Marcus Mumford says Taylor Swift was ‘the most phenomenal house guest’

Mumford And Sons singer Marcus Mumford has said Taylor Swift was “the most phenomenal house guest” when she recorded at his home studio.

The 38-year-old said The National’s Aaron Dessner, who has worked as a co-producer on a number of Swift’s albums, had asked him if she could use the studio, with the sessions resulting in Mumford singing on the 35-year-old’s song Cowboy Like Me, from the album Evermore (2020).

Speaking to the Table Manners with Jessie Ware and her mother, Lennie, Mumford said: “Aaron (Dessner) called at the end of covid, when it was legal, and said, I’ve got someone I’m working with that needs a studio in the UK.

“And I was like, ‘cool, well, if it’s one of your homies, then I’m sure it’d be fine. Like, who is it? Beyonce or something?

“And he goes, because he was looking for a discreet studio, can they come and use yours? And it was Taylor Swift.”

“She was the most phenomenal house guest and she brought a killer candle, her candle game was excellent, and she finished the second half of Evermore in our studio. Then she asked me to sing on one (track), and I said, ‘yes’.”

Mumford also went on to speak about how a meeting with Oasis’s Noel Gallagher had inspired him to write more songs.

The California-born singer said: “Noel Gallagher talks about songs like ‘they fall from the sky’, but you’ve got to have your hands out ready to catch them, otherwise f***** Bono or Chris Martin are going to catch them.

“I saw Noel a few years ago at a bar, and we were off the road for a minute, and he was like, ‘what are you up to?’, I said, ‘I’m just taking a minute, I’m knackered, you know, been touring etc’, and he said, ‘no, sorry, mate, are you a songwriter?’ I was like, ‘yes’.

“He was like, ‘well, then you should be writing songs every day, because it’s a muscle that will go into atrophy, unless you’re writing’.

“And he was really right, actually. So then, in January 2023, when the band got back together, I told them what Noel said and we did.

“We started just writing every day, like whatever came out, didn’t care about the quality, just cared about the quantity, and we just started writing and writing, writing, writing.”

With Mumford And Sons, Mumford has achieved three UK number one albums and has had five top 40 singles in the UK singles chart. They are best known for songs such as Little Lion Man, The Cave and I Will Wait.

The full interview can be heard on the Table Manners podcast, available on a number of streaming platforms, including YouTube.