The Sunday Times Magazine • 33drugs are around the corner.” He says he
ended up “self-medicating” and regularly
taking a “party mix” of hard drugs. “It was
all a bit of a blur, really.”
He is now three years clean from booze
and drugs and “hasn’t looked back”.
Sobriety gives him “clarity and energy”. He
endured a painful separation from Agron in
2019 and the pair divorced the following
year. Around that time Marshall “came to
Christ again”. As the rock star came to more
closely resemble a country parson, it is
perhaps not surprising that some starchier
political views began to emerge. He has
railed against cancel culture and liberal bias
in corporate media, attacked progressive
artists for behaving like a censorious mob
and has defended both JK Rowling and the
American fight commentator and podcaster
Joe Rogan, who have caused controversy
with their views on transgenderism.M
arshall’s more serious side has
always been there. His mother,
Sabina, is descended from a
genteel European Jewish family
that was ravaged by the
Holocaust. His father, Paul,
co-founded the hedge fund
Marshall Wace and is worth an estimated
£630 million, but he’s also a political junkie
and was once a staunch Liberal Democrat,
serving as research assistant to Charles
Kennedy and co-authoring The Orange Book
with David Laws. Much as his son parted
ways with Mumford & Sons over political
differences, Marshall senior split with his
beloved Lib Dems over Europe and moved
right, becoming a committed Brexiteer and
donating heavily to the Leave campaign.
He is now a Tory donor, funds the opinion
website UnHerd and contributed
£10 million to the foundation of GB News.
Penny Marshall, Winston’s aunt, is the Africa
correspondent for ITV News and is married
to its former royal editor Tim Ewart.
“I wasn’t that engaged in political and
cultural debate growing up,” says Marshall,
who skipped university to tour with the
band. “But it was in the family nature to
discuss all this stuff.” Over time he began
to read more. After the Manchester Arena
bombing in 2017, Marshall says he “got
really deep into Islam” and befriended the
former Islamist extremist Maajid Nawaz,
whom he says was one of the few public
figures to defend him publicly during the
Ngo furore. “Because [the bomb attack]
was in the music industry, and it happened
in the Manchester Arena where I’d played
a few times, it really hit home for me,”
Marshall says. “I really wanted to understand
why these people became radicalised.
Through that I found a higher appreciation
for my own cultural background, for the
Judeo-Christian tradition and belief system.”
Marshall can sound just a tad identitarian
when he gets going on this, but insists he
isn’t a conservative and abhors the far right.These protestations didn’t wash with his
critics, though, and his own political identity
— call it classically liberal, or perhaps
“western civ” — eventually became
incompatible with his life as a music star.
Now that the storm has passed, Win 2.0
has emerged. He has founded Hong Kong
Link Up, a volunteer organisation that helps
to settle political migrants from Hong Kong
in Britain. He has also started Marshall
Matters, a podcast for The Spectator in which
he interviews artists about culture, politics
and everything in between. Guests have
included the conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn
(son of the revered Aleksandr), the comedian
David Baddiel and American Pie songwriter
Don McLean. He has also written articles for
The Spectator, lamenting the way artists and
creatives seek to silence voices that buck the
progressive consensus. In short he has
become a culture warrior. “Having made all
this huge sacrifice so that I can speak my
mind, I might as well f***ing do it then,” he
says. “It would seem stupid not to.”
Of course Marshall feels the odd pang for
his old lifestyle, but insists he doesn’t regret
leaving Mumford & Sons. “I got my soul
back. I felt I could sleep again, it’s amazing
the effect that had on me. It has been
completely liberating. I feel like it was the
right decision.” Perhaps unsurprisingly,censorship has become his focus.
“Obviously artists have a right to boycott.
The difference now is that it’s ‘silence him
or I’m out’,” he says. “This feels so bizarre
and I don’t think it ends well. Musicians’
careers are all about self-expression, so how
can they think that’s going to work if they’re
not up for people expressing themselves?”
During the Twitter storm Marshall
received plenty of private support, including
from some world-famous artists, but he
noticed that almost no one went in to bat for
him in public. Meanwhile many colleagues
were quick to stick the knife in. “I was
surprised at how other artists condemned
me,” he says. “I lost a lot of friends.”
He thinks many of those who trampled
on him have probably forgotten all about it
by now. “I’ve met a few other people who
have been cancelled, whatever that means,
and they talk about a couple of years later
people who were part of the mobbing get in
touch and say, ‘Hey mate, are you around?’
They helped destroy your life, but it was
done so casually they don’t even remember.”
Marshall’s hope is that by hosting
conversations that demonstrate cordial
disagreement and heterodox viewpoints
he might help to move the needle towards
a more generous public sphere. “If there
are more examples of people agreeably
disagreeing within the creative industry,
things might just chill a bit,” he says.
It must be pretty weird, though. Being a
podcaster is all well and good, but surely he
misses the razzle-dazzle? “I’m concentrating
quite hard on rebuilding my life,” he says.
“I’m not going home saying, ‘Woe is me.’ ”
And what of music? Marshall is writing
songs again and working with a “well-
known” pop singer on new material. He is
relieved to find he hasn’t been “cut off
entirely” from the music world. And the
band? Mumford & Sons haven’t released
anything since his departure. Is Marshall
still friends with the boys he spent nearly 15
years with, touring the world? His answer is
so boilerplate it must have been agreed by a
divorce lawyer: “I really wish them the best,
I really want them to succeed and have a
great career. I have nothing but good wishes
for them personally and in business.” Does
he not see his old mates at all? “We all live
in different countries, everyone has
different lives.” Right then.
Clearly Marshall carries some deep
scars. He has built a stimulating new life,
suited to someone who doesn’t have to
worry much about paying the bills. He’s
lively, challenging company, but after 90
minutes of latte and biscotti I’m left with a
lingering sadness. Ultimately Marshall’s
career is a casualty of our age of stupidity:
of destructive culture warfare, Twitter
idiocy and ideological intolerance.
“I imagined being in my sixties and still
playing with the band,” he says. “That’s one
reason it was so hard to leave. I thought
we’d always be together.” ■“I DON’T MISS FAME.
I WAS SEDUCED BY IT.
I’VE REALISED THAT
A LOT OF MY
FRIENDS WEREN’T
MY REAL FRIENDS”
With his wife, Dianna
Agron, at a fashion show
in New York, 2015. They
are now divorcedGETTY IMAGES