A staple of the folk-rock genre, few people wouldn’t recognise the name or work of Mumford & Sons.
Following only a year after the release of their fifth studio album, Rushmere, was their sixth album Prizefighter, released in February this year.
The album was recorded in ten days at producer Aaron Dessner’s studio in New York, and now they’re taking it around the world – bringing it to New Zealand’s shores as well.
They’re performing tonight at Auckland’s Spark Arena, and compared to the more intimate, slightly introspective shows the band has done in the past, this one is set to be a bit more exciting.
“This is the beginning of a major bout of like, quite a few months of touring for us with a whole new production, a new album, and we’re quite ambitious for the whole thing,” Keyboardist and vocalist Ben Lovett told Jack Tame.
“It’s our 6th album, so we’re quite like, in a spirit of let’s like, leave it all on the floor, let’s bring all the new songs out, let’s give it a whole new visual aesthetic.”
“It’s quite exciting really.”
Despite only being a year apart in release dates, Rushmere and Prizefighter are quite different records – Rushmere being more introspective and internal, while Prizefighter is more expansive, featuring collaborations with artists like Chris Stapleton and Hozier.
“When we talked about getting back together, I think our desire was to make a record that felt like you were kind of pulling the curtain back and just hearing a band in a room together,” Ted Dwane, who does vocals, bass, and guitar for the band, told Tame.
“So with Dave Cobb we made Rushmere, and kind of, I think, kind of completed that thought.”
And it was Rushmere’s release that threw the band’s creative doors wide open, answering any questions about where the band was at musically and whether the audience would be along for the ride.
“And I think just internally between us, it was an incredibly freeing feeling, y’know, just the feeling of making Prizefighter,” Dawson said.
“It felt like the backlog was cleared and we were flowing again.”
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
B I Willy and I Will, I will for you you.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
This Saturday morning. So good to have you with us.
Mum Puting Sons burst onto the world stage, introducing generations
of fans to a unique blend of banjo and fuse
driving folk rock, and just a year since their last record, Rushmere,
they have released their sixth studio album, It's called Prize Fighter,
(00:57):
and now they are heading off on a world tour,
playing live at Spark Arena in Auckland tonight. So Ted,
Dwayne and Ben Love from Month and Sons with us
this morning. Killed A good morning.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Guys, Thank you much, thanks for having a song.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I feel like I forgot what our names sound like
an a accent.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Can you give me your impression of what your names
sound like in a Kiwi accent.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
What I just heard was Tied and Bean.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
Always being Bin because it because we say Ben. But
when we got here the first time, everyone was calling
Ben Bin and I was delighted. I thought that was
really funny. But now I'm now I'm tidd.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I forgot how Yeah, imagine for a moment that you're
not speaking to a New Zealand audience. How do how
was our accent perceived? Do you is it? You know,
do you sort of favorably? Favorably? But do you see
us as being sophisticated? Not really a yeah, sophisticated.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
I think you have a lot going for, like the
brand of New Zealand, so the accent kind of represents
New Zealans rather than the other.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Area associations are all very positive. I think it's quite
sharp and quite relaxed.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
I think you guys might be winning the the world's
top trump cards right now. I think everything, just everything.
I think I think everyone outside of New Zealand thinks
that New Zealand is the best place in the world.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
I think you get I think I think it is.
We've been here about an hour and we're like, yeah,
this stills pretty good.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I'm pleased to hear you say that. I actually, I
think it's mainly I mean, obviously we've got some good
things going for us. I think it's mainly just that
we're a long way from everywhere else and and and
there's something attractive about being able to kind of escape
the madness of the world right now, don't you think?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah, so what you're saying is we should stop trying
to find like extra crestrial life and other planets so
that we you know, because it's right now we feel
quite far removed from any other life form. So I'm
pretty sure that's.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Exactly what he was saying.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
We are, we are.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
We're discussing expiration, right.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I always think of us as just being the last
seat on the bus, you know, so like when the
world goes over a speed bump, we get kicked in
the year slightly slightly higher than everyone else, with the
last place to arrive anywhere, necessarily, but there are actually
certain advantages that are afforded to you when you're at
the at the end of the world. But you guys
have been here.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Before, right, It's ironic that you say that because you're
actually the first to go over there in terms of time. Yes, them, Yeah, yeah,
you're way ahead of everything. I mean, I don't know
how family back home. I'm like, just so you know
tomorrow is going to happen so now, because we're yeah,
(03:46):
fastdays here, so you're worried about Saturday coming tomorrow, it's
definitely coming.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Well if you were, I mean, one for the real
train spot is I know that you guys are here
performing a big show, but you've done your fierce share
of intimate shows over the years. If you were looking
for a really intimate show, you can look it up
on a map. Afterwards, you could go to the Chatham Islands,
which is New Zealand's other time zone. It's forty five
minutes away. The time zone is a forty five minute difference,
(04:10):
and so that is the very first place to get
the sunrise every day. But I'll be honest that the
connecting options aren't great depending on your schedule.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Trip by a few days might be.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Tricky to the show, though. This is a stadium spectacular,
right and can you contrast it a little bit because
when I think a lot of Munflon Sun's fans in
New Zealand will have thought, you know, thought about the
kind of slightly introspective, relatively intimate shows you guys have
done in the past, and this is an absolute like
(04:43):
knock your socks off, blow you away kind of experience, right. Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
We are starting Prize Fighter tour, so this is the
beginning of a major about of like quite a few
months of touring for us with a whole new production,
new our and we are quite ambitious for the whole thing.
We've been ambitious for this sous six thousand, so we're
(05:12):
quite like in a spirit of let's leave it all
on the floor, let's bring all the new songs out,
let's give it a whole new visual aesthetic. It's quite
exciting really, you know, Certainly when we started out and
we were playing as intimate rooms, is about establishing who
we were as Mnflin sons then whereas now, you know,
(05:33):
with that kind of a little bit established, I think
we can now talk about the identity of the actual
albums that we're playing. And this is the Prize Fighter Tour.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
The thing about Prize Fighters, it was only like a
year or so, right since your last album. Yeah, a
year or so in quite a different so, I mean
that's you know, you guys have have managed to get
this out to the world at a pretty good clip.
So was it just a case of being on the role?
I mean you recorded in ten days, right, So was
it a case of just being on being on a role,
feeling like you were in the kind of flow state?
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Yeah, I guess so, you know, I mean it's been
a pretty wild few years and we were sort of
obviously interrupted by COVID along with everybody else, and we
were stuck at home and a bunch of songs got written,
and when we talked about getting back together, I think
our desire was to make a record that felt like
you were kind of putting the curtain back and just
hearing a band in a room together. So with Dave
(06:26):
Cobb we made Rushmir and kind of I think kind
of completed that thought. It felt like a really you know,
musical and explorative record. And then I guess with that
done and released into the world, it was like there
was a sort of it was just like the doors
(06:49):
had been opened, you know, wide creatively and felt like,
you know, any anticipation or any questions about musically where
we were at, we're kind of being answered, and our
audience was sort of on board for the ride. And
I think just internally between us, it was an incredibly
being feeling, you know, just the feeling of making Prize Fighter.
(07:10):
You know, it felt like the backlog was cleared and
we were flowing again.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's a queen slate or something, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Yeah, And so creatively it felt refreshed and energetically it
just felt you know, imbibed with this sort of optimism
and excitement about being an active band again and all
of the touring that we were going to be able
to do and all this sort of stuff. So it
wasn't sort of a grand design. It was really just
a circumstance of of you know, being creatively really yeah,
(07:41):
just sort of inspired and like you say, kind of flowing.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
You're listening to Jack Tame, I'm speaking with Ted and
Bean from Mumford and sounds a heat of this show
Tonight Prize features a whole host of different and like
quite varied artists, which is interesting in itself, Like Christableton, Josier,
Gracie Abrams is on there and I think played quite
(08:06):
a significant role. So can you talk us through that
process and why you wanted to invite other people into
the kind of creative duney.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Yeah, it's kind of a continuation of what Ted was
just talking about, which was a momentum that led us
into this collaboration with Aaron Destino, who has become quite
a big part of our creative life because he was
doing a pre production with us on our third album
back in twenty fourteen, twelve years ago now, and we
(08:37):
were in his garage. He was off the road with
the National and his band, and at that time he
had made some records, but subsequently he's done a lot
of work with various different artists, including Gracie. And when
we were mixing Rushmere, not to jump around too much,
but when we were mixing Rushmere, we were at a
(08:58):
studio called Electric Lady in New York. It's a really iconic.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Studio, Hendrix Studio, Yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
We were in the room and then we heard that
Aaron was upstairs with Gracie, so they popped down to
say Hi. That's kind of what happens in that studio
as different artists kind of drop into each other's control rooms.
How you doing, what have you got going on? So
we played some of Rushmaire. He played some bits and pieces,
including a couple of ideas that he had been sitting
(09:25):
on that he had collected over a ten year period
that he felt were kind of whenever the time came,
would make sense for us. So he played us a
couple of ideas and one of those was a song
that he had written or a kind of a musical
idea with justin Vernon bonnie Verair. Yeah, and honestly, that
(09:47):
was given that that was kind of the spark of
the beginning of the record. Collaboration really just was right
there at the DNA point of inception, and then it
just kind of felt very natural to us to include
ideas and whether it was lyrics or melody, or voices
(10:08):
or instrumentalists, you named a handful of them, but it
goes so deep, and it's very ritt for us because
as a band, we felt historically like we haven't needed
or perhaps wanted to open the doors like that. But
because we already had Rushmah in the mix, this was
like a freebie and we weren't particularly concerned about how
(10:31):
it might be perceived and whether or not it just
like it dilutes the band's message or the story or
what it. So it was just like, let's just have
some fun, and that's what ended up making probably one
of the most important records of our careers, Like because
we weren't wondering how it was going to be interpreted
or received.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
It's kind of when we just hadn't done that before
because we've like we're borne out such a collaborative world.
That's kind of how the band fallen through collaboration. So yeah,
it's kind of it's kind of a relief to actually
express that on a recording. You know, again, it feels
like an unblock, like a you know, it's a good feeling.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
You talked about, you know, being able to kind of
push aside any considerations you might give about how an
album might be received. Basically you were able to not
give a stuff about what other people think, right, And
there's kind of a there's something liberating about that. It's
kind of a freeing experience. Creatively.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
We really were not We were not supposed to be
making an album, not just so people understand how it works.
You know, you're supposed to release and then promote an album.
The last thing I was supposed to do after mixing
a record, to start making another one. Like record labels,
it's like the cardinal sin. So we had to go
and kind of explain to our partners what happened. And
(11:52):
it was born from such a passion and creativity. But
it certainly is not normal to be writing and recording
another album whilst touring Rushma, which was what happened. But
it like we had because of that so much cover
and we could we could take more risks, and I
(12:14):
think those risks have landed in a way, you know,
because we didn't need to worry about whether or not
this was the last thing we were going to do
for the next few years. It just felt like a
kind of a plus one.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah. I also just don't think they can argue with
the results, right The record company can't be too grumpy
if you and you're like here you go, and they're like, ah, okay,
we'll forgive you this time.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you guys are asked us
from time to time, but you know, I had some
bands and artists become kind of synonymous with certain sounds. Obviously,
you are credited with repopularizing the banjo and an amazing way,
I think, and kind of introducing whole generations of people
to a sound that they might not have previously considered
(12:57):
or even been exposed to. How do you guys, how
do you guys think about the role that the banjo
has played in the band succeeds.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
It's a funny thing. You know, we would never deny
it's you know, important or relevance. I suppose we certainly
don't take credit for, you know, repopularizing it was definitely
a team effort or if you have a bands around
you know who shared our sort of I guess some
stylistic influence or interest. I think for us, you know,
(13:28):
we we we as I mentioned, we were born out
of this kind of environment of collaboration and we were
in London and we were basically like session players for
a bunch of songwriters and Marcus was always our drama
And when we got fired from our mate Allen's band,
Marcus was like, well I can, I've got a few
songs I could sing. So suddenly there was no drums.
(13:49):
So it's like me on the bass vendings and clues.
Winston at the time was playing banjo, and I guess
the role that that instrument played rhythmically. You know, when
you listen to our music's kind of obvious you're in
the absence of a drummer. We got like a kick
drum going, but really a lot of a rhythmical and
sort of toppying information is coming from that that sort
of role in banjo's so certainly on those like first
(14:11):
few records. So yeah, it's it's kind of a part
of the initial I guess, like recipe that we set
out with I think there are parameters to to any recipe,
and it comes a time where you can only bake
that cake so many times. So, you know, we still
(14:31):
embrace that instrument and it features you know, we've got
a guy with us, Matt, who's probably the best banjo
player in the world. He's unbelievable, and we embrace that instrument.
But I think, you know, stylistically, we've expanded and grown
with every record, We've wanted to explore, you know, broaden
our our sort of territory sonically.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If you're stacking anything creatively and you're
just doing the same thing over again, surely it's just
going to drive you crazy. Yeah, but you guys, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Look,
it is a great pleasure to speak with you. Thank
you for giving us your time. I really hope you
can enjoy yourself while you're in New Zealand and all
the very best for touring with Prize Fighter. It's so exciting.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Thank you, Matt.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Oh so good. That's tied. Dwayne Ben love it. They
are with Mump and Sons playing tonight at Spark Arena.
There are still some tickets available from Live Nation.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
B I Willy and I Will, I will for you you.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
This Saturday morning. So good to have you with us.
Mum Puting Sons burst onto the world stage, introducing generations
of fans to a unique blend of banjo and fuse
driving folk rock, and just a year since their last record, Rushmere,
they have released their sixth studio album, It's called Prize Fighter,
(00:57):
and now they are heading off on a world tour,
playing live at Spark Arena in Auckland tonight. So Ted,
Dwayne and Ben Love from Month and Sons with us
this morning. Killed A good morning.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Guys, Thank you much, thanks for having a song.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I feel like I forgot what our names sound like
an a accent.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Can you give me your impression of what your names
sound like in a Kiwi accent.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
What I just heard was Tied and Bean.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
Always being Bin because it because we say Ben. But
when we got here the first time, everyone was calling
Ben Bin and I was delighted. I thought that was
really funny. But now I'm now I'm tidd.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I forgot how Yeah, imagine for a moment that you're
not speaking to a New Zealand audience. How do how
was our accent perceived? Do you is it? You know,
do you sort of favorably? Favorably? But do you see
us as being sophisticated? Not really a yeah, sophisticated.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
I think you have a lot going for, like the
brand of New Zealand, so the accent kind of represents
New Zealans rather than the other.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Area associations are all very positive. I think it's quite
sharp and quite relaxed.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
I think you guys might be winning the the world's
top trump cards right now. I think everything, just everything.
I think I think everyone outside of New Zealand thinks
that New Zealand is the best place in the world.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
I think you get I think I think it is.
We've been here about an hour and we're like, yeah,
this stills pretty good.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I'm pleased to hear you say that. I actually, I
think it's mainly I mean, obviously we've got some good
things going for us. I think it's mainly just that
we're a long way from everywhere else and and and
there's something attractive about being able to kind of escape
the madness of the world right now, don't you think?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah, so what you're saying is we should stop trying
to find like extra crestrial life and other planets so
that we you know, because it's right now we feel
quite far removed from any other life form. So I'm
pretty sure that's.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Exactly what he was saying.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
We are, we are.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
We're discussing expiration, right.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I always think of us as just being the last
seat on the bus, you know, so like when the
world goes over a speed bump, we get kicked in
the year slightly slightly higher than everyone else, with the
last place to arrive anywhere, necessarily, but there are actually
certain advantages that are afforded to you when you're at
the at the end of the world. But you guys
have been here.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Before, right, It's ironic that you say that because you're
actually the first to go over there in terms of time. Yes, them, Yeah, yeah,
you're way ahead of everything. I mean, I don't know
how family back home. I'm like, just so you know
tomorrow is going to happen so now, because we're yeah,
(03:46):
fastdays here, so you're worried about Saturday coming tomorrow, it's
definitely coming.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Well if you were, I mean, one for the real
train spot is I know that you guys are here
performing a big show, but you've done your fierce share
of intimate shows over the years. If you were looking
for a really intimate show, you can look it up
on a map. Afterwards, you could go to the Chatham Islands,
which is New Zealand's other time zone. It's forty five
minutes away. The time zone is a forty five minute difference,
(04:10):
and so that is the very first place to get
the sunrise every day. But I'll be honest that the
connecting options aren't great depending on your schedule.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Trip by a few days might be.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Tricky to the show, though. This is a stadium spectacular,
right and can you contrast it a little bit because
when I think a lot of Munflon Sun's fans in
New Zealand will have thought, you know, thought about the
kind of slightly introspective, relatively intimate shows you guys have
done in the past, and this is an absolute like
(04:43):
knock your socks off, blow you away kind of experience, right. Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
We are starting Prize Fighter tour, so this is the
beginning of a major about of like quite a few
months of touring for us with a whole new production,
new our and we are quite ambitious for the whole thing.
We've been ambitious for this sous six thousand, so we're
(05:12):
quite like in a spirit of let's leave it all
on the floor, let's bring all the new songs out,
let's give it a whole new visual aesthetic. It's quite
exciting really, you know, Certainly when we started out and
we were playing as intimate rooms, is about establishing who
we were as Mnflin sons then whereas now, you know,
(05:33):
with that kind of a little bit established, I think
we can now talk about the identity of the actual
albums that we're playing. And this is the Prize Fighter Tour.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
The thing about Prize Fighters, it was only like a
year or so, right since your last album. Yeah, a
year or so in quite a different so, I mean
that's you know, you guys have have managed to get
this out to the world at a pretty good clip.
So was it just a case of being on the role?
I mean you recorded in ten days, right, So was
it a case of just being on being on a role,
feeling like you were in the kind of flow state?
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Yeah, I guess so, you know, I mean it's been
a pretty wild few years and we were sort of
obviously interrupted by COVID along with everybody else, and we
were stuck at home and a bunch of songs got written,
and when we talked about getting back together, I think
our desire was to make a record that felt like
you were kind of putting the curtain back and just
hearing a band in a room together. So with Dave
(06:26):
Cobb we made Rushmir and kind of I think kind
of completed that thought. It felt like a really you know,
musical and explorative record. And then I guess with that
done and released into the world, it was like there
was a sort of it was just like the doors
(06:49):
had been opened, you know, wide creatively and felt like,
you know, any anticipation or any questions about musically where
we were at, we're kind of being answered, and our
audience was sort of on board for the ride. And
I think just internally between us, it was an incredibly
being feeling, you know, just the feeling of making Prize Fighter.
(07:10):
You know, it felt like the backlog was cleared and
we were flowing again.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's a queen slate or something, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Yeah, And so creatively it felt refreshed and energetically it
just felt you know, imbibed with this sort of optimism
and excitement about being an active band again and all
of the touring that we were going to be able
to do and all this sort of stuff. So it
wasn't sort of a grand design. It was really just
a circumstance of of you know, being creatively really yeah,
(07:41):
just sort of inspired and like you say, kind of flowing.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
You're listening to Jack Tame, I'm speaking with Ted and
Bean from Mumford and sounds a heat of this show
Tonight Prize features a whole host of different and like
quite varied artists, which is interesting in itself, Like Christableton, Josier,
Gracie Abrams is on there and I think played quite
(08:06):
a significant role. So can you talk us through that
process and why you wanted to invite other people into
the kind of creative duney.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Yeah, it's kind of a continuation of what Ted was
just talking about, which was a momentum that led us
into this collaboration with Aaron Destino, who has become quite
a big part of our creative life because he was
doing a pre production with us on our third album
back in twenty fourteen, twelve years ago now, and we
(08:37):
were in his garage. He was off the road with
the National and his band, and at that time he
had made some records, but subsequently he's done a lot
of work with various different artists, including Gracie. And when
we were mixing Rushmere, not to jump around too much,
but when we were mixing Rushmere, we were at a
(08:58):
studio called Electric Lady in New York. It's a really iconic.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Studio, Hendrix Studio, Yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
We were in the room and then we heard that
Aaron was upstairs with Gracie, so they popped down to
say Hi. That's kind of what happens in that studio
as different artists kind of drop into each other's control rooms.
How you doing, what have you got going on? So
we played some of Rushmaire. He played some bits and pieces,
including a couple of ideas that he had been sitting
(09:25):
on that he had collected over a ten year period
that he felt were kind of whenever the time came,
would make sense for us. So he played us a
couple of ideas and one of those was a song
that he had written or a kind of a musical
idea with justin Vernon bonnie Verair. Yeah, and honestly, that
(09:47):
was given that that was kind of the spark of
the beginning of the record. Collaboration really just was right
there at the DNA point of inception, and then it
just kind of felt very natural to us to include
ideas and whether it was lyrics or melody, or voices
(10:08):
or instrumentalists, you named a handful of them, but it
goes so deep, and it's very ritt for us because
as a band, we felt historically like we haven't needed
or perhaps wanted to open the doors like that. But
because we already had Rushmah in the mix, this was
like a freebie and we weren't particularly concerned about how
(10:31):
it might be perceived and whether or not it just
like it dilutes the band's message or the story or
what it. So it was just like, let's just have
some fun, and that's what ended up making probably one
of the most important records of our careers, Like because
we weren't wondering how it was going to be interpreted
or received.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
It's kind of when we just hadn't done that before
because we've like we're borne out such a collaborative world.
That's kind of how the band fallen through collaboration. So yeah,
it's kind of it's kind of a relief to actually
express that on a recording. You know, again, it feels
like an unblock, like a you know, it's a good feeling.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
You talked about, you know, being able to kind of
push aside any considerations you might give about how an
album might be received. Basically you were able to not
give a stuff about what other people think, right, And
there's kind of a there's something liberating about that. It's
kind of a freeing experience. Creatively.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
We really were not We were not supposed to be
making an album, not just so people understand how it works.
You know, you're supposed to release and then promote an album.
The last thing I was supposed to do after mixing
a record, to start making another one. Like record labels,
it's like the cardinal sin. So we had to go
and kind of explain to our partners what happened. And
(11:52):
it was born from such a passion and creativity. But
it certainly is not normal to be writing and recording
another album whilst touring Rushma, which was what happened. But
it like we had because of that so much cover
and we could we could take more risks, and I
(12:14):
think those risks have landed in a way, you know,
because we didn't need to worry about whether or not
this was the last thing we were going to do
for the next few years. It just felt like a
kind of a plus one.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah. I also just don't think they can argue with
the results, right The record company can't be too grumpy
if you and you're like here you go, and they're like, ah, okay,
we'll forgive you this time.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you guys are asked us
from time to time, but you know, I had some
bands and artists become kind of synonymous with certain sounds. Obviously,
you are credited with repopularizing the banjo and an amazing way,
I think, and kind of introducing whole generations of people
to a sound that they might not have previously considered
(12:57):
or even been exposed to. How do you guys, how
do you guys think about the role that the banjo
has played in the band succeeds.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
It's a funny thing. You know, we would never deny
it's you know, important or relevance. I suppose we certainly
don't take credit for, you know, repopularizing it was definitely
a team effort or if you have a bands around
you know who shared our sort of I guess some
stylistic influence or interest. I think for us, you know,
(13:28):
we we we as I mentioned, we were born out
of this kind of environment of collaboration and we were
in London and we were basically like session players for
a bunch of songwriters and Marcus was always our drama
And when we got fired from our mate Allen's band,
Marcus was like, well I can, I've got a few
songs I could sing. So suddenly there was no drums.
(13:49):
So it's like me on the bass vendings and clues.
Winston at the time was playing banjo, and I guess
the role that that instrument played rhythmically. You know, when
you listen to our music's kind of obvious you're in
the absence of a drummer. We got like a kick
drum going, but really a lot of a rhythmical and
sort of toppying information is coming from that that sort
of role in banjo's so certainly on those like first
(14:11):
few records. So yeah, it's it's kind of a part
of the initial I guess, like recipe that we set
out with I think there are parameters to to any recipe,
and it comes a time where you can only bake
that cake so many times. So, you know, we still
(14:31):
embrace that instrument and it features you know, we've got
a guy with us, Matt, who's probably the best banjo
player in the world. He's unbelievable, and we embrace that instrument.
But I think, you know, stylistically, we've expanded and grown
with every record, We've wanted to explore, you know, broaden
our our sort of territory sonically.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If you're stacking anything creatively and you're
just doing the same thing over again, surely it's just
going to drive you crazy. Yeah, but you guys, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Look,
it is a great pleasure to speak with you. Thank
you for giving us your time. I really hope you
can enjoy yourself while you're in New Zealand and all
the very best for touring with Prize Fighter. It's so exciting.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Thank you, Matt.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Oh so good. That's tied. Dwayne Ben love it. They
are with Mump and Sons playing tonight at Spark Arena.
There are still some tickets available from Live Nation.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Bleep! with Ana Navarro
Fear thrives in silence and confusion. Ana Navarro rejects both. Her voice is an antidote to today’s chaos. Her new podcast, Bleep! with Ana Navarro, takes on today’s most pressing issues with the voices most connected to it: decision-makers, political leaders, cultural shapers, and people on the frontlines of the story. The conversations acknowledge the emotions we all feel—despair, sadness, fear— but emerge with knowledge, perspective, and hope. The belief is simple: fearless dialogue can transform fear into courage, and courage into change. When fear dominates the headlines, this show digs deeper. Because information, debate, and conversation don’t just ease fear, they give us power to shape the future.
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.