1 day Ago By Ariane Sohrabi-Shiraz
Mumford & Sons - there's nothing strange about that name, right? It's quite straight-forward and has a ring to it. But many people don't actually realise the members of the band aren't actually related to each other. The English folk rock band , who formed in London in 2007, consists of Marcus Mumford on lead vocals, guitar and drums, Ben Lovett on vocals, keyboard and piano and Ted Dwane on vocals and bass.
Banjo player Winston Marshall left the band in 2021. But Mumford & Sons, known for big hits like Little Lion Man, I Will Wait, and The Cave, aren't actually a traditional family band - they aren't blood related. Instead, the name was chosen because it reflected their belief of working like a 'family business'.
The band recently opened up about it on the Zach Sang Show podcast. A clip of the group talking about how they came up with the band name was recently shared to TikTok . Zach's co-host Dan Zolot asked how they came up with the name, to which the band members started laughing.
Thinking back, Ben explained: "I just remember the pub we were sitting in when we were actually deciding it. It was Putney Bridge, the north side." The 38-year-old went on to explain that they had already used the name for a few shows "in the early days", when Marcus had a collection of songs he was wanting to try out.
Ben continued: "We had played a few shows as Mumford & Sons, and then we were like 'should we go for a drink and talk about this for a minute'. I think we talked through about 15 or 20 even worse band names. [And then we thought] 'maybe we should just stick with it'.
And part of what made us feel comfortable was, at that point we could see about two weeks into our future. And no one thought we were going to be in Los Angeles, having this conversation." He went on to explain that they talked about several different names, including The Merry Men - and Marcus' personal favourite - The Sun Never Sets on the Cool Kids.
Ted, 40, added: "A moment in the chat was like, 'it would only be a problem if we went international or played shows to more than 100 people, so it's probably not really going to be a thing,' so we just thought 'yeah let's go with it'." Marcus, 38, went on to say: "It was a time where there were lots of bands with like..
. 'Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit', all these bands that had a person's name and the band name. Or it was like, The Cooks.
The Zootons. The Strokes. There were lots of 'The'.
"So we were like 'what feels a bit more us and a bit more British than that?'. Calling it something with a family name. Like a family business.
It felt representative about how we were thinking about doing our business at the time. And no one else had the name." And it turns out not everyone knew Mumford & Sons weren't actually a family.
"I've always assumed they were a family", said one person. Another added: "I honestly thought the band was made up of a guy and his sons!".
