Mumford & Sons make old-timey instruments rock
The name “Mumford & Sons” sounds like it belongs to an accounting firm or mortuary. But there was no mistaking it for a quaint family business when the British quartet took the stage last summer at Lollapalooza in Grant Park.
The foursome of Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwayne, Ben Lovett and Country Winston played with such ferocity it looked like they were going to break their old-timey stringed instruments (banjo, upright bass, acoustic guitar) in half. All four band members harmonized with the full-throttle exuberance of a drunken sing-along at closing time. At the same time, the music had an undeniable lift, the stuff of church hymns revved up to triple speed.
That’s not coincidental. Mumford’s parents were national directors of an evangelical church in London. His lyrics don’t shy from matters of faith – the band’s debut album, “Sigh No More” (Glassnote), begins with a Shakespeare quote: “Serve God, love me and mend.” His earnestness is off-putting to some who want their music served with more subtlety, but there’s no denying Mumford and his bandmates sing like they mean every word.
“No, there’s no holding back,” Mumford says. “The lyrics aren’t just an add-on. They’re personal and honest. Sometimes people are critical because we bring up God or think we’re being ‘religious.’ I really see it more as spirituality rather than advocating for religion. My brother said to me something that was very helpful, which was when you write something as music, it’s important to be identifiable but not obvious. If you can say something that connects emotionally without turning it into a cliché, that’s the challenge. I suppose that can be awkward, but I assure you, it’s sincere. It goes through a lot of filters. You have to have conviction to bring whatever you write to the band, and because they sing it too, they have to feel that conviction as well. It’s a powerful thing when a thought meets that level of purpose.”
Mumford stumbled into songwriting. His first life-changing record was Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue,” and he started playing drums in a jazz combo at age 12 with his boyhood friend Lovett. Their group focused on serious jazz repertoire: Miles, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald.
“Then I had my little rebellion,” Mumford says. He immersed himself in poetry – T.S. Eliot and Shakespeare were big favorites – and dug into songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Neil Young. While living in America briefly when he was 18, Mumford drove to Nashville to buy his first acoustic guitar. He began experimenting with an open-C tuning and by the time he got to New Mexico he’d written a song called “Roll Away Your Stone.”
Back in England to attend college a few months later, he was invited by singer-songwriter Laura Marling to play drums on her tour, and fell into a scene that included a number of young, roots-based singer-songwriters including Marling, Johnny Flynn and Noah and the Whale. “Halfway through the tour, she started inviting me up to play ‘Roll Away Your Stone,’ and by the end of the tour her manager was my manager too,” he says. “The idea of this as a career was just one big series of accidents. It was never intended to be what it became.”
When Mumford began focusing on writing songs, he asked his friends Lovett, Dwayne and Winston to help, and they toured steadily for several years before finally recording “Sigh No More.” The quartet had a unique sound from the get-go, a mix of country-folk instrumentation and rock ‘n’ roll drive.
“We didn’t have anything specific in mind, we just grabbed the instruments we played the most and started playing together,” Mumford says. “We all liked singing, so singing together became integral right away. And we all wanted the same relentless drive you get in hip-hop, dance music, rock ‘n’ roll, but with the instruments we were playing: banjo, acoustic guitar, double bass.”
Mumford and his bandmates worked out the songs on the road, spurning offers to record in deference to honing the songs until they were consistently bowling over audiences at gigs. “We became ‘Mumford and Sons’ because it was like a family business in a way, we’d all known each other for so long,” Mumford says. “None of us thought that it would ever matter.”
More than a year of sold-out shows in the U.K., followed by the release of “Sigh No More” and a similarly enthused response in America have finally persuaded Mumford that the band may have some staying power.
“We’re writing more collaboratively now, and it’s opening up all sorts of possibilities,” he says. “It’s all about the songs. We want to believe in them – you have to. But we’re not set in our ways of how to present them.”
greg@gregkot.com
Mumford & Sons: 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Riviera, 4746 N. Racine, sold out; etix.com.
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