring musicians who need to make adverts for our live shows’. That’s what the records are,” frontman Marcus Mumford told the newspaper.
He continued: “I remember I said that to Neil Young once, and he was like, ‘You’ve got it all wrong, man. Your live shows aren’t the things that are going to last. They’re moments in time and experiences that are beautiful and great, but your recordings are going to last. So you need to pay attention to how you record music.’”
The band have certainly paid attention and taken care over their new record. Rushmere is their first album for seven years and the first since the departure of Winston Marshall in 2021.
Announcing the new album in a press release earlier this year, Mumford said: “I think we always felt like we knew we were going to release some more music, but we wanted to wait for the right music. We’ve never been in haste, I don’t think. But when this music came around, we had a sense of urgency.”
Mumford also revealed that he and his bandmates deliberated logged off from social media to avoid unwanted distraction during the making of Rushmere. "This is the first time I've put anything out and actually done what artists always say they're going to do, which is not to read anything or look at anything. So I'm off it all. I feel really great.
"I took Twitter off my phone. It's one of the best things I've ever done. I haven't looked up any of it - and I'm like in blissful ignorance. I'll see the feedback at the shows when we start playing. Historically, our band has always judged our success on ticket sales more than anything else, not comments."
The band have recently completed a tour of small venues across Europe, North America and Australia, but if you weren’t able to catch them then they return for arena dates in Britain and Ireland later in the year.
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