Last month, Marcus Mumford, leader of stadium-folk stars Mumford & Sons, announced plans to release (self-titled), his first solo album. Mumford got some prominent help. The album includes contributions from people like Phoebe Bridgers, Brandi Carlile, and Clairo, and Steven Spielberg directed the video for first single “Cannibal.” Also, Mumford just played the Newport Folk Festival with Joni Mitchell. In a new interview, Mumford talks a bit about some of the traumas and conflicts that went into the new LP.

My friend Zach Baron wrote a new Mumford profile in GQ, and Mumford tells Zach about what went into “Cannibal”: Mumford’s own history of sexual abuse: “Like lots of people — and I’m learning more and more about this as we go and as I play it to people — I was sexually abused as a child. Not by family and not in the church, which might be some people’s assumption. But I hadn’t told anyone about it for 30 years.” “Cannibal” is the first song on Mumford’s album. The second song, “Grace,” is about the experience of playing “Cannibal” for his mother.

In the GQ piece, Mumford also talks about going through therapy and getting away from some of the unhealthy habits that may have sprung, in part, from the trauma of that abuse: “That thing that happened when I was six, that was the first of a string of really unusual, unhealthy sexual experiences at a really early age. And for some reason, and I can’t really understand why, I didn’t become a perpetrator of sexual abuse — although I’ve done my fair share of cuntish behavior.”

Mumford also talks a bit about the departure of Mumford & Sons banjo player Winston Marshall, one of Mumford’s oldest friends. Last year, Marshall praised alt-right troll Andy Ngo on Twitter. Marshall apologized, and then he left Mumford & Sons, claiming that he shouldn’t have apologized in the first place. Baron writes that Mumford was “visibly uncomfortable” when asked about Marshall, and he says, “I actually really begged him not to leave.” Mumford adds that he disagrees with Marshall’s beliefs, “but I think you can disagree and work together.”

When Baron asks Mumford about Marshall’s recent Twitter activity — “this trans activism has gone way too far,” etc. — Mumford offers this:

I just don’t think it’s the job of musicians to have all those thoughts. And I think Win probably agrees. I don’t know. But I should think he probably agrees. Which is part of the reason why he wanted to quit. Because he felt like his priorities couldn’t align in the way he wanted to speak about things and live life. He wanted to do a different thing. And that’s why I support him doing a different thing. Even though we disagree on a lot. A lot. And more now…

I think if you present like a cunt and you are an angry man, particularly at this time, an angry, older, white man — I’m just fucking bored of it, man. We need grace. So, I, you know, I don’t want to get into an argument with these guys at all. It just feels like a zero-sum game. A race to the bottom. Boring. Mostly it’s boring. And mostly it’s not my job.

You can read the full profile here.