50 Fun Facts About Mumford & Sons

Which London common's pond gave Mumford & Sons' album Rushmere its name?

Wimbledon Common's Rushmere pond is where three future members used to hang out and first talked about putting a band together.

Which instrument does Ben Lovett play in the band?

Keyboards player Lovett joked that naming the band after him would have sounded like 'Lyle Lovett's side project'; Marcus got the name because he made the phone calls and booked the gigs.

Marcus Mumford married which Oscar-nominated actress, a childhood pen pal, in 2012?

Carey Mulligan and Mumford wrote to each other as children, lost touch for years, and were engaged within five months of meeting again as adults.

Which 2012 album won the band the Grammy for Album of the Year?

Babel made up for 2011, when the band left the Grammys empty-handed: it took the top prize after selling 600,000 US copies in its first week, the year's biggest debut until Taylor Swift's Red a month later.

Marcus Mumford co-wrote the theme music for which Apple TV+ comedy series?

Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis asked him in a voicemail on a US phone Mumford rarely switched on; it sat unheard for a couple of months, and Sudeikis thought he was being ghosted.

Which member left the band in 2021 after a Twitter row over his praise for a book by Andy Ngo?

Winston Marshall first apologised and took time away from the band; months later he quit for good, writing that he wanted to speak his mind without his bandmates suffering the consequences.

Sigh No More takes its title from a line in which Shakespeare play?

Much Ado About Nothing has a singer tell ladies to 'sigh no more' because 'men were deceivers ever'; the band's title track borrows other lines from the play too.

The song 'Timshel' takes its title from a word at the heart of a novel by which American author?

John Steinbeck's East of Eden ends on the word: a dying father whispers 'timshel' to his guilt-ridden son, a reminder that he is free to choose his own path.

Besides guitar, which instrument does frontman Marcus Mumford sometimes play on stage while singing lead?

Drums were his first job on the London folk circuit, where he backed Laura Marling from behind the kit, and he still drums and sings at once on songs such as 'Lover of the Light'.

Why did Markus Dravs first turn the band away from his studio?

They showed up without their own instruments, so Dravs asked bassist Ted Dwane where his bass was, then told him to leave the studio and not come back until he had one.

Which member of The National lent the band his Brooklyn garage studio for Wilder Mind and later produced Prizefighter?

Aaron Dessner happened to be working next door while the band mixed their previous album; they swapped demos, and Prizefighter came together in ten days at his Long Pond studio.

'Little Lion Man' topped which Australian radio poll for 2009?

Triple J Hottest 100 voters, the station's own listeners, made it the top song of 2009, and the band dropped into triple j's studios to play the winner live.

At the 2011 Grammys the band performed 'The Cave' in a segment with which legend and the Avett Brothers?

Bob Dylan led both bands through 'Maggie's Farm'. Ben Lovett said they had agreed weeks earlier without being told who the partner was; US sales of their album then jumped 99 per cent.

Which veteran songwriter recorded 'Days/This Time Tomorrow' with the band for his 2010 collaborations album?

Ray Davies needed one take, Ben Lovett recalled: asked if he wanted to hear his vocal back, he said, 'No, I heard it whilst I was recording it.'

The band's 2010 EP with Dharohar Project and Laura Marling was recorded in which city?

Delhi was a stop on the band's tour of India, where they and Laura Marling recorded with a Rajasthani folk collective, fusing her 'Devil's Spoke' and their 'To Darkness' with Indian songs.

Which Los Angeles collective rode the vintage train of the band's 2011 Railroad Revival Tour?

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros shared more than the carriages: each night the acts sat in on one another's sets, and some 30 musicians ended the show together with 'This Train Is Bound for Glory'.

Which US band did Marcus Mumford credit with making him fall in love with country music at 16 or 17?

Old Crow Medicine Show became travelling companions: in 2011 the two bands shared a vintage train across the American Southwest, a trip filmed for a Grammy-winning documentary.

Mumford & Sons recorded 'Learn Me Right' with singer Birdy for which Pixar film?

Brave saves the song for its ending: its producer said the band 'found that moment of truth' in the mother-and-daughter story, and Marcus Mumford called writing for an orchestra and Birdy's voice 'quite liberating'.

The Babel concert film Road to Red Rocks was recorded at a venue in which US state?

Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheatre hosted the filmed concert almost a month before Babel reached the shops, so the crowd was hearing many of its songs early.

Which Mumford & Sons member had surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain in June 2013?

Ted Dwane's surgery forced the band to scrap its remaining US dates, yet he was back on stage with them, playing a headline set, less than three weeks later.

Mumford & Sons headlined which festival on 30 June 2013?

Glastonbury gave them its closing Sunday slot, a night after the Rolling Stones drew an unprecedented crowd; they ended with a mass singalong of 'With a Little Help from My Friends'.

Which company did Mumford & Sons found to run their own label and their Stopover festivals?

Gentlemen of the Road was, in the band's words, a vehicle for doing 'things that we love, our way': releasing their own records and, by 2019, staging 17 Stopover weekends of their own.

Which instrument, once synonymous with the band, is absent from 2015's Wilder Mind?

Banjo player Winston Marshall had started swapping it for an electric guitar at sound checks, and Ben Lovett called the heavier new sound 'a very natural departure'.

Who produced Wilder Mind, as the band tried something new after two records with Markus Dravs?

James Ford, best known for his Arctic Monkeys records, took over at Air Studios in London; Ben Lovett insisted they had not split from Dravs: 'we're just playing the field!'

Which actor co-directed and starred in the video for the Mumford & Sons single 'Lover of the Light'?

Idris Elba plays a blind man who puts aside his cane and runs free across open country; the band never appears, and Marcus Mumford joked that they only 'think' they understand it.

Marcus Mumford, raised in London, was born to English parents in which US state?

California is on his birth certificate, and he has joked that he is 'an undercover American citizen' who grew up following American sports from England.

The band's 2016 EP was named after which city?

Johannesburg is where the band recorded it, in two all-day, all-night sessions on a South African tour with Senegal's Baaba Maal, local pop group Beatenberg and London's The Very Best.

Which producer made Delta, recorded mainly at The Church Studios in London?

Paul Epworth, Adele's producer, coaxed the band's acoustic instruments back onto the record, then ran them through effects until they were almost unrecognisable.

Which Nine Inch Nails song did the band cover on the Delta Tour EP?

Hurt had been an encore on the Delta Tour, and the six-track live EP came out in November 2020 to mark a tour the pandemic had cut short.

What name did Marcus Mumford give his 2022 solo debut album?

Self-Titled, styled in brackets as (self-titled), opens with 'Cannibal', whose one-take video was shot on a phone by Steven Spielberg, directing a music video for the first time.

Mumford & Sons made their 2024 single 'Good People' with which producer?

Pharrell Williams wrote and recorded it with them in New York and Paris, then unveiled it on the soundtrack of his Louis Vuitton show at Paris Fashion Week, where the band played afterwards.

Rushmere, Mumford & Sons' first album in seven years, was co-produced by whom?

Dave Cobb, Marcus Mumford said, held the band's feet to the fire 'about who we are as artists'; the band called the period 'the most prolific two years we've ever had'.

Which Irish singer features on 'Rubber Band Man', a single from 2026's Prizefighter?

Hozier, a friend of the band for about 12 years, was sent the whole album in rough form and picked this song to sing on; it 'just jumped out to him', Marcus Mumford said.

Marcus Mumford's parents headed the UK and Ireland branch of which Christian movement?

The Vineyard upbringing runs through his lyrics, but Mumford keeps his distance from the label: 'We're fans of faith, not religion,' he told the Big Issue.

Which soundtrack do Mumford & Sons credit as the start of their love of American roots music?

O Brother, Where Art Thou? was the gateway, and one of its singers, Emmylou Harris, ended up sharing a stage with the band for a CMT Crossroads special in 2012.

Adam Tudhope, who began managing Mumford & Sons in 2008, was already the manager of which piano-led band?

Keane's manager got the new band in front of Island's Louis Bloom, who kept coming back for six months as they played to 'just a few friends', gaining fans at every show.

Which label handled the band in North America under the 2009 licensing deal?

Glassnote was a two-year-old New York independent when it took the band on, and within four years the bet had delivered an Album of the Year Grammy.

Which 2011 awards show lifted Sigh No More's UK sales by 266 per cent?

The Brits named it British album of the year, and the exposure helped make Mumford & Sons the first British band since Coldplay to sell a million copies of one album in both the UK and the US.

In which US city did Mumford & Sons write a batch of new songs while touring in early 2011?

Nashville, Tennessee suited them, Winston Marshall said, because everyone there plays: 'you don't meet up for a drink, you meet up for a pick.'

Which US festival did Mumford & Sons pull out of in 2013 over a member's illness, then headline in 2015?

Bonnaroo found a stand-in overnight: Jack Johnson took the call late on a Thursday and played the Saturday headline slot in the band's place.

Which lead single from Babel had its first play on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show?

'I Will Wait' was first played with Huw Stephens sitting in for Lowe, and Ben Lovett told him the band had not tried 'to push the boat out too much' on the new album.

Which single introduced the album Delta on BBC Radio 1 in September 2018?

Guiding Light premiered on Annie Mac's show while the album was still taking shape: less than two weeks earlier a studio whiteboard had listed 24 candidate songs.

'The Cave' contains several references to the sirens of which ancient epic?

The Odyssey has its hero lashed to his ship's mast while his crew plug their ears with wax, so that he alone hears the Sirens and lives; the song borrows both images.

What was the first single from Wilder Mind, sent to radio in March 2015?

Believe announced a turn from folk to a classic rock sound, and its first physical release was a hand-numbered 7-inch, limited to 1,000 copies, for Record Store Day.

Which song from the 2008 EP Love Your Ground was the only one Mumford & Sons carried over onto Sigh No More?

Little Lion Man outgrew the EP: Zane Lowe championed it on BBC Radio 1 in July 2009, and it shot up the charts as the album's lead single that autumn.

'Roll Away Your Stone' borrows the line 'Stars, hide your fires' from which Shakespeare play?

Macbeth says it in an aside early in the play, just after the king names another man his heir, asking the dark to hide his 'black and deep desires' for the crown.

In February 2010 Mumford & Sons made an early US television appearance on which host's late-night show?

David Letterman's show was on network television, so Marcus Mumford swapped the swear word in the chorus for 'messed it up'; NME's verdict was that the band 'killed it'.

The band recorded two songs for Andrea Arnold's 2011 adaptation of which novel?

Wuthering Heights came their way after its director saw the band in concert; they watched her film, left the screening room inspired and had two songs written within two days.

Which documentary about the 2011 train tour won the band a Grammy for Best Long Form Video?

Big Easy Express follows the musicians' vintage train from the San Francisco Bay to New Orleans, the 'Big Easy' of its title, and it also won the audience award at SXSW.

Mumford & Sons' first Stopover festival of 2013 took over which county town of East Sussex?

Lewes got a football tournament as well as a festival: on the opening morning the band entered a team in a five-a-side charity contest at Lewes FC's ground, the Dripping Pan.