“You write in songs what you’re too scared to write in real life, and then you sing the songs to loads of people instead of telling it to the person you should be telling it to… Songs are a great way of dealing with those issues but kind of a coward’s way as well.”
― Winston Marshall
“The trick to techno, as a connoisseur, is that you got to do two things: keep your hands down and your mouth shut.”
― Winston Marshall
“We’re in a long line of English people pretending to be Americans and not being as good as Americans.”
― Winston Marshall
“I’m a modern-day renaissance man.”
― Winston Marshall
“We get accused of inauthenticity because we play the instruments we play.”
― Winston Marshall
“Do you know what the key to comedy is? Timing.”
― Winston Marshall
“Simian Mobile Disco changed my life. They put me onto the EDM world. Although they would hate that term, they’re more techno.”
― Winston Marshall
“Elton John is an absolute lad. He’s a hero.”
― Winston Marshall
“For me, food and music are very similar in that you create, you spend a lot of time making something, and it only lasts a few seconds or a few minutes.”
― Winston Marshall
“I’ve seen the Stones play for three hours, and the crowd knew every song. It’s what you want in a headline slot at a festival.”
― Winston Marshall
“My dream is to tour for 50 years.”
― Winston Marshall
“You can never really tell what your influences are.”
― Winston Marshall
“The New Lost City Ramblers are a very good comparison, actually. They really took the music seriously, and we take the music very seriously. But we don’t take ourselves seriously at all.”
― Winston Marshall
“We formed the band because we wanted to tour. That was our common interest.”
― Winston Marshall
“One of the things we say in this band is if it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing.”
― Winston Marshall
“The less I try, the cooler I am.”
― Winston Marshall
“We’re not, like, hard men.”
― Winston Marshall
“Technically, I suppose I was following all the right behavior patterns of a trustafarian.”
― Winston Marshall
“We’re a pretty emotional bunch. You know, someone doesn’t say hello to you one day and you’re like, ‘I cannot believe the gall!’”
― Winston Marshall
“England’s just very cynical.”
― Winston Marshall
“It’s very important, when everyone else seems to be pigeon-holing you, to try and pigeon-hole yourself.”
― Winston Marshall
“If you can’t pigeon-hole yourself, who can you pigeon-hole?”
― Winston Marshall
“Every day is a learning day.”
― Winston Marshall
“We play the instruments we love.”
― Winston Marshall
“Banjos are funny instruments. They can get pretty irritating.”
― Winston Marshall
“We were copying lots of bands, like Avett Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show.”
― Winston Marshall
“You’re always thinking about making new music.”
― Winston Marshall
“We’re all big fans of bluegrass.”
― Winston Marshall
“Banjos are used in Celtic, English folk music and obviously American music. But not that much in pop music. But it’s more versatile than people realise it to be. It’s a beautiful instrument, very rhythmic and melodic. You can do anything with it.”
― Winston Marshall
“Just being thought of as a Christian is pretty annoying. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. But just being told you’re anything when you’re not.”
― Winston Marshall
“’Babel’ is a continuation of a project; it’s not like now we are more theatrical. We’ve grown up, seen places, been places, and that is shown in this album.”
― Winston Marshall
“I think that’s why so many school bands start on guitars: because they hide their mistakes with the distortion.”
― Winston Marshall
“Banjos, dobros, and acoustic guitars are not our first instruments.”
― Winston Marshall
“When we first started touring, we were going to these towns we’d never otherwise go to, never otherwise see, and that’s sort of why we like being in a band. But we started playing these bigger rooms and not even seeing the towns.”
― Winston Marshall
“Things got big quickly for us, and playing arenas… it’s like – and every band will tell you this – you don’t see any of the town.”
― Winston Marshall
“Class is a big issue here. And some people get picked on more than others. I think we probably do. I mean, it doesn’t help that we wear waistcoats and tweed the whole time. But there is a reverse snobbishness in England towards that sort of stuff. And I think that’s one of the reasons we really enjoy America, ‘cos we’re classless.”
― Winston Marshall
“The thing about Nashville that’s amazing is everyone plays… so you don’t meet up for a drink, you meet up for a pick. It’s an incredibly creative town, just bubbling with energy.”
― Winston Marshall
“It’s always great to see grey hairs in a crowd; people who are older have been to a lot more gigs than the kids; they’ve seen everything, so seeing them in the crowd means we’ve earned their applause.”
― Winston Marshall
“I want to bring UCB to England. We don’t have anything like it.”
― Winston Marshall
“New York – it’s the center of the world.”
― Winston Marshall
“I don’t understand how those old bands did it. We worked out early on that if we did three gigs in a row and went out afterwards, we’d lose our voices. We know our limits.”
― Winston Marshall
“We like being English, but we’re not that patriotic.”
― Winston Marshall
“I regret a couple of wardrobe decisions.”
― Winston Marshall
“I cut off my dreadlocks, but I couldn’t face throwing them away. They were so hard to grow, man. There’s a lot of work goes into those things. Some people keep a diary or a photo album to remind them of their past lives – well, I’ve got hair. Who knows? One day, maybe my grandchildren might want to see it.”
― Winston Marshall
“We called ourselves Mumford & Sons because we liked the idea of an old-fashioned, family-owned store.”
― Winston Marshall
“2014 was a pretty bad year for me. Quite a lot of loss.”
― Winston Marshall
“Once you’re out there in front of people, I don’t think there’s any choice than to just give it your all.”
― Winston Marshall
“The day we struggle to enjoy what we do and just get the gig over with we’ll quit.”
― Winston Marshall
“Somebody told me about a band that works out their whole set as if it was one song. They learn the whole set as one piece, so they know how the dynamics of it work. It’s really difficult to do, and you can only really do it while you’re on tour, as being in a rehearsal studio is not the same as being on stage in front of an audience.”
― Winston Marshall
“I play banjo, and in Britain, it’s easy to get away with playing banjo because you don’t often see it on U.K. stages. In America, people know when you’re a good banjo player, so I was really nervous about playing out there. But we actually went down really well.”
― Winston Marshall
“We’re not all Christian, so we can’t be a Christian band.”
― Winston Marshall
“England’s just very cynical. Like I am. Like we all are.”
― Winston Marshall
“I think we’re all guilty of it as British citizens: if something gets big, we go, ‘Ugh.’”
― Winston Marshall
“Irish people never think we’re Irish. Americans think we’re European or French.”
― Winston Marshall
“We know what we like in music, and we got into music to try and give back what we got out of it.”
― Winston Marshall
“It must be tiring being Bob Dylan for the past 50 years. People act like he’s not even human, which must be hard work. Every room he walks into just goes quiet.”
― Winston Marshall
“Some people like the same thing forever, but I don’t know. We kind of, like, listen to loads of different stuff, and our attention spans aren’t good enough. So there was a bit of frustration when you’re, like, having to play the same thing all the time because we play all, like, loads of different instruments.”
― Winston Marshall
“We don’t want to be part of some Tidal ‘streaming revolution,’ nor do we want to be Taylor Swift and be anti-it.”
― Winston Marshall
“We look at our albums as stand-alone pieces of art and also as adverts for our live shows.”
― Winston Marshall
“This is how people are going to listen to music now – streaming. So diversify as a band. It doesn’t mean selling your songs to adverts.”
― Winston Marshall
“I became obsessed with Simian Mobile Disco’s music and poorly attempted to make my own techno music.”
― Winston Marshall
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