Mumford & Sons join us to discuss their brand new album, "Rushmere” during #AudacyCheckIn!
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00:00But this is you know ten songs the gate. There's no gatekeeping. It's a very accessible Mumford & Sons product, right?
00:06There's Elton John who said ten songs darling
00:09We're like, okay
00:11It's all his fault
00:17All right, welcome in to the Odyssey sound space of the hard rock, New York
00:21It's a Odyssey check-in with the sons of Mumford Mumford & Sons. Hi kids. How are you? Hello, mate?
00:26Thanks having us big day big week, it's release day release week
00:31How much reflection do we do right about now about the past and before we get time for reflecting?
00:37We're in we're in go mode. There's never a time. You look back and like God, I don't it's definitely not now
00:42I know do you know what? I'm trying to be like more
00:46present to the
00:48enjoyment you can have by finishing something and putting out in the world because I think at times we're so like
00:53What's next what's next what's next, you know
00:56announcing a bunch of tour dates and
00:59Thinking about more songs and not actually taking the time to be like cool. We made a thing
01:04Yeah, and we put it out. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I mean, it's one of these things to me like
01:09Turns out I'm not Mumford & Sons
01:11But if I'm looking back on things and and right before something big like this happens, you know
01:16I think about the first time I saw you guys at Bonnaroo
01:19It's like the biggest Bonnaroo show that they've ever had on one of these stages
01:22And you know, it's one of these moments. It's so big you look back like I think we might have missed how big that was
01:27Yeah, you have one of those
01:29Yeah, we had a few moments that we just just couldn't quite grasp the enormity of the situation
01:35I think that's probably healthy to not it's that it's a weird one, right?
01:38Cuz you kind of you wish you could savor it all but who knows what would have happened had we savored at all
01:44it's good to like stay light and
01:46keep moving I
01:49said to
01:50Our manager the other day
01:51I was like
01:52I just never want to feel like we've peaked out and maybe if we had realized what was happening at Bonnaroo
01:56We would have been like this is the peak of our career and then you start looking over the edge and then you know
02:01So it's like it's nice to kind of feel like we're just building and keeping up walking up the hill and in those in those seven
02:07Years you put a soul album
02:10you said it was so fulfilling when you went to put the team back together and everybody there was there any moment you're like
02:16This may never happen no, no, no, it wasn't so much that it was just like there wasn't a guarantee that it would happen unless
02:23The songs came so we had this moment in Los Angeles in January 23
02:29Where we said let's meet up and let's put instruments in our hands together in a room with no one else around for the first
02:35time in quite a while and
02:37If the songs come easy, then let's do this
02:40And if they don't we'll maybe keep trying and but there's no like
02:44let's not do this because we have to do it because we're in a big band and people know our name and
02:49Just show up to work and kind of go through the motions
02:52let's only do this if it feels like something we can be passionate about because we only really are very good when we
02:58Really believe in the music we're putting out and we wrote five songs in a week
03:02That's what I was about to say how close to the representation from that moment did actually get to the album
03:07Yeah, well Dave Cobb helped to keep us honest who helped with the production on this record with us
03:14And so I think he from the beginning was saying things like don't overthink it. Don't throw all the
03:20Don't throw all the toys at it, you know
03:24like leg drum kit sound like a drum kit like a guitar sound like a guitar don't get sucked into the vortex of like
03:31Geeking out on sounds to the extent that you forget what the song is
03:34Well, you spend a decade plus doing the evolution thing you evolve into new sounds new spaces
03:40But then this thing feels a little bit better not better
03:43But more at the core of where you guys probably originally started. Is that fair to say?
03:47Yeah, I think that all of the records represent us, you know in various sort of ways
03:53I think the sort of kernel of Mumford and Sons is really just like three lads who really enjoy hanging out together and making music
04:00That exists across all around us, but like Marcus was just saying with Dave
04:04it was the was very intentional to remove the smoking mirrors and just make a very elemental record that feels like you're kind of
04:11That's a lovely
04:14But what I love about how that comes together is the way that it then becomes
04:18An actuality when you're showing up at you know
04:21Random bars in New York and doing just that just a guy and a guitar and you know sand at bass
04:27Yeah, it has that added benefit which I think we also kind of maybe forgot how
04:32These songs are very easy these specific for this body of work. We can kind of spin up very quickly
04:37I think we set aside like a few days for musical rehearsals and
04:42It actually was around the time that we did that pop-up in New York
04:46And we got in and we started playing the songs and we're like, oh
04:49Yeah, we recorded these songs live in a room together like not that long ago and they kind of just came back
04:56Whereas other songs that we had like noodled on in a studio and built up layers of we really did have to forensically learn
05:04These songs we've got like and so it has been these these pop-ups have been
05:09Unbelievably fun and we've ended up doing a couple of more since in New York because it kind of inspired us
05:15Yeah, just being in a pub and the best thing is that they're not in music venues
05:19They're like basically where people tend to have gather and either
05:23Drink beer or watch sport or something and we just kind of like a crash. Yeah
05:27Yeah, surprise. You didn't know you needed this
05:31Some muffin and sons for you. It's on the menu today. Yeah
05:35Well, you see the list of you doing the tour before the tour now and then you go through the the cities that you release
05:41That you're going to in the fall, you know, you're gonna have these questions. Are you popping up in my city?
05:46Are you gonna do one of these everywhere when and where does that happen? How does it come together?
05:51Well, it's normally on a day off because you don't really believe in days of this breakfast this is supposed to be a no breakfast
05:56This this is a day off and we're talking to you and we're doing Fallon. Yeah, and then we play again tomorrow
06:04So we don't really believe in days off so it tends to be where the schedule allows for now
06:08It's been a fun way to sort of reconnect with our cool. Yeah audience
06:13Based on the album, you know, you say it's back to the core or like I say, it's grounding
06:19Let me say the words for you
06:27The moment of Rushmere in the album that feels most
06:31To you like what's the moment that got you the most resonated the most?
06:36Through the eye. Is there a moment a few different sort of
06:41Resonances there was like a deeply emotional moment for me hearing monochrome come together, you know, especially lyrically in the studio
06:49but I think in terms of like the live spirit of a record personally, I find Caroline a really exciting moment just because the way
06:56Kind of came together in Dave Cobb's RCA studio in Nashville
07:01So there's like yeah a few different elements and on the record, but I don't know what have you got any I?
07:07Just love that. It's kind of digestible. I I feel like in general
07:13Bands when they get deeper into their career. That's our fifth album end up
07:18Kind of with less people saying no
07:23It's more like yeah, you it's good enough like get any bagpipes on this across. Yeah
07:30Maybe that song people are like, yeah, it sounds like a good enough song throw on there
07:34We were actually a bit more disciplined than that. So the whole album is like 36 minutes long
07:39And so I have this like
07:41Belief which is probably still a bit far-fetched that people will actually take the time to listen to the whole album
07:46Because I think nowadays people's attention span is so short in general that they don't
07:53Kind of savor a whole thing and I do think you can listen to all ten tracks
07:57And kind of get a pretty good range of what was going on
08:01So I you know, I do have personal favorites, but I also think that you can kind of knock it out
08:06Well the difference that you're describing, you know
08:08You at least I know the split the way that I know the story Delta comes in with 32 demos
08:13You know and you're thinking like this could be even be a double album
08:16You just keep going and going and going but this is you know, ten songs the gate. There's no gatekeeping
08:21It's a very accessible Mumford and Sons product, right? There's Elton John who said ten songs darling
08:27Okay
08:29It's all his fault. It's a pretty good life advice. Yeah
08:33The the kids the kids are good. Are they enjoying Mumford? Are they into the band?
08:39Yeah, what do you mean the generational no yours you're my person specifically do you play for them and they say
08:47Yeah, yeah, they're fine. Yeah. Thanks for asking. Yeah, I because I think about like how when you say there's less nose
08:53Talking about head in the heart a couple weeks ago and the whole bands got to say yes to something, right?
08:59Everybody's got a vote. So who gets the votes?
09:02Like what's the process of like when it's time to make a decision that's a big one
09:06Like what do we is it democratic are we going to the family?
09:09Are we going to who are we definitely not going to the kids for that?
09:14Yes democratic and then we have a small team of people
09:20Creatively that we really trust there's some other musicians in there
09:23I actually really care what these guys partners have to say because they've been around the band for such a long time
09:28They kind of know us they know when we might be like reaching or faking it or right
09:34They know us really well as a as an artist I suppose so
09:39Yeah, it's a fairly small group of people. We don't like play it to everyone which I know some artists do yeah
09:46But yeah, we there's a comes a point. I think
09:50It's a balance because in the earliest phases it requires quite a lot of imagination
09:55To know where the songs are gonna end up based on the demos. There might be like a voice memo
10:00That's what you hire a producer for and that's the role that Dave Cobb certainly played in this with us
10:05And then beyond that it's quite a hard task to ask your label to imagine what it'll be like when it's fully done
10:13Because they're not in the room with you so that that group of people starts really small
10:18I think it has to start really small if you start sending demos to the world and it's always there
10:22You're in trouble. I think but then as the thing gets finished then we start playing
10:27Um, so the the most special place that you think you've found a Mumford and Sons song
10:34Is there a human that it got to is it a family member that you probably didn't know would actually love this
10:40Is it is it in a city that you didn't anticipate? What's the place that hit you and said wow it got it got there
10:51I definitely think of some that I feel would be too personal to share actually
10:55but it does kind of
10:57make me think about times that the music has kind of soundtracks and quite important moments in people's lives and
11:03that's like kind of amazing to think that these songs that start relatively innocently and
11:10Almost always autobiographically end up being other people's stories right like their their soundtracks
11:16I do I do find that quite crazy Swiss beats likes our records. Yeah
11:21I
11:23Yeah
11:24And so finally it because you know, I mean it's about you guys if we're calling Webster. What's the definition of Rushmere?
11:33What does it actually mean if we're just putting it in the Western dictionary? It's just a place. Okay, we met. Okay, basically
11:42Straightforward I'll take it easy. It means something to us. That's all
11:46It's open for interpretation, I love smoking cigarettes at Rushmere
11:50It's awesome. It's good for breakfast warm beer warm fosters out of those tall cans
11:57Yeah, yeah, thanks guys, thank you
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