The jolly banjo-strumming gentlemen who graced Florida with a festival in September are taking a break from music.
Mumford & Sons, a Grammy Award-winning folk rock band, announced its indefinite hiatus through Rolling Stone after its last concert stop in Bonner Springs, Kan., promoting reigning Album of the Year, “Babel.”
“We just know we’re going to take a considerable amount of time off and just go back to hanging out and having no commitments or pressure or anything like that,” keyboardist Ben Lovett told Rolling Stone. “It feels like the last week of school right now.”
It seems the four Brits are tired from nonstop touring after the success of their first album, “Sigh No More,” in 2009. It has since been a haze of string lights, staples of their concerts, until their Gentlemen of the Road Stopovers this summer.
Longtime fan Jordyn Schwersky, a 21-year-old UF journalism senior, was at the tour’s stop in St. Augustine on Sept. 14. She heard about the hiatus a week after seeing them perform live.
“My first reaction was overwhelming relief that I went to the show, because this is the first time they had been to Florida, so I jumped on that immediately,” she said.
Schwersky has been a fan since 2010 and recalls a month of her freshman year at college spent listening solely to Mumford.
“If they don’t get back together I’m just going to sit in a corner and cry for the rest of my life,” Schwersky said. “It would be devastating.”
She hopes the break will bring in a new perspective to their music and a different sound from their two very similar albums.
Fan Alex Sanchez also hopes the break will make the band step back and bring a new sound to the table.
“I think the best work produced by artists is produced when they are not in the public eye, so I think it’ll be interesting to see that,” said Sanchez, a 21-year-old UF journalism junior.
The band hinted at the introduction of rap into their next album in an interview with Rolling Stone in February. That’s a far cry from banjos and keyboards.
“If rap comes out, I’m gonna be a fan,” Sanchez said. “I’m all about that.”
For now, though, we will have to wait.
A tumultuous year for bassist Ted Dwane may be behind the reasoning for the hiatus. The band had to cancel three shows after Dwane underwent brain surgery to remove a blood clot.
“We definitely want a little break,” Dwane told Rolling Stone. “We’re going to have a little rest.”
A version of this story ran on page 7 on 10/3/2013 under the headline "Mumford & Sons finishes tour, announces hiatus"
Mumford & Sons performs at the Gentlemen of the Road Stopover in St. Augustine on Sept. 14, a week before announcing its hiatus.
