Prizefighter, all roads lead to this.
Welcome, boys.
Thank you.
It's nice to see you.
How are you?
Nice to see you, mate.
Great, man.
Yeah, you should be.
You should feel good.
You should feel great.
I mean, you know, if the music reflects the humans, you're in tune.
You're in tune to each other and to yourselves.
And it hasn't always been that way for humans, for all of us as people.
There's push and pull.
There's tides you've got to deal with.
But it's all flowing the right way.
Congrats.
I love this fucking record.
I'm very excited about it, thank you.
It's my favorite thing we've ever done.
Yeah, and you want to.
You want to say that every time.
But you know, let's be honest, sometimes you're lying to yourself, even if you don't know it at the time, because every album reflects a different point in your life, and sometimes it is the pull it's, it's a push or it's a different little bit of friction.
What got you to this place, where it's seamless it's it's, it's flow state?
I think time is our friend.
It's interesting hearing what you're saying there about the push and pull, because we, I think, have to trust that the longer that we do this, the more opportunity there'll be that we hit that moment together.
And this was just one of those moments when it all just aligned.
You know, we'd finished Rushmere and we were feeling creative.
We felt good.
We felt reconnected and galvanized and energized creatively.
And then Aaron walks into the studio.
And he has this, like, special energy to him.
He's a very unique human being.
Can you describe that a little bit, if you can, in words, from your perspective, what that energy entails?
He's like the coolest indie kid in the world.
Who has the best pop sensibilities of any indie kid I've ever met.
And it's all hair and baseball caps and like baggy clothes.
And then he's like a creative genius, I think.
And we, you know, have had a long relationship with him.
I mean, The National make it onto my desert island easily.
And then we did all the demos for our third record in 2015 in his garage in Ditmuss Park in Brooklyn.
See pre-Taylor, it was garage money.
Hello long pond.
Yeah yeah, he's just.
He hasn't changed at all.
He's exactly the same creative and human being that he always has been, which is why people gravitate towards him, i think, and he has this imagination creatively, that feels endless.
He's most like pharrell actually, who we'd also just been with and seen.
So the stars aligned, you know, we had the process with dave cobb for rashmir, we had pharrell, And then we came to air and I think like a bit like shed of some of our insecurities, like in better shape than we've been for a while, maybe since the beginning.
And Pharrell had said this thing to me in Paris.
He like gave me a really heavy pep talk at one point where he was like you don't have to impress anyone.
You don't have to, like you already impressed them.
You just get to go and be yourself now and make what you want to make.
That leading us into bumping into Aaron was so perfect, because then when we saw Aaron, we were like in a good place.
And then it came out so fast.
Isn't it funny how you know people talk about angels coming into your life, coming and going, moments like that.
Sometimes it's just a conversation that you need to hear one person.
Yeah, it's Pharrell, of course, but it's like...
Pharrell wasn't doing that because he was Pharrell.
He was doing that because he knows what it is to be pushed and pulled.
And how you just don't do your best work unless you're comfortable with who you truly are, right?
I think it's a big part of a producer is to play the kind of psychologist, you know.
And Pharrell does it very naturally.
I think Aaron, in the band dynamic of The National, was doing it his whole career.
And as a producer, he does it as an extension of who he is.
You watch him as a dad, you watch him as a...
He's really good at, like, unlocking things in people.
And it doesn't always turn out to be a song.
It can just be a blockage.
Marcus Strabs another great example of someone who knows how to speak truth when you need to hear it.
And you know that's People think of producers, I think, as kind of these technical wizards, and a lot of the time, you know, they don't know.
They have a great engineer.
Yeah, they have a great engineer, which Aaron does yeah, definitely.
It's interesting though, you talk about that safe space safe space that people can create for you in order to feel comfortable, to go deep, but then also they've got to find a place where it's a bit dangerous right yeah, and like Bowie talks about being slightly out of your depth and like, certainly like a lot of these songs you know, i speak the lyrics for a sec like they were first thought best, thought they were like, and these lads and aaron together were like, don't overthink it.
Um, so i go all over the place on this one in a way that feels really playful and fun and at times, a bit vulnerable and scary, but like, mostly Just in a way that felt.
That's why I feel most connected to these songs.
Any songs I think I've ever written, I feel like deeply deeply, like they're saying exactly what I want to say.
Well, I hope so.
Because if I was to read between the lines and by that I mean the first line on the album and the last line on the album I would suggest it's your final album.
What's the last line on the album?
Well, the first line, as you know, is, well, here's my final serenade.
And the last line on the album is, the chase is over, my love.
Ah, really nice.
Yes.
Is that just dawned on you?
Yeah, you're the first one to reveal that to me.
It's great.
There you go.
Beautiful.
It's an ending.
It's definitely an ending.
It's a fucking beginning of the end and then the end of the end.
Now, obviously, I'm being slightly facetious.
I'm not suggesting that seven minutes into this interview we're breaking news.
But we should have in 2020.
We should have split up in order to do the reunion thing.
So maybe we just do it now instead.
It wouldn't have mattered because we all split up.
Sure.
I mean, can you imagine if you'd broken up in 2020 and then we went into quarantine?
It would have been like, well, that was a fucking fizz, wasn't it?
Everybody's broken up.
No one gives a shit.
It's like we're going to come back in three years and everyone's coming back at the same time.
Okay.
Actually, the fact that that kind of dawned on you with that little observation suggests that it just qualifies what you're saying.
To some degree, you're still in your subconscious on this record.
It hasn't dawned on you yet what you've written.
Oh, no, I mean, I know what I wrote, but I just forgot the exact last line.
I know that we decided for that song to be the last song with real intentionality.
I mean, it's the most instinctive, but also the most intentional record we've made, I think.
So yeah, I mean a lot of the songs were written.
You know on the sofa with the microphone, live and like write a lyric, bang it down.
Write another one.
And then move on to a different song.
You know, it was really fast.
I mean, what did we do?
10 days at Long Pond eventually together.
It was really fast.
Sounds like the most fun ever.
It sounds like literally you can't wait to wake up and you don't want to go to sleep.
And I didn't want to stop as well.
And I still don't want to stop.
Like that itch remains unscratched to me.
Like I want to do more.
It's the most.
As I said before, it's the most in tune.
I've heard the band since the beginning, when no one was re-tuning you.
Including audiences actually.
All of us.
All of us, we're all the retuners, because we fall in love with a part of you and then like oh, but I want to be that, but also maybe I don't want to be that because that's just expected and I want to break free of that, and blah blah blah, blah.
Grammy album of the year, retune.
It's hard not for it to just alter your perception of who you are as a band, and this doesn't feel like any of that's playing into that this time.
But there's been a journey to get back here.
So how much context do you give yourselves in this journey to talk about this record, about the, the losing of friends, the albums that may mean something to you but don't mean something to someone else, the life well lived, of all the ups and the downs and the challenges.
Do you hear it all in this?
Does it feel like you're coming back to... Yeah.
I mean, Marcus was just talking about the first thought, best thought sort of process.
And I think...
We've been sort of striving for that feeling and that's the self-assuredness and that purity of instinct I think on all of our records.
And I think sometimes, you know, what you're talking about, being externally tuned or...
Having an outside perception of who we are as a band is very counterproductive to that effort.
And Aaron was the guy.
It was that kind of safe pair of hands.
Like Marky said, the timing was amazing, having just been with Dave Cobb and having had Pharrell inject this kind of almost like reassemble our naivety, our naive joy of music making.
You know.
He kind of pulled it all back together for us.
And Rashmir was an amazing kind of exercise of writing and playing together.
And then Aaron was there to basically just allow us to reenter that real free safe, creative place, which you know is the only environment you can really make your most personal and truthful sonic effort, I think.
That's beautiful.
But when you're striving for change, when you're in the middle of breaking free of something you don't want to be just known for, that
You want to go over here and try this and do that.
You want to turn up and rock out and do all these things.
And then someone comes to you and says, hey, you know, there's an essence of Mumford & Sons here that you haven't really explored for a while.
And it's a friend that's known you for that whole time.
Yeah.
Is there a part of you that still wants to kick against that even for a second?
Just be like, hang on a minute, man.
Like, you know, you're missing the point.
The point isn't to be Mumford & Sons.
The point is to be who we are today, moving forward, whatever.
It's a hard conversation for someone to have.
I think sometimes when you say to somebody you might be missing who you truly are a little bit here.
That's what I think Aaron did so well.
I think this album to us feels so future-facing.
Like it feels to us.
You know, explorative in every way in your writing, Marcus.
You know, in everything we've done on this record.
It feels so fresh and new to us.
It's just the essence that's been, you know, rediscovered somehow, I think, you know.
And that's like, it's not even a cerebral act.
It's like a soul act.
It's sort of, you know, very cool.
Yeah, we'd like renewed our vows.
We'd, you know, gone and done our exercises, we got the muscles working again.
On on Rushman with Pharrell, we'd found our confidence.
We kind of like fallen in love with the band again.
And then we were like now let's go and really write the best songs we've ever written, you know, and it was like and that's why we call the prizefighter, let's get back to the ambition and the hard work, unapologetic nature of the band that we started with.
I love the fact that you brought hard work into it because you are a hardworking band.
You always have been.
Yeah.
This shit doesn't come very easily.
You've got to work for it.
And a lot of that has been on the road for us saying yes to every show at the beginning and just being Yeah, just saying I don't think anyone gives you this stuff.
We're certainly not a pop band that can be kind of manipulated and maneuvered.
How does success feel when you've got it?
Two, three albums in, you're headlining every festival you want.
You're pyramid staging it.
Grammy album of the year.
All these things come to those.
I remember coming off the pyramid stage when we headlined Glastonbury and being like I just want to make more records.
We need more songs.
Because we only did it on two records.
Which is long enough for headlining every song from each record.
It's just long enough.
Yeah.
And so I remember we talked about some of the artists we most admire in recorded music.
Know, having to really like leave songs out that people absolutely love, like audience members going away each night being like they didn't play that yeah, that's a good problem to have, that's the problem you want to have.
That's what success looks like to me, and music like having a career long enough where you can have to leave songs out.
So we're starting, we're starting to get there.
I think we've still got work to do but um, we're starting to get there.
I feel like you always will.
Isn't that part of it, isn't that part of the actual dna of this band?
Absolutely.
And I think we just want to keep making shit.
But that's why I asked what success felt like, because the work ethic is not in question.
But you are okay.
I've known you all a long time, right?
You go to fun, fancy shit.
That's cool.
Who wouldn't do that?
You know, you have a chance to live a great life.
You have means.
You have all these things.
When you put that next to the work ethic of the band before you came back to this record, were there ever moments where you were like fuck.
I don't know how this feels.
Like, I don't know if... How does fame feel?
How does success feel?
All those things.
It's not where you came from.
You came from an attic in someone's house, writing songs into a garage, into this, into, you know...
An unlikely success story is what I'm saying.
I think the processor chip in our 20s wasn't really scrubbing very deep.
You know, we were kind of...
We were saying things to each other, we were marking the occasions as they were happening, but I'm not sure we were really feeling it and certainly weren't reflecting on what was going on.
And I think some of the time that has transpired since 2018, since Delta, that then led to a bunch of things happening in our band, gave us a real opportunity to actually start to feel the answers to the questions.
So life became priority at that point.
Life.
But then also I don't think I would have ever really known what success was until maybe a year or two ago.
I'm sure it looked like we were being successful.
I'm not sure we were in it.
And there's an element of confidence that we're coming at this from now, because it feels like we really are a band that has something to say.
And we do stand on those stages now in a different way.
I feel like we own that stage.
Whereas there was an apology to it 10 years ago.
It didn't look like we were apologizing.
It looked like we were a bunch of drunk kids running around like idiots.
It speaks to what Marcus was saying.
They're coming off the back of the biggest headline slot you can do and the first thing you're thinking of is man, I don't know.
I didn't feel like we were great yet.
No, we weren't qualified.
I felt like we're just maybe going to be qualified soon.
We're nearly like getting to the point where we've done enough, we're experienced enough, we've written enough songs that we're actually starting to figure out what we're doing.
It's got to be a hit fuck when we qualify you and you're not quite sure why you got qualified.
Yeah.
Because we're all saying, you're totally qualified.
And that's why probably music shouldn't be made into a competitive sport.
But I mean, it's just a journey that we're on.
And this particular point of this particular journey, we're the closest we've ever been.
We're enjoying it the most we ever have.
And I think at times when you're striving, when you're a baby band And you're just thinking about the next thing.
And what Ben, I think, is also saying is we're not really present to the thing that's happening.
For whatever reason, right now we're more present to the thing that's happening and we fucking love it.
You see, I took a quote out of something that you said.
We're putting everything we have into this now.
And I zeroed in on the word now.
Because I've always felt that from a Mumford & Sons point of view.
I've never felt like you've showed up unready and without having put your heart and soul into it.
But something about that use of the word now there just felt pointed to me.
Like it just felt different.
Yeah, it does feel different.
And it feels like it's coming from a place of true, unanimous confidence in the music.
Love it.
I think this music can take us places for a long time.
I really really do and um and just yeah and, but actually like finding real joy in it and real fulfillment in it, and of course it's tiring.
We played 100 shows in 25.
We'll do a lot in 26, probably some in 27.
This just we're like this is what we do now yeah, and i think there was always sort of a semi-doubt about whether this was really what we were doing in the baby years.
For sure, yeah and um, it just feels great and so the shows have been so much fun and i think having some space you know obviously from releasing music and from touring probably a really good thing, because we come back to it with a new appreciation, certainly for our audience.
I can't believe these people giving up their time, energy and money, like the golden triangle of human effort, to be here.
We just got a new realization for it.
Yeah now yeah um, in a way, that's really really fun, Fun.
It's fun.
It's fun.
And it should be fun.
This should be fun.
That's the line on the record.
It really should.
So, looking back on this time in Long Pond and these 10 days of writing and getting these songs out, I'd love to know a couple of moments of just pure fun or pure clarity.
Because often we get caught up in this like talk about the album in its completed form and be a bit more macro with the recording.
But no, man, in 2026, I'm like, this is all about memories.
What are some of your fondest memories of that 10 days, from the stupidest to the funnest to the hardest?
I've got one.
I'm sure we've all got different ones.
But there was this guitar riff that Marcus had been messing around with, which is the song Begin Again.
And the first time I remember hearing it was in Paris, actually.
We were recording in an amazing studio there.
And this was way before we brought it into the studio with Aaron.
And then started playing.
One day it was like, well, what else you guys got?
You know, it was like a kind of a everyday.
It was like, let's kick the can.
It's voice notes.
What ideas?
What's going on?
You know, there wasn't much prep before the 10 days.
And I remember when that kicked in seeing I still am so excited about that song and for people to hear it.
And seeing Aaron's reaction to it and getting it and then building the sonic landscape of that song with someone who really inspired, like the national.
How they take the epic and the dark places is something that we've always kind of wanted to fuck around with as a band.
Yeah, there's a romance to the misery that they something the chemistry in their band also.
Matt, the way he sings is The wigs do it.
Afghan wigs do it.
They fucking dually will take you to the depths of drug addiction.
And you're like, I kind of want to go for a day.
Yeah.
See what it's like.
But at the same time with like soaring electric guitars in the background, like you know, and it like does this and the kind of closeness of a vocal like you're talking about with this like big sound.
I remember when we kicked into that song, it was like day five or six or whatever, and i was like this is gonna be fun epic epic, epic.
Do you remember that moment?
Yeah yeah, and i was gonna say my one.
Well, i had, i mean, i had a few.
Honestly, it's my favorite recording experience we've ever had.
I would, in the mornings, i'd drive into hudson Aaron, would be like everyone go exercise in the mornings, because then we come into the studio like a bit.
You know, like we've figured some stuff out.
And then I'd drive into Hudson and go and get coffee and sit in the corner of a coffee shop and write poetry.
And this is where I get to jump in.
Like a real twat.
No idea.
And I love that because I read that and I thought, you know what?
You know, this is what's happening to everyone else in that town.
They're walking in and they're like, fucking hell, man.
It looks like Marcus Mumford.
And then someone's whispering like, leave him alone.
It's a banger.
I've been writing poetry.
And then we did Conversation With My Son, Gangsters and Angels, which is probably my favorite song I've ever written.
And I was on the sofa with the SM7 microphone.
Ben had come up with this chord idea.
He was like, let's write like an Irish hymn.
And we'd then taken it in and started working on some stuff.
And I just like... showed them some of the ideas from the morning.
I'd been reading a lot of W.H.
Auden and Paul Kingsnorth and was like, I think I want to write this about this.
And like would write a line look up to my right and my left, and Ben and Ted would then be like yep.
And then another line.
And then you know it wasn't writing by panel, but it was like the friendship and the trust and the confidence that i needed to be able to write some of those lines.
And then the other one for me was like just quickly hold that thought, was it the first time that had happened, that you felt like that involved in the writing process, from a sort of left and right point of view, like where it's like line by line, like guys, are we doing this?
No, there's always been that.
I mean, there's always been that, but i think it was.
Um, there was a different light in the room on this.
On this record for sure, i digress, though you're gonna give another one.
And the other one for me was Alley Cat.
Because I wrote it in prison, actually.
I go and do some poetry workshops in jail with the lads.
And came out one day with that poem.
And felt slightly guilty about about that process and had this poem up and thought it was very random and you know had written it in a five minute kind of exercise, you know, with the lads, and then took it in and we built this track for it and it's It's my favorite song on the record.
I love it so much as a song.
So knowing the process of how it was written, it was serious and playful at the same time.
It said exactly what I wanted to say.
But Aaron and these guys, the alchemy of being in a band with a great producer at the right place at the right time means that you can do.
You can do anything and that's the Pharrell spirit, you know.
Have you played?
Have you gone?
Can you play?
Can you play music when you're in there doing the workshop, doing the poetry workshops in prison?
No.
Yeah.
You can't take your phone in.
Yeah, yeah, so yeah.
Have you told them though that it's something?
Yeah, I did, yeah.
That's awesome.
It's funny.
That's awesome.
Can I just stay there for a second because it's you know it's.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows you well that you would do something like that.
But for people who don't know this kind of stuff, it's a fascinating conversation topic.
I don't talk to many people who go into prison and do poetry workshops with inmates and figure out what's going on internally there.
So can you give us a basic idea of what that experience is like and what you've sort of learned and experienced from a human point of view, being in an environment that is, by its very nature, in an imprisoned environment restricted, and you're searching for internal openness?
Yeah, and intimacy and human connection and creativity as well.
And some of the poetry that comes out of those rooms is totally inspiring and beautiful and really fun.
Actually yeah it's it's, it's cool.
I mean it's, you know, i don't know, i don't know how to describe it.
It's been rewarding and it is rewarding.
Yeah, very rewarding.
Yeah yeah amazing yeah, absolutely legend, very funny people.
I met some really funny people, beautiful people yeah, hilarious people, broken people yeah fragile, vulnerable and um, and yeah yeah, i mean you can't underestimate the importance of like, human connection in those places.
I think what these lads were describing was something kind of similar, in that it's like a very quick recognition of what's happening.
So when Marcus was talking about conversation with my son, Gangsters and Angels.
I insist that everyone always uses the full title.
Thank you.
It's hard on a set list.
It does get shortened on a set list sometimes and I get annoyed.
You should really say brackets, but okay.
Brackets, cases, and angels.
I got fired because I abbreviated the fucking song.
No, no, no, mate.
He's a fucking lovely dude.
Very particular about that shit.
It's our favorite song, so say the full title.
And similarly, we begin again.
You know, like when these ideas emerge, there's an immediacy to them and almost directly they're so recognizable in their identity that everybody sort of knew what to do.
Which may, and that's come from all the things we've talked about.
You know, in pharrell moment, all of the training with uh making the rush me a record and being in that sort of shape um, there there was a lot of alignment.
You would be kind of shuffled into uh, into order, but it's just such a joyful thing when you're in that shape as a band because it means the creative process is just so quick.
Everyone's nurturing.
You're all just worshiping at the.
It's like that's what I hear when I hear this.
This No one is overextending themselves because they feel some kind of way about their life.
Ego is kicking in or something's happening you don't even know about.
But I just really want to get this idea across, because my whole fucking identity is wrapped up in it.
Can I not just do it?
Everybody is just serving.
It's so much more fluid than that.
Everyone's serving the song.
Serving the song.
Whole way through the record.
And I think Aaron is very good at handling egos.
And so everyone felt, I think, you know, included and supported.
And that meant that none of us felt like we had to vie for opposition.
And so like the song was just being served the whole time.
When you say he's really good at sort of like managing egos and whatever, which is a totally fair thing to say, because we all got one.
Yeah.
Everyone's got one.
Have you sort of taken a step back and seen how he does it?
How does he approach the room when something is playing a role that probably doesn't need to be there?
He sidebars quite a lot.
I remember thinking that he puts a pin.
In a moment he'll recognize an ego flare-up and then there'll be an opportunity for a chat.
It's not normally a group conversation, it's a one-on-one.
I think ego is an important part of the creative process though.
You have to bring it into the studio.
It's not a great thing to have there, but it needs to be there.
It just comes from a place of like, I just know it's going to be better if you just trust me.
It almost comes from a place of trust.
And it's really hard because in exercising that ego to the fullest extent, you're really breaking potentially breaking trust.
Well, I think, to be a songwriter, in the first place you have to be a narcissist, because you have to believe enough in your story to tell people about it.
Is it narcissism though?
Yeah, I think so.
You have to be the center of your universe to be able to like, express something that you feel deeply and then want to share it with people and want other people to hear it.
That's fucking deep, isn't it?
Because I'm thinking about that and you're right.
Technically, you're absolutely right.
I'm not going to question it, but.
I have something I need to say.
So I'm self-absorbed enough to recognize that.
But also I've got to get it out of my system because I don't think I really want to keep it anymore.
Whereas I think narcissists want to keep it and hold it.
So you're technically right.
Do you know what I mean?
There's something in there that isn't, it's not as cut and dry as that.
Like it's a desire.
You got to get rid of this shit.
Like I need to get it out.
There's a catharsis to it as well.
There's a catharsis, the catharsis.
I remember Brandy Carlob saying to me, like, are you going to write a book?
And I responded just.
I was like i'm just not an effective enough narcissist.
I can't write a book.
I can't, i don't think, i mean i can't do it.
I'm definitely a narcissist, but i'm not just.
I'm just not good enough at it yet to write a book.
It's a great response to someone who wrote a best-selling book.
Yeah yeah, I'm sure that wasn't lost on her for a second.
Yeah, no, it's funny.
It'd be a good book, though.
But I mean, I don't know.
When you're a musician, I think that it's all in the music.
And the book is really there to serve a deeper purpose to give people an insight into Oh, I love different expressions.
I mean we're enjoying, like some of the opportunities for expression not just in music but in artwork and other storytelling and photographs.
Yeah, it's good.
You know, it's just fun.
I mean, and probably books are just another form of artistic expression, which is dope.
Like ours, chosen one as a band right now is music and probably will remain that way.
But I love the idea of having lots of other ways to get, you know.
Did you know?
Did you know straight away when you saw that?
Pretty much, yeah.
I mean, it's a great merch, but I don't think you can sell it at festivals, right?
You have a fucking Woodstock 99 bike.
Yeah, you can't put that shit in your hand luggage.
No, you definitely can't.
It's a nightmare.
No, I know because Eddie Vedder, you know, he gives them out, right?
If he likes it, he hands you one.
Part of the idea behind this was trophies, and Eddie gave me one and I got him to scratch in the back of it with like a school compass.
You know, EVMM.
Oh, you got yours personalized?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I said that we were on a cool artwork call and I went and grabbed it.
I was like, I always know where this is at all times.
There you go.
Beautiful thing.
A little synergy right there.
He gave you one as well, did he?
Yeah, he did.
Oh, fuck.
No.
Don't be fucking mad.
He's my mate as well.
I thought it was just me.
Well, just you, because you're smart enough to get him to fucking scratch his initials in the back of it, right?
It's one of one.
You've got some great people showing up on this record.
We've spoken about a few of them. already, but it's Collab Corner.
Welcome to the Collab Corner.
You wanted to work with him, so we get to talk about him.
I love the fact that you've got Chris Stapleton on this record.
That's a real one right there.
That is an artist there who speaks the same language.
You guys speak the same language.
It is a desire for depth above all else, a desire to reach somewhere real.
And if you get it, cool.
If not, I'm going to say it anyway.
I mean, that song, Either Way, might be the most heartbreaking breakup song I've ever heard.
It's generational talent.
Yeah, or you can stay, but I'm not going to love you either way.
I mean, fucking hell.
I mean, give it to me straight, Chris.
So let's talk about your relationship with Chris Stapleton, shall we, and why he's ended up on Prizefighter.
Who wants to take it?
All eyes on Ted.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Wow.
I mean, obviously, he's fans of his.
I think there was just a general atmosphere around this record where, with Aaron's help, once again we were reminded of how collaborative we are as a band.
And for some reason, we've never sort of expressed that in the studio.
We've always expressed it on the stage and, you know, in our lives.
And we've always been so collaborative in so many ways, but we've never actually sort of done it on record.
And it was just instantly baked into the whole plan for Prizefighter that we were gonna sort of have an open door policy and really embrace some of the people who we love musically, who we shared the road with and people who just inspired us.
Chris was one of a lot.
You know, he wasn't someone we had necessarily done a whole lot of live stuff with at this point, but he was someone who we were just like kind of obsessed with.
The voice was just insane and the song kind of just like called for him.
And so we called him with the song and he said yeah um, because you do get.
I'm sure even you still get in your head like, oh fuck, if he says no, even if he's like i'm just busy, i'm just i'm not gonna shake that for two days.
Yeah, I think with male vocalists I can say this
Part of the reason I was looking at Ted is because Marcus definitely can't say this, but bringing other male vocalists into the orbit is tricky, because I think we're blessed to have one of the best singers in the world.
Compliments make you cry?
You're a fucking weirdo, dude.
I mean, it's just like if you want to open the door and you want to bring people in.
You know we'll talk about some of the incredible women who contributed on this album.
But when it comes to male vocalists Chris and Hosia you know it's like there's not many people that can stand up with the emotional punch and deliver the lyrics, I guess, in a way that feels authentic.
I think we were doing Rushmere outstores in the UK and we got the first Is that where we heard the first bounce of uh, of chris's vocal?
It was just like it just felt like two men uh, so naturally, like weaving in in each other's like sonic, like vocal sonic worlds.
It was really exciting to like have that play out, because i think in our heads chris is that and as fans of his he is that, and i think when we first were messing around with the song it had something that felt like it had some of his dna in it.
He's also the first and only person we called hmm, And then for Rubber Band, Man Jose was the first and only person we called
And then Gigi for Icarus was the same.
Love that you worked with Gigi.
First and only person we called.
Incredible.
And then Gracie has been like the fairy godmother for this record.
Because she heard what John Bellion who we haven't talked about, who is one of my writing heroes had written with Aaron, as a sort of first idea for what became the banjo song.
She heard that before we had heard it.
And she texted me and was like, have you heard it yet?
I can't wait to see what you could do with it.
And was Balian writing it with you in mind or was it just a session with Desna?
No, I think it was a session with Desna.
They were just, they're just creative pals.
Like, like Aaron's always writing shit with Justin Vernon or A.S.
Mitchell and they're always, you know, or Matt from National.
He's just constantly like evolving, like incubating creative ideas and just for fun really.
Showed us this one.
Gracie texted me, and then I texted her back a bunch of lyrics that I had, you know, been thinking about.
And from that, that was while we were mixing Rushmere, Electric Lady.
And Aaron came in and played us that and Price Fighter, the song that, you know, became Price Fighter.
And Ben and I cried.
And then since that moment, Gracie has been like the cheerleader for this record.
That's been just so helpful.
And she's been in the background floating around like the fairy godmother she is, and just like touching her magic wand in moments.
And then, of course, when you know, we sent her Badlands and I was not expecting what she delivered, which I think is just totally magic.
It's magic.
It's hard to talk about Gracie at this point in her life, given how sort of um so much life she has yet to live and so much music she has yet to make, without sounding sort of like um, patronizing.
But I'm just gonna be straight up.
Like the growth, the speed at which she is found, her voice and the depth that she's able to go now as a writer and as a writer, let alone as a performer.
She's always gonna perform at a high level.
Killer writer.
Killer writer.
You know, is so amazing.
I really love the state of young music right now.
Like I look at artists in this sort of 20 to sort of 30 range that are just making fucking great forward thinking, ambitious and interesting pop records and records.
Like Sabrina Carpenter is off the hook.
Olivia Rodrigo is off the hook.
Like Olivia as a writer, fuck right off, man.
Proper artists, man.
Proper.
Proper artists.
Gigi's another one of those where she feels wiser beyond her years.
You know, feel like she's already... What a life lived already.
Right.
And so when she finds a way to articulate what she is doing through her music, it's such a gift to the world.
And it's so fun for us to be able to collaborate with these people because I guess we've been, we've gone around the sun a few more times.
So we've like um, we've seen some as well and then you feel like you're kind of cross-pollinating these different lives lived and then it's coming through in the sound and the textures of the music and um, we were just with gigi actually in in mexico last week and she feels like such a kindred spirit.
Yeah, she's amazing.
So you do you feel okay, this is a good one.
This came to mind when you were talking about going around the sun a few more times.
You know, if you stick around long enough and do great work and artists come up behind you and start to want to connect with you and you create this beautiful like, like generational sinew, you know, then it's just an undeniable goat status that ultimately comes along and people start to look at you differently.
It doesn't mean you're any less contemporary or ambitious or modern, but it's just people see you different.
Then you're not competing in the same room.
They want to be in your rooms, they want to work with you, to get in your room.
That's how i've seen it happen over and over again.
Do you feel like you're there?
Is that part of the comfort zone now of realizing that you know what?
We're okay being who we are, we're great.
I think i'm i'm personally starting to accept that for the first time beautiful And it's really fun.
Like, we were just at Noah Khan's festival in Mexico.
And, you know, normally we're putting on those things.
And he came and played our thing in Burlington, which we did on this train tour.
And as a quid pro gig, we went and did his thing in Mexico.
A quid pro show, I think, is the term you're looking for.
How did I miss that one?
Well, that's why I'm here.
How did I miss that one?
That's why I'm here, mate.
We're friends.
And...
And it was so much fun.
Normally we're the ones organizing.
You know, it's normally our wedding that we're organizing and someone else's wedding.
I was on vacation.
I was, I was doing side quests left, right and center.
I got to go be Sally for role model.
It was.
It was so much fun, but it was all these artists.
You know, it was like Noah Gigi Tucker, role model um camp RC drive, who I'm obsessed with.
Um, And they, all of them, I don't think they were just being polite.
They all had really nice things to say about our work and our career and what it's meant to them.
Noah particularly liked it at the time on stage to say some really nice shit.
And I think before I probably would have been like dismissive of it or like think that it might lead someone to think that I feel like I should have some ownership over what someone else is doing, which is totally not the case.
We never saw that with Arcade Fire or with Fleet Foxes or with Old Crow Medicine Show when we were coming up, who we felt like we owed such a debt to.
Wouldn't be a band without those bands.
But that's just the beauty of music.
It does, like you can pass DNA through without feeling any, you know.
Loss.
Loss.
It's amazing.
And so to be part of their stories, it's really beautiful to me and I'm really grateful for it.
Well, you remember when I said it was an unlikely success story?
You know, when you were coming through, it really wasn't expected, you know, that you would write these songs, these up-tempo, really uplifting moments that really were just a kick drum.
It's a four on the floor, man, and a lot of fucking energy and motivation, and let's fucking do it.
And of course, looking back on it now, it's going to connect with the human spirit.
It was built by that, driven by that.
The beauty about an unlikely success story is it's a story nonetheless.
And guess who gets to read it?
Noah Kahan gets to read it.
And Gigi Perez gets to read it.
So, yeah, you should take that as a fan of your music and friends of you guys, I can say that.
You know, yeah, you paved a way.
It's a beautiful thing.
We're part of it.
We paved a way of many ways.
Sure.
I think the part of where we're at right now is it feels like...
It's tool sharpening.
Some of the stuff that you're talking about.
When we collaborate with these artists, whether it's live or on record, I feel like they are reminding us of some of this, which is a nice moment to appreciate.
But it's not like... This isn't a victory lap.
This isn't kind of our swan song, despite what you said on the lyrics.
I didn't say it.
There's fucking lyrics.
It's almost more of a kind of a reset and let's go again and let's do a lot that we haven't had the opportunity to do so far.
I don't think we've seen it all by any stretch.
And I think getting to kind of work with some of these artists who are A bit younger or doing something slightly different is just sharpening of our creative tools.
And I hope we continue to welcome that into the studio.
I actually met Gigi in a collaborative environment doing some sessions upstate.
And then another artist who was there was this guy called Joe P.
I don't know if you're familiar with him.
Super amazing, talented artist.
And he had this.
I don't know why, I just thought of this, but he had this instrument called the French connection.
Super cool thing that I'd never seen before.
And it was like a kind of somewhere between a theremin and a synth, but it had a keyboard and a string.
And I fell in love with that at this kind of creative retreat.
And I bought one.
And I took it into Long Pond.
And I was like, guys, check out this thing.
And there was like this giddiness of checking out a literal tool.
And then started to drop it onto the track.
So, like in the background of the song Prizefighter, you'll hear this little sweeping sound that's a bit like a kind of pedal steel, but it's a synth.
And discovering that was through being a music fan and engaging and not being cynical and not resting on your laurels.
Because the mistake, I think, in what you're talking about would be to say, yeah, we're Mumford & Sons.
We got this figured out.
We know what we do.
We're closing the doors and well done us.
But it's not that.
It's more like yeah, we're month and sons, let's open up the doors, open up the blinds, that light come in yeah, and let's have some fun yeah, and that means that we actually can continue to learn and listen, and that, to me i, i think that's what this record is more like um so yeah, french connection anyone who wants to geek out on some synths, check out that thing.
I'm kidding, i'm straight on that.
After this um, speak the truth, gentlemen.
Uh, both on record and on the record it's, it's lovely.
You know, we've known each other a long, long time and i think you know, with the benefit of some hindsight now it's safe space to be able to say there's been times when we've spoken and i can tell that there's other stuff going on just in life, just is, you know um, this feels really free.
We were with one of our buddies last night.
He said to us uh, you know he was, he came to one of the shows and said that it felt the best it's ever felt and he was like it just feels free and freedom is no fear.
I feel like we're at that place.
Yeah yeah um, and it's really fun.
