Mumford & Sons is known for generally serious musical content. However, for the group’s new single, Mumford & Sons wanted to go a little more comedic, and so they enlisted Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman, Will Forte, and Ed Helms to come to the set of the “Hopeless Wanderer” shoot and pretend to be the band for a day. The guys recently spoke with Rolling Stone to talk about a few of the best moments from the video, and why the band enlisted celebrities in the first place.
It’s amazing how our minds can trick us. At the start of the video, we hear Marcus Mumford sing as the band gears up. It’s early daytime, and between the sunspots it’s very easy to just assume we are seeing the band. Eventually, director Sam Jones lets us in on the joke, which was apparently conceived thanks to the guys in the band not really enjoying appearing in music videos.
“We've never ever liked any of our music videos. We can't stand having our photo taken or doing a video because that's not why we're musicians. So it made a lot more sense to put other people on the screen who are very watchable and much more qualified than us. And it showed why they're so good at their jobs. They're very entertaining.”
The music video features a boat scene, and silly instrument chases, as well as an epic makeout moment, topped off with a ridiculous banjo dance at the end. It’s all very un-Mumford & Sons-ey, but somehow it works. The band says they just wanted people to know that while music comes from a serious place, the guys have fun with it, too.
“Well, we do that shit all the time though. Anyone who has spent some time with us knows that we really don't take ourselves that seriously. We do our music that we care about and it is from an earnest place but you know we don't just sort of sit around in basements with the curtains closed crying about things that inspired songs in the first place. We have a great life. We have great fun with it. And it felt pretty important to remind people that most of the time we're just goofing around. Music videos are ridiculous things that bands do for their music, trying to get it right. It's very hard. I think having fun with it is probably the only way forward.”
If you haven’t yet caught the new video, you should give it a shot below.
“Hopeless Wanderer” is a single off of Mumford & Sons’ latest full-length endeavor, Babel. The album is available via iTunes and other outlets.
As Someone Who Was Obsessed With One Tree Hill And Chad Michael Murray Growing Up, I Couldn't Be More Enthusiastic About Netflix's Hunky Holiday Calendar
‘Couldn’t Hurt The Princess Of Genovia’ Knicks Fans Have All The Jokes After OG Anunoby Crashed Into Anne Hathaway During A Game
Chris Kirkpatrick Confirms Animosity When Justin Timberlake Left *NSYNC To Go Solo, But The Band Mostly Seems Over It
