Mumford and Sons spoke to Absolute Radio’s Pete Donaldson this week while on the Swedish leg of their European Tour. On the night of Prince’s death, the boys were in his hometown of Minneapolis, which they described as having an overwhelming atmosphere of grief. Although they agreed to cancel one of their radio interviews out of respect, they covered Nothing Compares to You as a musical tribute during their show at St Paul later that evening. Marcus describes the feeling of that performance in the wake of such tragic news.
Marcus on cancelling their radio interview… “Suddenly the news got out that he’d died and we were on our way to this radio station. So we show up on the radio station in Minneapolis. We’re like waiting in this control booth for the producer to come in. The producer walks in and goes like I can’t believe Prince has died. And just like breaks down in tears. And we were like let’s just not do the interview you know. It feels weird talking about like our you know rubbish little British band whilst we’re talking about one of the greats of modern music.”
Marcus on covering Nothing Compares to You… “We were playing in Minneapolis that night, we were with Blake Mills who’s one of the greatest musicians on Earth and we decided to do Nothing Compares to You. it was more just sort of … an atmosphere of grief at the show and if we hadn’t recognised it, it would have been like an elephant in the room. “
