Marcus Mumford's Secret And Salvation

For a decade now, he's fronted one of the biggest rock bands in the world. But the bright glare of Mumford & Sons' success has obscured some big questions and deep challenges for the singer. Now, ahead of an intimate new solo project, Marcus Mumford talks about bottoming out, plumbing his past, and finding his way forward.

- Zach Baron

LAST YEAR Marcus Mumford was at the home in Devon, England, he shares with his wife, the actor Carey Mulligan, and their two children, recording a new song. It was a time, or just after a time, during which "my life was slightly falling apart", Mumford told me recently. There was the obvious stuff: a pandemic; a change in management for his band, Mumford & Sons; the impending departure from the group of one of his oldest friends, banjoist and guitarist Winston Marshall. And then there was the less obvious stuff, which is what he was in his home studio trying to work through. "My parents live next door," Mumford said. "They moved in with us at the beginning of COVID and can hear through the wall, like, basically rhythm and melody."

This may be your experience of Mumford & Sons, too, one of the last remaining commercial juggernauts of the past decade: propulsive, anthemic, overtly sincere folk music overheard, if not deliberately listened to, in too many places to name or recollect. Mumford, the group's principal songwriter, is aware of the sometimes sceptical popular conception of his very popular band, which he wearily summarizes as "banjos and waistcoats". (They used to employ a lot of both.) But he's also clear-eyed about what has brought Mumford & Sons so much success, which is a counter-intuitively simple idea: They aim to show people a good time. "Mumford & Sons is supposed to be fun," he told me. "We might take you to church-but we'll also take you to the fair."

But this song that he was working on at home was not that, exactly, even though, through the wall, it might've sounded that way to his mother, who soon came by. "I know the chords she likes," Mumford said. "So she hears it through the walls, like, 'That sounds nice. Can I come hear it?'"