Mumford & Sons’ handmade aesthetic is rocking the music world
Describing the latest album from his band Mumford & Sons, Ben Lovett sidesteps much of the language artists often use to talk about their music. He doesn't, for instance, refer to "Babel" as a bit of creative risk-taking, or as the product of divine inspiration.
Instead, the 26-year-old keyboardist says that the record was "forced out of this internal desire to prove that we have many more songs in us."
Mumford & Sons released its debut, "Sigh No More," in 2009 and immediately set about touring the world, playing concerts that grew steadily to a scale Lovett called "crazy." (Last year it performed before an audience of approximately 75,000 people on the main stage at Coachella.)
Unlikely pop stars
Before long the London-based group — which also includes singer-guitarist Marcus Mumford, 25; bassist Ted Dwane, 28 and banjo player Winston Marshall, 25 — had all but exhausted the tunes on "Sigh No More." For 2012 it needed new ones.
"And I'm sure the third, fourth and fifth records will happen the same way," Lovett continued, speaking recently after a show in Cairns, Australia. "There was absolutely zero calculation [with 'Babel']. No one ever came into the studio and said, 'Turn that banjo up and we'll make you into pop stars!'"
Yet pop stars are precisely what the band's members have become. In October "Babel" entered Billboard's album chart at No. 1, scoring what was then the year's biggest sales week — bigger than Justin Bieber and Madonna — with more than 600,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
So how did these London lads carve out such an impressive space singing original songs about struggle and redemption?
mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20130527adac1f482b1526572e6565a7b95a382816b.wma
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