I'm Mark Wheat. I'm in Reykjavik, Iceland, as part of Iceland Airwaves, and actually I'm in a dressing of what appears to be a football stadium with Ted and Ben from Mumford & Sons. Guys, do you know if this place you're playing tonight actually a usual venue, or have they made it a venue just for you?

A lot of our gigs this year have been in the dressing rooms of various sporting venues

You're doing a tour completely in arenas

Yeah, it could be in a basketball arena, but rooms like this are just acoustically good.

We like it.

It's more intimate. You get tired of doing the stadiums and the whole —

It's just easy like this.

Keeping it real. They've got a picture outside, and I don't know if you're big soccer fans, but Iceland, they're in the World Cup and America isn't.

I know. I'm Welsh.

I know, and you shouldn't even like football.

Wales is not in it either. Nor is Scotland. Let's be fair. Iceland were very entertaining last year, and we're excited about seeing them again in the summer. I think it's going to be great. They're so proud. That's the thing about being here is that kind of national pride is powerful.

Nothing fans do — was it--

The volcano. We'll get the volcano going tonight I think.

That'll be awesome. Speaking of volcanoes, did you get any time to trip around the country? Is this your first time in Iceland?

It is for most of us. It's similar to most of our touring schedule. It's about exploring the world and doing it through music as a vehicle, so we generally start the conversation as we'd like to go to Iceland. Lucy (our agent), can you please call up Iceland Airwaves and see if we can do a gig.

No way.

That's how it works.

That's a beautiful thing.

We've wanted to come here for our entire life as a band and before. It's one of those things — great festival, awesome lineup this year. Please can we come--

Seriously, because you're not on tour right now, so it's kind of a one-off trip for you. Did you get time to see any of the island before?

Did the Golden Circle today. Early start.

Tell people what that is, because it's kind of like the trip that you all should take. That's the first one I took when I came here in 2011, and it's kind of like a quick tour of the most spectacular places on the planet.

It's great. The national park was awesome — huge barren land, and then went and saw some geezers — I think you call them geysers. We like calling them geezers. I've got a great slow-mo video I'm going to up on our Instagram later of a geezer blowing its load. And then the waterfall. The waterfall is stunning, and it's so cold out there today because the windchill factor — this is like a storm brewing today. All the flights were cancelled.

We're on Iceland and no one else can come because they've cancelled the flights. There's a huge storm happening out there. In fact, when you guys are onstage it could get really gnarly. It's like 60 mph winds and snow happening, so we're hoping that the audience is going to be okay. And you just came back from sound check, Ted, so is everything sounding good up there, and how are you guys augmenting yourselves for this one-off gig? Is it just you guys or do you have more players playing with you?

[Ted] We've got our usual complement. We've got our horns with us. Our fiddle player is actually in Australia, so we found someone to stand in for him. But it's good. I love rooms like this. This is like a nice size. It's like a rock box, isn't it. This is going to be hopefully a quite sweaty event. That's when you know it's going well.

[Ben] Ted likes to sweat.

[Ted] It's my cardio. I've got to do it a few times a week.

[Ben] 10,000 steps around the stage.

Speaking of sweaty, did you go to any sweaty nightclubs last night and see any of Iceland Airwaves at all?

We did that. Saw a couple things. Ider. Two girls from London I'm going to say. Sounded like they were from London. I'm going to screw this up. A lot of the stuff here is kind of brand new music, and that was really exciting. The whole set was super engaging. There were probably about 300 people in the room, and maybe 20 people had actually heard the music before, but everyone was in, which I think is a good sign of a festival that's actually been around for 18-20 years. It's like people are still here for the right reasons. It hasn't kind of morphed and seemingly — it's our first time here, but it doesn't seem to have been corrupted by time and lost its way. I know I saw Michael Kiwanuka because I love him and I've known him and worked with him for a long time.

He was on your label. Was.

We still work with him as a promoter. He's like the nicest guy.

Yeah, he got a nice story about me and Michael and how that all started.

Fairly simple. He was a session guitarist in London kind of helping out, working for our studios and then he started writing his own songs, and he's based in Camden, which is a famous district of London for music. Just always been very much straightforward with Michael. He's not trying to overcomplicate the proposition. He just writes heartfelt songs and they feel classic immediately. So it was great, and last night he was playing just next to where we're staying, which was the perfect ending for the night because he went onstage at 12:30. Quite a late night festival.

We were in Akureyri, which is the second city of Iceland, and they say things don't get started until midnight and 1:00, especially at the weekend. They stay open until 4:00. That's part of it.

Sunrise didn't happen today for like 11:00 or something. I purposefully left my coat because I knew I had an early start to go on this trip this morning, and the leather curtains I opened thinking they'll help with the alarm. And the alarm went off and I thought something's gone wrong I check my settings on my phone, and no.

Any news about Communion, because we had your shows in the Twin Cities when you used to do the shows, and obviously Michael we know. Any news about that? Any other big artists we should look for?

At the moment it's — especially in The States — mostly folks [doing Alan Raymond?? - 6:56] great artist out of Toronto. And we've been working alongside him for just over a year and a half now and he's great. A new record just came out. And then a bunch of other exciting things happening in other parts of the world. It's good. We'll try and get that showcase happening again in the Twin Cities I think in the next year. Just kind of had some — we spread ourselves a bit thin I think to do all of that at the same time as other things going on in life. I just got involved in a venue in London called Imera [ph], which has been quite distracting.

Booking there?

Building.

Wow. Talk about it. Why is it so beautiful. You just said you like rock boxes. As a band do you know what should be the sound?

I think this is why you're so well qualified to do it. We live in venues of different sizes and shapes and designs, and what Ben had the opportunity to do in London is build something completely from scratch, so it's fully accessible. It doesn't matter who you are, you can get in. It's no problem and it's beautifully orientated and beautifully designed. It sounds good. It's the right size.

What's the right size?

300-320, but there's lot of other — so we have parties of like 800 people because there's lots of other rooms. But the live room itself is that size that I think for any major city every artist has to sell out that room. For a long time in New York it was [micro?? - 8:46] lounge. In London I guess we had the Borderline or then it became Oslo, and I'm trying to think what the equivalent — maybe 7th Street. What would've been that room?

Yeah. 300, 350.

It's that kind of size, but you know that whatever happens that if you can go into towns — we've had a lot of international acts passing through — and you play that show and you nail it, then you know that you're going on to other things. There was a moment when we had Maggie Rogers and Jordan Smith and great artists over the last few months doing their first sold out show. So it's been fun, but obviously a little bit distracting. And now it's on its way and under control and I can get my head fully back into hopefully what's going to be a busy year for us next year.

Ted, do you want to give us any idea where Mumford & Sons are in terms of planning for the future — new album, tour or even something special?

We're always writing, so we've got our minds in the fourth record, which is really exciting. There's obviously a little bit of work to do before it actually exists, but we're sort of getting there in our way. Before that we're going to Senegal, which is the next thing we're doing after this.

A followup to the Johannesburg gig?

Yeah, so we were with Baaba Maal in Cape Town and Johannesburg and touring around South Africa. It was the beginning of this year, wasn't it. Or was it February. A year and a half ago. It must've been. No one can be sure. There's no way of knowing. It's our first time in Senegal. Winston's been once. He went to this festival. It's actually Baaba Maal's festival that's been running for a long time and takes over the whole town called Podor on the northern border, and it feels like a proper adventure.

It takes days to get — you fly out to Daakar and then it's two days however you can figure out to get there — most likely driving, but it's complicated.

It's complicated in more ways than one down there, too, in terms of safety, security

Yeah, Senegal's pretty cool I think and pretty chill down there.

Production-wise it's pretty interesting down there. We don't inquire what the gig's going to be, sure anyone apart from Baaba wants us to be in Senegal, so we're going to find out. We're closing out Sunday night of the festival and we're obviously playing a lot of those songs. We've been in the street a little bit more with Baaba, and that's been great. He's been a really good creative force to be around — a really amazing guy. And so people like Johan from the very best, he features heavily in that record, and some other cats — there's Mamadou who's going to be on that trip. We really feed off of other people's energy. You would think that there'd be enough between the four of us to spark, and there is, but we also like to make the party as wide as possible

Have you invited any special guests tonight or are you going to get some collaborations with any Icelandic musicians, or was it too quick to do that?

I heard yesterday that Junius Meyvant was going to come, but I don't think he's coming to play. I think he's coming to watch. I understand that there's been listening to Sigur Ros all day. I don't think any of them are rap. We'll see.

It's been such a flying visit — there's not really a lot of time to meet people and sort that out. It would've been nice.

Playing any new songs?

Probably yeah, a couple new songs.

Any details about that. Can you tell us, for those who won't get to see the show, titles and what they might — can you hum them?

Humming them might not really do justice. We worked on them for like months — it goes something like this — yeah — and that like guitar tone phony disappears. [blondie and the blind?] and if I say they've been with us for a couple months now, but obviously the first time in Iceland, as are all the songs tonight. We like playing new songs when we can. We're not going to drop any other ones are we — unlikely.

Unlikely. I was thinking about that today before I phoned.

It's hard to practice.

The studio a cappella version as you suggested.

Everyone sings their part.

Any other plans right away? Have you got to leave or are you going to get a chance to tour around Iceland more?

Everyone's got various things. It's tricky. We're both going tomorrow evening, aren't we? So it's just a 2-night visit, but I'm coming back. I'm totally fascinated by--

Won over by it?

Yeah, in a big way.

And with a bed you look like you [crosstalk] long hair.

I could just for the occasion, yeah.

Should get you a little helmet with--[crosstalk]

I saw a poor guy busking on the street today with the full Viking helmet with the faceplate down.

What was the vibe? What was he playing? What sort of stuff?

It sounded like it was an Icelandic folk tune, but he was doing it in English. I've been trying to answer the question why is it that the Airwaves festival is so much of a success and that they have so much great music coming out of Iceland. Have you any idea as a musician why that could be possible?

Haven't really been here long enough to fully figure it out, but I've been so almost moved by the intensity of creativity. You feel it straight away and you walk around — a lot of the murals, there's lots of street art and stuff like this, and some of it is like really mixed media — fascinating stuff I've not seen anywhere else. There's obviously something in the water. I suppose it's acid or mushrooms or — everyone's just buzzing creatively. It's beautiful. It's amazing.

And maybe for the festival the fact that people actually like us want to come here as a destination anyway, means that it will never get tired. It's like sometimes people would put a festival on in a city that you can go to at any point and it's not like — I've talked to people about this before. It's one of the reasons I think South By Southwest was such a success, was because a lot of people around the world, the idea of going somewhere so hot with barbecue and beer is quite like an amazing idea — it's like cowboys [crosstalk] just an excuse to go to Texas. It's an excuse to go to Iceland, so it's kind of anywhere that can carry its own weight without — and then the music almost follows perhaps when it comes to the festival. It seems to be amazing Icelandic music for a population of 320,000 or something like that. It's ridiculous.

Minneapolis and St. Paul both have more people in them than Iceland, which, when I learned that it was just like ridiculous. Let's end there. When people talk about the Twin Cities do you have any feelings about it good or bad? Is it a market for you that's been good?

Last time we were going to come and say hi to you guys it was sadly the night that Prince died — that day. And then we were playing at the Xcel Arena in St. Paul. I think when we went out after that show and we were down at First Ave that evening with everyone that evening, and you could really feel the community spirit, which is so strong. I think it's been many different trips we've noticed it, but around something like that — it was strange but powerful at the same time. We ended up doing the gig because they felt like people wanted to — it's a nice thing to do sometimes, to be able to gather around music, especially in that situation, and so — the environment — I think it's a special part of America from our point of view. It's been one of the most important parts of the States because every time we come we feel like we're as connected as we are in some of like the coastal cities and being a London band it feels like got that kind of cosmopolitan cultural vibrancy that not everywhere has got. [inaudible - 18:02] the middle of and the States. We will continue to hold it as a place to prioritize and spend time in. [crosstalk] and it always will be.

Thanks for spending time with us on that night, because I actually didn't put two and two together, but I know a lot of people who said that it was great that you guys played and that they could share in that, and the fact that hearing that you went down to First Avenue is kind of making me choke up now. So thanks for doing that. Thanks for supporting our music scene, and good luck with the new album and the trip to Africa and whatever you've got in your future, and hopefully we're going to have a great show here in Iceland to wrap up. You guys are going to wrap up Airwaves 2017. Ben and Ted from Mumford & Sons, playing the final show of Iceland Airwaves 2017. This is Mark Wheat from The Current.