Mumford & Sons on collaborating with Pharrell for new single ‘Good People’: “There was a mutual respect and admiration straight away”

Mumford & Sons have opened up about their collaboration with Pharrell on new single ‘Good People’ – their first new music in five years.

The British band returned with the single yesterday (January 16), which was produced by Pharrell and features his backing vocals.

The artists also brought in the vocals of a six-piece vocal choir from the USA and Canada, hailing from Native American Tribes within the Northern Great Plains.

In a new interview with The Zane Lowe Show on Apple Music, Marcus Mumford recalled meeting Pharrell almost 10 years ago on the festival circuit, sharing that they “instantly got on”.

“There was a mutual kind of respect and admiration straight away,” he added.”And we’ve always talked about making music together. We’ve always talked about just getting in the studio and seeing what happened.”

The band were performing at Pharrell’s festival Something in the Water in Virginia Beach last year when they committed to getting in the studio.

“And I said to him, man, we’ve got to do that thing we’ve always talked about doing and get in the studio together,” Mumford said. “And he was like, ‘I’m waiting on you’. And we were like, ‘You’ve seemed a little bit busy mate’. And he made the time, we got together in New York, we started messing around with some ideas.”

Mumford said ‘Good People’ came out in their first day together in Paris, and straight away “felt like the kind of record we need”.

Reflecting on releasing new music, Ben Lovett said that it “just feels so great to be sharing new music again after all these years”.

Mumford added: “I think we always felt like we knew we were going to release some more music, but we wanted to wait for the right music. We’ve never been in haste, I don’t think. But when this music came around, we had a sense of urgency and I mean, it was only a few weeks ago that we made it, we wrote it, let alone recorded it.”

As for new music, Ted Dwane said they have “a lot of songs kicking around and we’re really excited”.

Their new track was performed live for the first time during Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton Men’s Autumn/Winter 2024 runway show at Paris Fashion Week today (January 16).

‘Good People’ marked the band’s first release of 2024 and their first track since 2019’s ‘Blind Leading The Blind‘. Back in October,  Mumford & Sons also debuted a new song called ‘Maybe’ during a live show.