[Music] foreign [Music] but you don't really do headphones do you do you not like the sound of your own voice or something I'm good I'm good I'm good I'm good that's the most British response to anything you don't want to do I'm good I'm good I'm good I'm all right I'm all right I'm all right I'm right I'm all right don't worry about it I'm all right I'm all
right people now who are fans of yours will be reading things and and getting to coming to terms with the subject matter to some degree on this album um and and it will establish an expectation in some way shape or form which probably was the point partly but also I kind of want to say something personally if that's all right please this is a beautiful and thoroughly
enjoyable wonderful album thanks man and I just don't want people to think like I need to be in a certain mood to listen to this record I need to prepare myself to in some way because I think that you've done all the preparation and what we get is is the process done and the thoughts complete and it's beautiful man thank you Mae I appreciate that and I
think it was important to start at the beginning of the story of making this record for me so the first song I wrote was a song called Cannibal and that felt like the first song that had to go on the track listing first song to come out as well very very courageous followed by closely by Grace which is you know the answer to it in my view and songwriting
wise it was the second song I wrote for the record so pretty much going in chronological order but what what people hadn't heard yet is where it gets to which really it's a it's a record about freedom and it's a record about healing but I think you know certainly in my story it's important to face up to some of the gnarlier stuff first in order to get to
that place of freedom and healing and and in the way this we've we've rolled out this record you know it's it starts with some of the harder stuff so if people can get through that it's worth the wait I think because we do get to a place where it is fun what do we want from our art and from our artists if not the truth be it brutal or otherwise and I feel like um many artists have gone
before you who have faced up to something difficult and challenging to acknowledge through their art very few of them choose to actually do it in a chronological order way and so my question is why when it could have been an important moment on the album song four it could it would still have been a talking point of something you could
have aired out and processed in real time but why do it that way because it just felt right it felt like I would be um continuing falling into the Temptation Of Denial and um and sort of hiding a little bit which has been part of the problem for me historically in my life whereas I feel like I don't have anything to hide and so the story The Record started with that song
um and so it was important to me for it to feel like it had Integrity in the way it rolled out and the track listing and it'll put some people off but I'm cool you know not not the real ones you know um but the thing that really struck me that was that was the saddest thing I'm not going to create a hierarchy of emotions and sadness one of the sounds
really that was the sadness the kick drums slightly louder no um one of the things that struck me the most about that song and about that particular experience was that it wasn't something that had been unlocked through work and all of a sudden you had to acknowledge and embrace it after the fact it sounds to me like it had been with you your whole life you just never
talked about it and that is a whole other experience a lot of people are suffering from significant trauma which is buried somewhere deep and it requires a lot of work hypnotherapy and whatever to unlock it right you just sat with it and let it be in you for your whole life up to that point I mean what I'm learning now is that it's super common to suppress things really
hard to the extent where you don't think they're a problem at all until someone says like let's look at that a bit deeper yeah and so that's the point I came to in my life where people around me was like you got some stuff to look at here things aren't quite right and then the opportunity presented itself and I took it what I don't love
for me at least is the idea of Bravery around that because it implies that people who don't talk about their trauma are not are not and I don't think it's about that I think it's taking the opportunities when you get them and sometimes those opportunities just aren't presented for a long time and so I think you know I would I would I would sort of encourage people to look
at things when they can and when the opportunities arise but not judge people for not because I certainly went through a long period of my life where I didn't look at any of that stuff I agree in my own experience you know it's taken me time to acknowledge and move through things and and I never looked back on myself before that as being someone who
was weak so I understand that um I wanted to ask you though if at all in what ways do you feel now that you were even subconsciously doing this to help others did it ever cross your mind that your story was going to be helpful to other people no it didn't and it's not a charitable record in that sense it's an extension of me as an artist so I'm writing about
things that are going on in my life from an incredibly narcissistic point of view which is the job of the artist that's right well like I I so my artists who can take on other people's stories and write them um I'm I'm not great at that like Bob Dylan is great at that Bonner is good at that Johnny Flynn is the best at that in my view but I'm not very good at that so I've got to
write about my stuff and so what I wanted to do on this I started in January with this task ahead of me and I didn't know at that point whether it was going to be for the band or for someone else or for me I just said I need to reconnect with my songwriting muscles they've gone into atrophy during covid I did a bit of I did a bit of scoring work and I did a bit of songwriting but not
enough that my the songwriting muscles weren't being exercised so I just went away and said to the lads in the band look I'm gonna go away and write I don't know what it's for but I'm just gonna follow the creative and I'm going to set myself the task of writing as honestly as I can can I ask where a way was before we continue this thought yeah it
was at home in Devon um in England in my little Studio to start with and then because I have a US passport as long as I did the quarantining the right way I was able to come to La so once I'd started writing I connected with Blake Mills who I'd written a song with six years previously and we'd tour together and I've been a huge fan of his work for a long time
both his writing and his playing and his production and I took him cannibal in its infancy as a song and said you know do you want to work on this with me I don't know what it's for at the moment it's not for any particular record I just want to kind of Flesh it out and we did that came together quite quick and then we moved straight on to Grace
and that was the second song better off high was the third so we just kept rolling and even up until like November 21 I was refusing to refer to as a record it was still a collection of songs I understand why that is because you know and and you have your own reasons but the way I look at things is when it becomes a record it becomes something that's on not only on the
record that's the obvious observation but it's also something that puts a framework around it which can actually make you start to overthink things yeah and you start thinking about release and how people will listen to it so for my process I just was vehemently opposed to the idea of labeling it until it felt like a thing can I ask when you were at
home in Devin and you'd written cannibal which obviously was one of those things that came out and and I don't know if it caught you off guard or what how present you were when you were actually writing I didn't really remember right right there you go but you're still sharing a house with Carrie and with your kids and you're in a family environment at a time
when it is enforced family environment that is a beautiful thing except when you're in a space where something like that is coming out and how you carried yourself in that moment being a loving husband and a loving father but knowing that your life had fundamentally changed the direction that you're on had fundamentally changed well yes six months earlier I told someone I was
sexually abused as a kid which I hadn't told anyone for what would have been 25 years at least and so when it came to sit down to right that was kind of the obvious thing to write about weirdly for me and at that point I had no intention of ever putting it out or anything like that I have a safe space a studio space in Devon which I'm blessed with which I could go in
shut the curtains and theoretically no one would bother me I didn't quite realize at the time was that it shares a wall with the room that my parents moved into during covert so my mum could hear music through the wall and and so she kind of she likes one four and five chords with the odd six minus she doesn't love a three Mage I know the chords she likes of course she
loves four on the floor yeah absolutely loves it so cannibal in theory if you can't hear the lyrics it's a perfect song for her oh yeah it's mostly one for she's like Marcus a great mood he is riding a club on the floor after Banger mate she's getting ready to drop one yeah yeah I have my headphones on but I know you did something goofy um so she so she hears it through the
wall and that's the only real Interruption I have in the process of writing that song and it was it was after I finished it and I I've been in this place now for six months of kind of working on recovery stuff or healing stuff and was owning my story so yeah and you come come and hear it yeah were you ever concerned about when that day might
arrive or you knew at some point you were gonna have to cross that bridge with with you well no what was weird is that I thought I thought my mum knew about their Beast thing yeah that's the thing that really struck me when in the one piece I read which was a great piece in GQ respect to the writer and to you for going into such a safe space right
out the gate very compelling and very interesting um was the the way that it was worded at least and you've just confirmed that was that you just sort of like oh yeah it's about the thing I thought yeah and I thought she knew about it because so she listens to cannibal she says like a few days later can I ask what that song was about I was like of course you can hear
yes about that what a beautiful moment and she was like what are you talking about and I was convinced that I told her only six months I was convinced I told her and I hadn't power of the brands wild wow um so bless her you know once she gets through the difficulty that moment as a mother um it's objectively hilarious to tell your mother you were sexually abused in
a song like that is that's that's the punch line you know that's just funny so bless her once she got through it we did laugh about it well humor is very very powerful therapy and then I wrote Grace about you know starting with like how should we proceed without it getting too heavy which you know has hints of that humor you talk about it in it which was
like we are just now going to get through this here we go and we're going to find our way to do it and I know what you mean I mean it's it's funny that it's funny but it's it's not something that is like oh I went to The Comedy Store and that was the subject and it's kind of almost like a humor has to it's a muscle you need in order to process things it's as important as tears yeah I
agree and it helps put things in perspective a bit and it helps process you know because there can be things about it that are really fun and that to me is just objectively quite funny and what a great process to be able to again strengthen the bomb within family to be able to face it through and get and get through it um one two and straight into the rest of
the record as we move forward we start to hear hints of what I felt the new Mumford and Sons album could have been you know it's definitely your journey and your album It's a self-titled record and it's start to finish great but it's funny hearing some of the Sonic contributions being made and the way I could actually hear a three-piece moving
and a different Mumford and Sons has this album been good for you in terms of helping recalibrate post the departure of when yeah it has and I'm pretty stoked to take some of the stuff I've learned back to the band yeah which I will do after this record um because I for me it kind of blew the doors off this weird structure we have around the band but in any kind of institution
after 15 years it will freshen it up and that creatively to me I think I think going through the motions is the death of creativity so and I don't think we have been but we might have um and I'm pretty excited now to go back with this possibility of sound that I've learned more from you know working with Blake Mills with Soundwave with these amazing collaborators on this
record and more collaborators than I might have on a Mumford and Son's record where we normally keep the writing very much in-house on this record I was like all right with whoever's around and down to right you know whether it's Tobias Jesso Junior I want to learn from these people and a lot of them were La based because I was here um
you know Julia Michaels I spent an afternoon with Julia and she completely changed the way I view writing lyrics it was the best crazy we did prior warning which is the third song on the record and we're sitting there together and we've done like five hours and we again this is a point where I didn't know I was making a solo record really I was
just kind of just trying and writing with people and I've always been collaborative but it's always been in the band yeah so fairly exclusive and this time I was like was excited to work with women for a start because I've been in a sausage fest and so we're we're like five and a half hours and we're getting the point where do you know what sometimes these things just don't work
out and that's fine and then she's like let's just try one more thing we sit in the live room stuff what instruments you feel most comfortable on and bizarrely I said the piano I must have been nervous because I said the piano I don't play piano but there I am the piano I can play the white notes not the Batman so so I'm playing in C and then she's like what do
you want to write about so I'd written it down on a piece I write everything by hand so my I've got these lyric books for this record which is chock full and I wrote it all out by hand the story I wanted to tell and she's like okay just sing that and I went well I can't because it doesn't rhyme and she goes but just sing it and sort of held my hand through singing What
became almost word for word bright warning so it was just what was on the page putting on my running gear I knew that this was coming is the most sort of beautiful example of the magic that Julia Michaels can bring in she takes something that seems so everyday in people's lives and turns that into the soul of a song um people call it conversation whatever
you want to be it's just a beautiful Fantastical version of reality whereas most songwriting is sort of almost a reverse it's like reality turned into fantasy she's like I take I take it the other way I find the fantasy in reality and that was really and Blake really responded to the writing of that because it was quite specific and there wasn't much poetic license in fact
there's not that much poetic license going on on this record which has been a lesson for me as well I'm always like well we've got to turn that thought or that scene or that idea into something a bit more flowery a bit more formal because we're writing a song and actually with songs like only child and prayer warning on this record that's
just not the case of the specificity can really help I think with the setting of the scene well this particular song really needed it because you were talking about a subject that if not dealt with direct could have easily fallen into that group of uh gray and Gray's great for the art it's great for me as a fan great view as an artist it gives me something to work with and use
something to work with yeah we were uncompromising with gray on this record black or white 100 and we would we would Blake and I would sit there having gathered little bits of writing here and there and a lot of the time we were kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle and we would put these songs on the sort of surgical table and say are these as
honest as they could be and it was like we were dissecting something in a science class together and we treated the songs really objectively and tried to remove emotion from it and say like who cares who wrote it is this honest and does this line up with the spirit of the record we're going to be relentlessly honest in the way we write these songs what you were actually doing
instinctively was being the most emotionally raw you could be now you can't carry that into a diligent environment to finish it otherwise you'll just basically cry and turn around and never put it out I mean this verse each word is a cut that I see coming the shame and guilt becomes overwhelming and I gotta I gotta share it but it's gonna hurt someone I love because I need
their forgiveness so I clench my fist as I'm inflicting them because I realize that I'm a bullying someone I'm I'm basically mugging somebody to make to feel better and now I'm running out of parts that I can play which is where I I then create an identity around this behavior in order to try to justify it because I can't be a hero anymore
because this isn't how a hero acts I'm not the Dodger because I'm facing it down I'm not being there and I made The Artful daughter at school but yeah right okay more specific appreciate it and I'm not The Preacher's Son so I can't lean into my faith as a reason it's the most honest example of one of Humanity's greatest flaws which is we hurt the ones
we love in order to seek salvation you got it you got it man it's crushing you got it that was uh the whole that was the whole point of it no matter how many times you do it you ask yourself why why do I need to do this to the person I love the most and that's why that song moved me so much the first time I heard it was because it's rare that gets phased out that idea of
I'm not mentally wired right and then now it's your fault what's your responsibility yeah and the process of recognizing that is such an important part to unpicking the things that get in the way of healing you know well it's a great foundation for love because what it shows is that it can withstand anything and you can come to the other side if you want to do the
work and prove that you actually care enough to acknowledge it yeah I believe that but it can be painful for real that's why it matters so yeah and then getting sonically having something in that song prior warning that was that felt slightly more dangerous slightly more um like a dirge but then Soundwave came in I remember the moment he put in that drum fill that happens halfway through
I was like this is this is what we want this is what we need to feel through the whole album is great and and those little modern touches which doesn't just say that Blake is in a retro Active Space he's a total sound beast but but sound wave just brings in these things that just just all of a sudden you're sort of you're transported into a slightly wavier version of what
you're expecting and again that was just the part of the uh expression of freedom on this record like yeah if some waves down let's go into the studio together and see what happens I mean I was looking through the offcuts from this record of which there are a lot because we crafted it so with such attention there's a lot we didn't use and some of
the sound wave off Cuts dope I'm like I really want to do something like that I actually texted him yesterday was like let's come here let's let's keep going on with a couple days yeah he's creatively is fascinating to me yeah a bit and one of my favorite producers ever let alone right now so there's some amazing people who join you on this record and uh some amazing people that
joined you on the journey but didn't actually end up on the record and um again that just comes down to you and Blake right ultimately making those calls and saying it's not about it's not about personally owing anybody for their time it's about what's going to serve this album in a really beautiful way yeah to do that you're gonna have to you
gotta have a through line so taking away the subject matter and the chronological aspects of the writing of this record how did you come to to the agreement that Phineas isn't gonna that that's not gonna work here versus that I think it was what songs I I knew it couldn't be more than 10 songs yeah I felt like okay if you're gonna make a record in this day and age yeah I
think it's worth trying to make it as Slimline as possible um because I do want people to hear the whole thing but you're demanding a lot of people's attention I think we've made that mistake I've made that mistake in the past where I've let things get too swollen and delivered something to the audience that is quite hard to digest I
mean it'll take years you know to digest some of this stuff like Delta with the band was 14 songs so and Elton John who was a real inspiration from the beginning of this process sat me down early on was like you are not allowed to make it more than 10 songs what was his reasoning for it for that same reasons yeah same reasons I think and and just and it and it brings
this intentionality like okay then every song has really got a fight for its place we're not going to let any in the door just because we kind of like him or they're sweet to have around or yeah yeah every song has to fight for its place and and so that meant that we edited hard really hard okay you did who else didn't make it I mean there's a sick
song with cast McCombs that we wrote yeah which was amazing there's a wonderful song that I I would love to resurrect one day with Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend yeah and I think those songs luckily I I remember him and I have little voice note recordings of them and I'm sure they'll live another life but for this record Blake and I I think knew in our bones
what it needed and what it didn't how will you sum up this part of your life do you think in the years to come when you look back on the last year and a half two years of from cannibal to today and and the shows that you'll do and whatnot how will you how do you think you put a ribbon on it what would be the overarching filter you'll see this life through I feel free
um in more ways than one for the first time in my life which is which is cool I mean you know um creatively I feel really free now I feel like I can do whatever I want to do which is premium but the freedom is well of knowing that you can move through life and face it all down and you don't have to clench your fists anymore yeah I feel better equipped for that stuff for
sure which really helps with creativity but were there times when it was hard not to care what people thought about when mumfords were a day with the peak of success in one in the 1.0 we were now in a 2.0 yeah yeah I think so I mean a lot of it I don't remember that well is that because of the alcohol or the adrenaline both I think and being young and it
being a whirlwind and a constant party and I don't have any regrets around that but I feel more present and connected now because I think of the work that I've done and having a bit more patience with stuff and feeling less like I've got a when every room I walk into um so it's not a Competitive Edge thing that was more like a people-pleasing thing people pleasing
is so funny right and and again you know we're very similar in that regard and it took it took someone to tell me my therapist to tell me you know and try to please everybody you're actually sort of mugging them you you sort of just taking their Good Will and trends of translating it and you know using it to feed yourself in an area that's totally
I found kids reflect their stuff like I'm having long conversations with my daughter about taste right because there's some things she just doesn't like we played with Joni Mitchell Newport I'm sure I shouldn't really hard to fall in love with Joni out the gate and Brandy will tell you that we're like playing it in the car she goes I really respect she's six I really I
really respect her I respect for what she's done for women in music oh Lord but it doesn't mean I have to like it those taste conversations so helpful like not everyone has to like everything you know and that I think comes as a result of doing more work on codependent stuff like yeah it's cool if I like something and my wife doesn't that's cool that's fine
well you know that was at the core of the band I felt like you're all quite individual people um I know you're all pretty well I know you and Ben best but you're all individuals and ultimately that led to the departure of win um I don't really want to talk about this when you come back as a band I'd rather do it now for two minutes um because it'll just be really odd news
by then and everyone's gone on with their lives we haven't spoken about it and um what's the thing that you think when you go back in the band and it's three of you in a room is going to be glaringly omitted when I think inspired a lot of the songwriting as well as the sound like when he banjo was so important for the first two Mumford and Sons records the lead guitar
was so important for the Third um so I think we'll miss that for sure but I think most bands stay together in their original lineups for too long Chris Martin said the same thing to me in a different way yeah bands aren't really supposed to last forever yeah and there are anomalies like you two and Copeland Coldplay who learned from YouTube and but even the stones you know
bands chain lineups change and I think that's fine I think when you're stuck in a creative partnership that not everyone feels aligned in and wants to be in then surely you're doing it for the wrong reasons and avoiding that feels like the thing to do if you want to have integrity in your creativity so I I'm kind of stoked about the next
phase for the band because it presents itself as a creative opportunity like the things we might miss from Winston not being in the band yeah are things we can find elsewhere with each other Here Comes Ted who knew he was Phil Collins well Ted's Ted's the best guitarist in the Band by a long one well there you go I see it as a creative opportunity honestly and that's not just
like a PR spin I really do I feel and and making this record has made me um appreciate that even more I love that um and by the way Delta oh man I'm not gonna lie to you it felt like the end of whatever it was yeah it just did at the time yeah and I actually thought punctuation mark I've never said this to you before I don't mind telling you this
now I actually got on the plane for New Orleans after we'd had that really nice night with your baseball buddy yeah it was epic yeah and I actually thought I don't know if there's going to be another Mumford and Son's record I just had this feeling like the guys might call time on this it was good and to the first chapter and I have no idea what
the next chapter is going to look like but I know I'm going back into it in a better place than I was when we started or when we did the fourth records so who knows you look amazing by the way it should be acknowledged I mean we try not to put things on the surface too hard but when you're on a quarantine come back like you are holy sh it was part of the whole deal for me taking
responsibility for stuff my doctor told me if I wanted to see my kids grow up I was pretty diabetic he was like you got to sort some stuff out would you have to sort out medical reasons for me yeah and you know I was clinically obese which was damaging my health and shortening my lifespan or the idea of it so it was time to and I think I'd always
sort of felt like at school and I was the fat kid and that was kind of just who I was and what I was going to be and my doctor was like well no you have more control over that than you'd think you do it's just gonna take some work and so what did you do how did you change your life hi quit booze and replaced it with ice cream turns out equally now zero yeah exactly although
although I have to say I've I've known people and myself have quit things and replaced them with things way less fun the idea of replacing anything that's that's clinically addictive with ice cream is is worth it for a face yeah and to be honest at that point it was about getting the the hooks and booze out of me so that was helpful can I just hyper
focus on the granular here for a second and just ask you what ice cream what was it the hard day Ben and Jerry's that's brutal um what flavor though but the thing is I live in Devon which is really the ice cream capital of the world are you kept it local so there's some local stuff in Devon that's the blow mind these Americans have no idea about clotted cream ice cream which is
fantastic out here they don't have which I only realized after I moved here that may have affected my decision they don't stock the famous Haagen-Dazs strawberry cheesecake ice cream that it seems waitrose just had this like unlimited Wonka Factory full of pralines and cream was my go-to drug of choice but of course I know in this is just my story right I'm not into the body
shaming thing because I think you know there's too much judgment around with that stuff for me it was just a straight up Health thing and getting to a place where I could then enjoy ice cream when I wanted to but wasn't needing it every day can you enjoy alcohol when you want to I think I'll get to the place where I I don't so I I'm I don't do AAA and
stuff I stopped before that became a necessity um much as I respect and love that world and I've seen the effect it has on so many of my friends and it's completely dope um but yeah for me that wasn't that wasn't necessary I sort of think of addictions like faders on your mixing desk right like you can pick anything you want to self-medicate some sort of pain in your
brain and it can be Xbox or it can be the radio or it can be surfing or it could be heroin or it could be ice cream and if any of the faders is too high in the mix it Peaks the whole mix out and that's basically what you can hear if you have the snare drum turned all the way up and everything else is at zero you're just gonna hear snare drum in the mix
so you gotta bring that down somehow so for me I just needed to address the faders of my mixing desk I love the analogy so the Greeks were right when they talked about nothing to excess right and know thyself those are the two inscriptions of the Temple of Delphi and those things feel still true to me but so I uh it's just getting a balance and a
control back around stuff because I've got an addictive personality and um and feeling like I could choose when to engage with certain things so booze I may engage with again but I don't really feel the need to I Really am enjoying myself what about when you're out social and stuff like that and the role that alcohol played for you how are you going to replace that it was
just a buffer right social buffer and now I just leave It's So Dope I'm really good at it say hello to everyone say goodbye to no one I'm so good at it but yeah just feeling and that's part of the whole deal like feeling less but like more focused on what you think you need and less focused on what other people think about it but man it's growth it's a beautiful thing
you know what about the relationships that you've developed over the course of this kind of young adult part of your life which is wrapped up in success and expectation and this is one of the things that people have to acknowledge about Marcus if you don't mind me saying for Cameron for audio is that um he's one of the most wonderful likable human
beings you'll ever meet at the first time and I don't mean that and he's an overly Channel then oh wait no wait it's good because it's not an overly Charming thing that can be too much for people like me but it's just you're very straight up very and you just you just find ways to introduce interesting people to one another um and it's you know I suppose for lack
of a better term it's what people call Connector you're very good with that you're very good at it but but that being said like you're embarking on a different era of your life it lasts two years you get to know yourself you no one had a chance to do that and now you're about to go out and play shows and live that life and be Marcus in the room again and does it do you feel any
kind of social anxiety at the thought of that or are you excited about it just from a different perspective the thing I found I feel a little anxious about right now and I'm planning for a bit is the the routine that I got to connect with because of covid in a way I hadn't since high school I didn't have a sense of home around place since school since
I was 18 because I was out the door and then and then on the road and was never in one place longer than a couple months do you think you were running in a way maybe a little bit I was working honestly um and so covid provided the opportunity for sort of stability for me that was helpful with all this stuff we've been talking about yeah healing work and
taking responsibility my body and stuff like that um and I'm a little nervous about losing that because I'm about to head out on a 14-week long tour before pretty much before Christmas is straight um I said to my agent you know I'm gonna tour this solar record once so let's just go hard and let's go deep and he presented me with a nine week theater
tour of the United States of America and Toronto Canadian's a bit pissed off I think and uh that's quite literal we are going hard so I'm excited to play it and then I'm going to the UK and it's going to be it's gonna be good but I'm a little bit nervous about losing the stability that I've had and being in La waking up and surfing before work that's a good day pretty
cool I want to ask you about that because um you know you're someone who is synonymous with this era of of songwriting and success that came out of the United Kingdom um looking back on that now what an incredible time oh man Florence you Laura right through people like Jack Jamie T of course Adele just an amazing group she's really coming along she's thinking they'll
still get there in the end right she'll get there in the end well look I mean we all knew it was going to take time just getting there yeah um so you wouldn't know it was a wild period of time it was a wild period of time but but everybody in a way wore the flat you know waved a flag not an overly patriotic way but it's like this is who
we are and where we come from and this is this is Camden baby and then you know you you're able to pick and choose where you go you spent quarantine at home and now you've chosen to move back to the West Coast of America what kind of promoted and prompted that idea in your head of wanting to kind of move to a different climate it's very different to London it's about having a base
um while we're touring and I don't think we'd sort of claim necessarily to be to have moved here properly but um we've got to have a base and that base is easier because this country is so massive it means you have to tour it for a long time and I think we I was born here so I don't I I forgot I don't feel that same sense of like I'm selling out to LA there's a
sense in which this has always felt like a version of home to me as well I love that the UK still has this grip on all of us including myself that if we ever turn our back on it you can change yeah yeah yeah exactly um you couldn't handle it I couldn't handle the hard stuff yeah and I remember when kid Harpoon and when kid Harpoon left Holloway yeah
everyone was like oh wow London is dead you know if all these guys are now going to alive he's gone then the last sort of Bastion of London has gone and things have changed so dramatically as well in the last few years in particular in these two kind of like tenth holes of the West um you've always been someone who's written um not only about what's going on inside
of you particularly on this record but also you're unafraid to look out the window um do you get inspired by that artistically at the moment are you letting it marinade are you letting it sit because I know you don't like to project your own opinions on people but I love the way that you do it in your own way I don't know I don't have some huge philosophical bomb to drop on you right
now um but it does feel to me like we're coming out of a period time where we weren't as able to connect with each other and share space in the way I think we're designed to Gather in communities and so I'm excited at the prospect of doing more of that again and I think we need it for health um you know and I've been living in the sticks the last couple years
but still very much in community and this idea of placebo Community I just don't think works and I think we're gonna wake up for that soon and we need real people to engage with and neighbors to engage with I love that philosophy and I love the Outlook I was talking to Aaron desner this morning and he used a great term which was you know he said
sometimes you know I can definitely skew up skew apocalyptic and I and I thought that that not only fit together beautifully as two words but was actually a good way to describe well undoubted a lot of the the Delta song is about you know being afraid of people that you can't know and like engage intrinsically no like yes we're just separate yeah and I think
most of the time when you meet someone in the flesh it kind of humanizes them of course in a way that makes them and I'm talking really generally less fear-inducing than they might be in the placebo the way you've seen them appear in the world which is why I think how you appear in the world is important and I do think there's value um in thinking that through carefully
but and more important in a way than ever um because we judge each other quite quickly on how we appear in the world so I do think you've got to be intentional about that but I like the idea that we have a bit more grace for each other like that person's not great or they haven't spent as much time thinking about how they appear in the world so I'll give
them a crack in the flesh and then if they're a real they can come off the idea that you get Grace a second it's really interesting to me because there's a band who exists and therefore an artist who exist on the idea of of bringing Community together the Gathering has always been an important part of what's motivated at mumfords and Sons experience I wonder if
there's been moments when you've wondered like let me rephrase this like is there anyone that you feel you can't reach or at least go into trying to reach even if philosophically well I think I'm I think I'm an optimist right so I wouldn't Verge towards the apocalyptic tilt of Odessa because I believe that there's he said it's Q yeah I believe that there's good
um yeah in everyone so and it's been really interesting looking a bit more closely at this trauma stuff particularly and developing a relationship with this guy Brian Stevenson who is a is a long story but he's a public defender works out of Montgomery Alabama wrote this book called just Mercy that I read and became completely obsessed with his mind we became friends in a very
unlikely way and the way he has so he looks after people on death row and life is without parole and insists that we're better than the worst thing we've ever done and so therefore being defined by and more importantly condemned for the worst thing we've ever done is not the gracious way in which Humanity was built to live and what it says about us when we
condemn someone for the worst thing they've ever done or I would add had done to them um that we're not living our best selves so I think the idea of Grace to me is a really important one because most the time behind someone who presents as heinous in some way there is a story there in their life that doesn't ever excuse but sometimes helps explain and
humanize um where they've where they've got to and the choices they've made and I think that's true for addicts I think it's true for people who are condemned have you know criminal stuff I think it's probably true for some of the public figures that we love to hate I think this is a good a really good way for us to kind of call time on this which is flown by
um but you really exercise that in in process on the last song on the album it's almost like you're extending a hand to the individual or the circumstances as if to say I can't do this unless there's some form of investment on both sides I cannot do this on my own I need there to be some closure here on all sides and it's an incredibly powerful moment simple question
I know where you will when you wrote cannibal this is the last song on the record where were you when you wrote this and what was going on I was engaged in community is the short answer I had support and it came in the form of um the people I work with on this record you know my wife which is why the record's dedicated to her um and then and Blake creating the creative space
and then specifically on that song Brandy collar because I went for dinner with her and Elton and they kind of cornered me to ask what was up what was going on in my life because I presented differently to how I had to them in the past and I played them Cannibal and Grace and only child and and Brandy put her arm around me and said dude whatever it takes to help
support you get this music out I'm gonna do and so I said well can you come to studio tomorrow morning I've got this song I'm wrestling with I think it's the last song on the record it mirrors in some way the first song on the record and would you be down and so it was a Saturday morning she came in and helped me right I was actually looking through
my lyric book and saw that you can I could follow the way in which we wrote the song and got there in the end her handwritings in it which is cool um and it was with her and on this record honestly like at various points I hit uh a cul-de-sac or a t-junction or a really a wall and remarkably to me and the way I've worked in the last decade or so it was a
woman who came along and lifted me over that wall and on that occasion it was Brandy but on Plenty of others it was other people not just sort of artists like Phoebe and Clara and Danielle Ponder Monica but but also people behind the scenes that I now work with and she embodied on that day the support that I think was completely fundamental and necessary for my process not just of
healing but also of creating This Record um and so really the place I was in when we wrote that song was one of feeling supported and that helped me feel more free to be more curious about the idea of forgiveness and it's not just forgiveness of of someone who's done you wrong but also self I think having the capacity to forgive yourself for some of the bad choices you've made
some of the top you've done uh is really crucial to Healing I keep I keep searching for this answer that never comes because the question is fundamentally bad and like but I've tried a few times you know like how did you feel when you finished this record how did you feel yeah well I mean it was like an 18-month process most of it was based here I did a lot at
home to start with and then I did a lot of it in the studio here with Blake who was my my partner in this really um and I kind of held it together and we tussled you know he's a Visionary guy so and my problem is I'm such a fan of his work but anything he does I think sounds completely dope you have to develop your own voice in relationship I had to
figure out like okay what makes this my record and not his record well it's really and by that point I guess you've given him enough space to work too so you almost got to walk him back yeah no well it wasn't it was more com it was just a conversation it was a constant conversation and he was unbelievably gracious with me changing my mind a lot um and being an artist
and because he had to fulfill both the role of an artist but also a producer which is a kind of really functional role um and we came to the last they're mixing because he and Joseph um mixed the record and we came to the last day and I'm leaning over the console at Sound City uh facing them he's on the computer I'm leaning over like this and we're weirdly
the last song We're mixing is cannibal and we're coming into land like I know we're in the last minute of um of mixing this song and it's the last song to mix and I just it just all starts coming out and I turn into a blubbering mess I'm like weeping and worried about short circuiting this beautiful desk they've got and he comes round from where he stood and walks up
behind me and leans his forehead on my back and puts his hands on my shoulders and just Waits until I'm done which is dope he didn't try and like clear it up and he wasn't uncomfortable perfectly no he didn't handle perfect reaction and that felt symbolic to me of the process that I've been through to make this record and um it was people saying look we're not
going to do it for you but we are going to support you and that is so precious and so valuable to me that it's made me and that's what makes people in general I think feel more free like I'm gonna be here with you I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do it for you but I'll be with you along the way and that's that's Community that's fellowship and friendship to me