1. COLLECTIVE HUB 087
A
small drinking den
under a pasty shop
in London’s south
west served as the
stomping ground
for the early
noughties folk
revival. A performance space for budding
musicians, Bosun’s Locker has set the
stage for many acclaimed artists, including
the early serenades of Laura Marling and
Noah and the Whale’s Charlie Fink. But
its greatest claim to fame was match-
making school friends Marcus Mumford
and Ben Lovett with their (now) fellow
band members Winston Marshall and Ted
Dwane who, two years after connecting,
formed Mumford & Sons in 2007.
And it wasn’t long before west
London’s underground folk scene could
no longer contain the band’s anthemic
ballads. By 2009, the band released their
debut album Sigh No More, which has
sold more than 2.5 million copies, and
spurred a global resurgence in what was a
highly pop-dominated scene. Nine years
after forming, the band’s constant desire
to perform in rural terrain, explore diverse
cultures and push musical expectations
has been key to their lasting power.
And while they cover much musical
ground, Winston, the band’s bona fide
banjo slayer, Dobro player and vocalist,
explains that their philosophy is simple:
“all we’ve ever tried to do [is] impress
each other, to write things that excite the
other person.”
The other thing that these Grammy
Award winners do a lot is tour, but tour
differently. In 2012 the quartet created
the Gentleman of the Road Stopovers, a
travelling festival that pops up in outside-
the-square locations (think Troy, Ohio,
and Guthrie, Oklahoma) for the sole
purpose of celebrating each small town.
When they played Hoboken, New
Jersey, in 2012, there were 500 tickets set
aside for residents only. Each location
is chosen by members of the band just
pointing to a city on a map. No territory
is out of bounds.
“In 2012 we did a three-and-a-half-
week tour of all of Australia where we
went f**king everywhere,
except Darwin I think. We
did Dungog, which was
f**king fun, it was a little
cowboy town outside of
Sydney. What we get out
of it is the adventure,”
says Winston.
“It’s about meeting
people, everyone’s so
quirky and bizarre around
the world – even though
we’re probably the weird
ones – but everyone’s got
their own little weird and
bizarre towns and we love exploring that.”
With many mega musos making 24-
hour pit stops; landing, playing a huge
venue and flying out again, Winston and
his bandmates were keen to stay much
longer during their tour of South Africa
earlier this year. In the end, they played
to 85,000 fans across Cape Town, Pretoria
and Durban.
“Touring Africa has always been on
our minds and I think it was a natural
way in there because we just sold
more records in Africa than any other
continent. It’s a very weird country. There
is still a lot of the rich white people and
the poor everyone else and that’s still
prevalent from
the apartheid
era. There’s a
definite change
to that… a bit
more variety in
races and there’s
a black middle
class. There’s still
bizarre things
about it because
the townships
are not just split
rich and poor,
the townships are
split not just black and white, but black
and coloured, which [in South Africa] is a
term for mixed-raced and it’s a mindf**k.
That is very shocking really.
“There’s also stunning things about
the country, everyone is so welcoming
and warm from every walk of life, from
Zulu witch doctors to the white middle
class… we met every type of person,
well we tried to anyway, the history of
that place is f**ked up and it makes for
a fascinating country.”
The band also used the time in South
Africa to hire out two rooms in Studio
2 in the South African Broadcasting
Corporation building, bringing together
Senegalese sensation Baaba Maal, British
DJs The Very Best and South African
pop band Beatenberg. The result was 12
musicians moving back and forth for two
all-day-and–all–night sessions “which
meant that if they got bored in one, they
could go to the other and contribute.
There was a constant movement of
ideas and people.” >
It’s about meeting
people, everyone’s
so QUIRKY and
bizarre around
the world – even
though we’re
probably the
WEIRD ones…
ND
M A SThe KINGS of indie folk, multi-platinum mega band
MUMFORD & SONS, talk us through dissolving cultural barriers,
being uncool and trusting in the process to CREATE a little bit of magic.
WORDS NICOLE SINGH
IMAGESCOURTESYOFUNIVERSALMUSIC BAABA MAAL (LEFT) AND
GUITARIST.
L-R: TED DWAYNE, BEN LOVETT, WINSTON MARSHALL + MARCUS MUMFORD.

2. 088 COLLECTIVEHUB.COM @COLLECTIVEHUB
Creating music in a tight space, with
a community of different musicians
who have different ways of writing, is
no easy feat. The key to creating gold
amongst the chaos? Trust – garnered
from time working together.
“If you don’t have trust at the start
of it, it makes it difficult when you
want to open up and be creative… It’s
not just trust to share your ideas even
if they’re stupid, it’s that you’ve got
trust for the people that tell you no,
that tell you that’s not such a good idea.
If you love someone [and] you trust
them creatively you can hear them tell
you [no] and you’re not offended and
you move on.”
The other key ingredient, according
to Winston, is that all of the dozen
musicians “admire the
f**k out of each other”.
Like any creative, the
impact of getting the
“deadpan stoic” Baaba
Maal to start laughing
and say, “Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I like that,” was
huge. “We are just trying
to impress each other,”
says Winston.
“We weren’t set on
releasing a mini-album
or EP, we were like, ‘Let’s
get in the studio and make some music
and see what happens.’ It was actually
quite relaxed, which is actually quite
different for us because the normal
process is quite long, well thought-out,
we take our time, we’re usually in
[the] studio for two months or maybe
longer, so with this one… it was just
bish, bash, bosh.”
The end result, the EP Johannesburg,
carried multi-layered instrumentals and
thick textures throughout, revealing
more is at play than just the creation
of an album; there is a melding of two
greatly diverse cultures. With Western
music dominating airways globally, the
notion that Western nations are the
central melting pot for music creation is
common, but false, says Winston.
“It is very rare that [these
collaborations]
come out in the
light and escape
that ‘world
music’ trapping.
Even when I
think of world
music I don’t
want to listen
to it, I get put
off by it.
“I don’t think
[Johannesburg]
is particularly
cool, whatever ‘cool’ means, and it’s a
shame. I think that will change as the
world is getting smaller and smaller.
We noticed in listening to all this music
from South Africa and the rest of the
continent, which I think you’d be
hard-pressed to call world music, it is
getting… in some ways more digestible
by Western ears.”
The band is hoping their own
contribution will be able to transcend
language and cultural barriers. Recently
returned from touring Europe in May,
Winston observes this clear divide:
“I think people are scared they won’t
make money from it if it’s something
not in English. We’re on the continent
now in Europe and on the radio half the
songs are in English but no one can speak
English here. In the US, I’ve never heard
of a song on the radio that’s not fully
English, and the same for England…
English people just don’t want to hear
it. I think other cultures are used to
English dominating everything, there’s
something to be said for that.”
Between writing and performing,
it’s the band’s downtime that proves
essential to their creativity. It was a big
reason why the group, after touring 2012
Babel album globally, took an indefinite
hiatus and planned “to do very little”.
Yet Winston cautions against taking too
much time away from creativity.
“To tour for a year or two years you’ve
got to keep momentum… so the danger
in that is if you tour and take a year off
creativity, you’re not going to get better
at it, you’ll get worse. You’ve got to be
proactive. We all have our different ways
of dealing with being off the road…
everyone has got different projects
outside of music which is really key,
I think just for sanity, to try and
stimulate other sides of the brain.”
Adamant that creativity is a ‘use it or
lose it’ type skill, Winston books studio
time whenever he’s off the road. “My
routine is to try and always be creative
and get in the studio to keep that side
of my brain ticking along.” In essence,
he’s all for keeping the magic of creation
alive. “Magic is the word for it I think.
Kind of chaos, but magic within that.”
If you don’t have
TRUST at the
start of it, it makes
it DIFFICULT
when you want to
open up and
be CREATIVE.