“If I Hear [An Old Mumford & Sons Song] In A Bar, I’ll Leave The Bar”: Marcus Mumford On Making His Favourite Music Yet

Few bands in the 2010s could lay claim to Mumford & Sons’ markers of achievement. Their emergence as the chieftains of late ’00s nu-folk saw their work become ubiquitous internationally – scooping Grammys, four UK number one albums, and a Glastonbury headline slot. As they return to the headline slot of BST Hyde Park, frontman Marcus Mumford talks integrating with their genre’s next generation of stars, and centring human connection more than ever before.

To anyone discovering their musical preferences in the late ’00s, and leaning towards guitars, banjos and pastoral nu-folk with stadium-sized verve – Mumford & Sons were just the ticket. Their 2009 debut album, Sigh No More, was replete with literary references, storytelling atypical of the prior decade’s radio hits, and a delivery that instantly made those banjos the coolest lutes around. It is one of those time capsule projects that, looking back, anchors you in an era. As a high schooler, if it wasn’t resident on your own iPod, it certainly was on your friend’s. 

“I don’t go back and listen to the [early] recordings,” lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Marcus Mumford tells me now, 17 years, half a dozen albums as a group and his own solo project later. “If I hear [an old song] in a bar or something, I’ll leave the bar.” He’s far from a bar right now, instead sitting in the grooming chair on set for his Man About Town cover shoot in London, his nonchalant, jaunty charm emanating, despite us convening just beyond core breakfast hours. He tells the hairstylist to do as he pleases and leans back to chat about his latest release, Prizefighter, and why this chapter is all he needs, currently, to feel creative fulfillment. 

He’s not trying to distance himself from his early work, but rather has untethered himself from the likes of Sigh No More’s tracks after they were created, allowing them to travel and take on new meanings independently as the years go on. “A record – I guess it’s in the word – is a record of the thing you’re doing at that time. And you put that down,” he explains. While there are, of course, songs that comprise a core rotation on the group’s set lists, some he doesn’t encounter for long intervals. Meanwhile, fans find stories in his lyrics, before returning to them years later and gleaning a different slant. And, when he gravitates back to them, so does he. “Songs change meanings as you go. So it doesn’t feel like it’s stuck in a place in time,” he continues. “I’m not sure I would have written them right now, but that’s what’s great about writing.” 

What he has written now – or most recently – is Prizefighter,  which emerged in February as the follow-up to 2025’s Rushmere. Both projects marked a return to the roots of those rustic earlier records, contrasting with a lean into rock that came with mid-2010s releases, Delta and Wilder Mind. It also harks back to the more communal music-making process that defined their pre-fame days. “I think our band started out as a really collaborative project and then, as you’re establishing your identity as a baby band, you kind of close the doors on collaborators,” Mumford explains. “We were like, ‘We need to show people what we are and why it’s exclusive to the four of us.’ And then we got to a point where we went back to the beginning.” Their track list now reads like a coterie of their most esteemed contemporaries (Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Chris Stapleton), as well as a new crop of folk-indebted power players, with whom they share a mutual admiration (Gracie Abrams, Maisie Peters, Gigi Perez). 

“Relationships, collaboration and community – that’s what this record [is],” Mumford summarises. “We’ve never really represented that before.” As the trio spend the majority of the rest of the year on the road, embarking on a global tour in April that culminates in October, they’ll witness that collective connection en masse – not least at BST Hyde Park, a stage they’ll return to in July. 

When settling in to transcribe our interview, “I Will Wait” – an anthem that is as synonymous with the summer of 2012 as the London Olympics – comes pouring through the coffee shop’s speakers. What once might have taken me back is replaced by a new memory: Mumford’s stories the day prior, of how he might like Prizefighter more than anything he’s made before, how Pharrell served an integral role in its creation, the time he hosted Taylor Swift as a house guest and his travels to Milan in pursuit of one jacket. Perhaps another Mumford summer is coming into session?

Sophie Wang: Congratulations on the new album, Prizefighter! How’s the press tour been this time around?

Marcus Mumford: It’s easy, man. This is genuinely the first time we put out a record where I haven’t read shit. I was just like, “I really like this album, and I don’t feel the need to read what other people think about it.” It’s totally available for people to make it their own now and respond to it, or enjoy it or judge it or not like it. You can’t control people’s reactions, so I’m just feeling a bit liberated from having a) made it and b) put it out. 

I’m trying to stay in a creative zone, honestly. We’ve written a lot of songs in the last couple of years. I’ve really enjoyed feeling quite plugged in creatively, and I think looking at people’s responses to your art can sometimes mess with your creative process. I want to keep writing songs.

SW: What is it about this time that has felt so creatively inspiring and fulfilling? 

MM: I think I’ve grown up a bit, and we as a band have grown up a bit and realised that this is our job now. This is what we do. And I think I used to see it as a really binary thing. Like you were either on tour or you were writing and recording. And there was no way to keep both parts of your brain spinning, because they are two different jobs. One of them is creating, one of them is performing. I can’t imagine doing one without the other. I can’t imagine just being a performer, and I also can’t imagine writing stuff and not getting to perform it.

SW: Looking back on the early days of the band, did you have any idea of what was to come?

MM: We weren’t one of those bands that set out really ambitious, like, “We’re going to go out and do this, and we’re going to have our picture taken, and people are going to ask us what we think about the world.” We didn’t sign up to any of that, really. We just thought that we’d play music with our mates for fun and then do it at parties, bars, clubs and people’s birthdays. And then it changed. Suddenly, [you’re] having [your] picture taken and people are asking you what you think about things, and then you’re playing catch-up with that for a while. I’m sure you’re in some state of arrested development as an artist who gets popular quickly, which we did.

SW: Do you like people asking you those kinds of questions now?

MM: I’m not really bothered by any of it anymore. I can see it in perspective.

SW: One of the things that sets Prizefighter apart from your previous work is the number of collaborators. Was that a conscious choice for the project, or did that come about organically?

MM: [It happened] very organically. We just actually found this bit of GoPro footage from the studio when we were discussing Gracie [Abrams] singing on it. [The album’s producer] Aaron [Dessner] suggested it, like, “Oh, if we’re opening the doors to collaborators, Gracie could be one of them.” And on the video, I’m like, “Yeah, that would feel natural because she was there the first day we started the record.” So Gracie was really natural. 

We’ve been mates with Hozier for 15 years. We’ve been friends with Aaron for the same amount of time. The same with Justin Vernon. FINNEAS, we’ve known a long time now. Brandi Carlile is a good friend and has been for a while. All of these people were organic. It wasn’t Simon Cowell sitting in an office somewhere with a list of artists that we should invite onto the record. Chris Stapleton was the only one I cold-called. We didn’t know each other, and I called him and just said, “Look, I’m a massive fan, I’d really love to hear you sing on this, would you be up [for it]?”

SW: Alongside Gracie, you’ve also worked with Maisie Peters, cementing yourself in the Gen Z pop girl scene. How was it to work with these artists, and did you give them any advice?

MM: They don’t need my advice, those women. It actually feels like the other way around, like I’m taking theirs a lot of the time. I think they’re real leaders in the culture. I think we, particularly as men, have lots to learn from them. It feels like they’re very mutual relationships. There’s real mutual love and respect there, I think. And I’ve really benefited from their friendship. 

SW: I read that you had said that this is “The best music we’ve ever made and we’ve never been happier.”

MM: I don’t know if I said the “best”. Where’s that quoted from? 

SW: Your Instagram.

MM: [Yells out a laugh] Oh fuck, I guess I did. I try not to be qualitative about it. I think it’s my favourite… 

SW: Okay, your favourite music and the happiest that you’ve been?

MM: That’s true, yeah. 

SW: Do you think that those things are linked? Do you think that one influences the other? 

MM: Probably. I think I do feel fulfilled at the moment and happy and in balance or something. So it has felt like a positive place to make music from. I don’t know whether over time it will feel like the best, but it certainly is my favourite. 

Normally, after a few months, you listen to [an album] again and feel like, “Oh, I wanna change that.” This one, I just wouldn’t change anything. I heard it again recently, and it’s over a year since we finished it, and I just really like it. It just fits my taste. It’s a really unusual feeling. And maybe that’s partly because I feel less insecure or something and less self-critical. I mean, I’m ambitious for it. I want people to hear it. But I feel less insecure about it. 

SW: What were some of those insecurities that you had to let go of in order to get there?

MM: We were on tour in a van around the UK when our first album came out. We stopped at a service station and saw an NME magazine on the stand, and it had a review of our first album. And I read it. It was a good review, I can’t remember what it was, like seven out of 10 or something. It was fine. But it had two negative thoughts about the record that I totally agreed with, and it destroyed me. I was gutted because I was like, “Fuck, yeah. They’re right about that.” That’s why I’ve stopped reading. I only pick out the negative. I’m thin-skinned, and I’m aware of that now.

SW: You need to be a bit thin-skinned to be a writer, no? How do you balance that with protecting yourself?

MM: Our job is to feel stuff. And I want to keep writing, you know? I think you want to be critical when you’re making stuff. You want to be able to judge it in the moment and be like, “Oh, well, I can improve there, and I can improve there.” And Aaron was really brilliant during this process as a friend and a producer and a co-writer and a player on this album. He was really good at helping us. Because you can get stuck in your own head, you can get too self-critical, or you can get too loose and think everything’s great because you’re kind of high on your own supply. And he was really good at guiding us through the ebbs and flows of that creative process. Like, “Look, I think you should walk away from this for a minute because I think it’s really good and I think you’re starting to judge it too harshly,” or “I don’t think this is quite as good as it can be, I believe in you more than you might in this moment and so let’s keep working.” I think that’s why having a producer in the studio who’s not in the band as an objective force for the room is really helpful and historically has proven to be a successful model for bands.

SW: Pivoting a bit…

MM: Go on, Sophie.

SW: I’d love to talk about fashion with you.

MM: [Cheers] Let’s go!

SW: I saw you brought in some of your own pieces.

MM: [Laughs] Pieces? 

SW: Sorry, clothes [laughs]. How has your fashion evolved over time? 

MM: I actually enjoy it now. I didn’t really [before], but [now] I think I recognise it as a creative art form. 

SW: What prompted the shift?

MM: A friend of mine who’s a stylist in New York was helping me get dressed up for the Met Gala. I was arm candy for my wife [Carey Mulligan], and he brought some things over to the house, including that black trench coat that I was wearing when I walked in [today]. It was a sample from Umit Benan, and I hadn’t heard of him before. He’d been a splashy designer in 2013 in New York, and then kind of retreated into the shadows of Milan, just making really high-end tailored suits. I tried that coat on, and it made me feel something which I hadn’t really felt before. I can’t describe it. It felt different. 

SW: Sometimes it just takes that one garment.

MM: I am a materialist, and I think I was in denial about that for a long time, but I am. I like materials. I like things that are made, and I find them interesting. And I hadn’t really ever properly appreciated that. So this one thing was like my gateway drug. 

So I tried it on, and I was like, “Cool, can I wear that?” [The stylist] was like, “No, it’s actually [Benan’s], we have to send it back.” So I went to Milan six months later to go and meet him. I took him a can of caviar, and we smoked cigars and talked about life and children and work and creativity, and then I just started hanging out with him more. He’s now become a really good friend, and he’s become one of the people in the world who most makes me want to write songs, watching his creative process in a totally different art form and industry.

Across different art forms, I’m able now to recognise creative people who really inspire me. He’s one of them, and, in film, Emerald Fennell is one of them. I spend time with her and walk away being totally inspired to go and write a song. It’s nothing about the conversation we’ve just had, it’s not a Saltburn-inspired song, it’s just because I see creative people at the top of their game making things for the love of making things that are also connecting on a deep level with people, and I get inspired by that. I think for a while I was like, “I can either only get creatively inspired by other musicians, or I should just hang out with people that aren’t creative because creatives are weird.” I think I signed up for a bunch of stereotypes around creative people that were unhelpful. So, yeah, immersing yourself in a creative community, whatever that looks like, I think, is a positive thing for your own creativity.

SW: You’ve also worked with Pharrell, and even performed with him at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris a few years back. What was that like?

MM: The time we spent with Pharrell was amazing. We spent quite a lot of time with him in New York and Paris. And we were working out of his office, which is in the Louis Vuitton building on Pont Neuf. He has a laptop and some speakers in the corner of his office behind a little sliding door, where he’ll write and record with the artists that come through. It’s in his actual office. You walk through racks of clothes and swatches and mood boards and then into the place where you’re writing music. 

So we’d spend the mornings writing, and then in the afternoons we’d go off to a proper music studio and record all of the instruments and then come back in the evenings and listen to it through with him, do some vocals and stuff in the corner of his office while he’s also designing the next season. [There are] a few more songs from that which I hope will see the light of day, eventually. 

For us, he was a big part of the process of this last record. I think we did five days with Pharrell in New York at Electric Lady. And we all enjoyed it so much, we wanted to do more. So we went off to Paris. I said to the lads, ‘I think there’s more songs for us in Paris.’ So we went off and recorded with him. He was like a weird pixie fairy godfather for the bit in between Rushmere and Prizefighter. He helped us imagine more than just one project, but an attitude towards making stuff, to reach for the impossible, try things we haven’t tried before, and have confidence in ourselves. He would give me these pep talks. He acted as a therapist as well for me, as I was coming into a new season of being an artist who was more liberated. I think we would have never made Prizefighter without him.

SW: Speaking of this “new season” and the future of your craft, how do you approach career longevity?

MM: I want to do this for as long as I live, you know? I think that was the ambition from the start. The way we did our band is like, “Let’s try and back ourselves for the long term. Let’s build this thing for longevity. Let’s not take what we can get now.” We own our own records. We didn’t sign big record deals. We had the rights instead. We said, “We just want to own our shit.”

SW: That’s something that now everybody kind of knows about, but at the time, it must have been rare.

MM: In that moment, it was unusual not to take the cash and then find yourself in a Kanye or a Taylor [Swift] situation where you have to fight to get your rights back. 

SW: Speaking of Taylor Swift, can I ask you about working with her?

MM: She’s like Gracie, I think. I’ve learned loads from that. We didn’t spend very long working together, but obviously we did “Cowboy Like Me” [from her ninth studio album, evermore]. She came down to my home, where we [have a] studio, and she was a phenomenal house guest. She was just very kind to everyone, and we just lived together for a week.She was working on evermore, and Aaron had said, “Can you help with some studio space, [because] it’s discreet? I had left her alone because I didn’t want her to feel like I was going to try to encroach on her work. It’s a very reverent thing when someone’s making music; you don’t want to just stick your nose in. But on the penultimate day she was here, she played me a couple of songs and asked me to sing on one. She was like, “Don’t feel like you have to just because I’m here,” and all that. And then getting to go and [perform at The Eras Tour] was sick. And, honestly, I hadn’t really clocked what a big deal that whole tour was.

SW: I went several times.

MM: How many times did you go?

SW: A lot.

MM: How many?

SW: Like ten? 

MM: How much money do you think you spent on Eras merchandise, tickets, drinks, parking and travel? 

SW: A lot.

MM: What are we talking about, five figures?

SW: Well, I saw it in America, and then when she came here, I was like, “She’s doing so many nights in London, I might as well go to all of them.”

MM: [Laughs] I thought you were gonna say, “Go to one of them,” but you said all of them.  That’s wild. I didn’t realise what a thing it was until I got there. I think she started in Phoenix, and then she went to Vegas, and we texted, and she said, “Come and sing it.” But I didn’t realise then that the guest song would become a thing. Because I don’t think she’d done it yet. So it was pretty bonkers. And I took a friend who’s a massive Taylor Swift fan. It was amazing. 

SW: What is your favourite part about performing live in general? 

MM: Seeing people’s faces.

SW: Is there a song from this album you’re particularly excited to get to perform?

MM: We’ve been playing like four or five of them live already, but it’s been really fun playing “Here,” which is why I requested to do it on SNL.

SW: How was SNL?

MM: It was bonkers, but it was the least nervous I’ve felt, maybe because we had this amazing band of musicians with us. We had Aaron, of course, and we had Hozier on the first one and then Sierra Ferrell on the second. I felt so supported out there.

SW: And you appeared alongside the Heated Rivalry cast! Did you watch the show?

MM: Yeah, it’s pretty full on, isn’t it? 

SW: What song from this album would you like to see in Season 2?

MM: “Badlands,” don’t you think?

SW: Absolutely. 

Prizefighter is out now via Island Records