Winston Marshall


Winston Aubrey Aladar Marshall is a British musician, best known as the banjoist and the lead guitarist of the Grammy Award-winning British folk rock band Mumford & Sons. He has been also been credited as Country Winston and WN5TN on the Mumford & Sons albums, Sigh No More and Wilder Mind.

Personal life

Marshall was born in Wandsworth, London, England, and is the son of Sabina De Balkany and Sir Paul Marshall, a British investor and co-founder of the Marshall Wace hedge fund. His mother is of French origin. Marshall was educated at St Paul's School, an independent school in London. He has a sister named Giovanna.
In late 2015, Marshall became engaged to American actress Dianna Agron. They married on 15 October 2016, in Morocco.

Career

Marshall is a founding member of the British folk band Mumford & Sons. He plays the banjo, bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, dobro, and provides backing vocals. Marshall performed with two of his current band members, Marcus Mumford and Ted Dwane, in Laura Marling's band before Mumford & Sons.
Before Mumford & Sons was established, Marshall ran a jam night at Bosun's Locker, a tiny music club beneath a pasty shop on the King's Road in Fulham, where a number of musicians who had an affinity for earthy acoustic music played with each other.
Marshall was in a band prior to Mumford & Sons called Captain Kick and the Cowboy Ramblers, a bluegrass sleaze rap band, in which he was credited as Country Winston and played the banjo and guitar.
In October 2013, Marshall joined a temporary supergroup called "Salvador Dalí Parton" with fellow musicians Gill Landry of Old Crow Medicine Show, Mike Harris of Apache Relay, Jake Orrall of JEFF the Brotherhood, and Justin Hayward-Young of the Vaccines. The band, intended as a joke from the start, wrote six songs in 20 minutes on their first day together, held its one and only full-band rehearsal the next day, and performed six shows around Nashville, Tennessee, the following night before breaking up.
In 2015, Marshall became interested in techno music and electronic dance music after spending several nights attending James Ford residency in a night club. In 2016, he joined the Austrian DJ duo HVOB for a collaboration; they recorded an album named Silk. Their first single, called "The Blame Game", was released in February 2017. The album was released on March 24. They toured across Europe and Asia, playing in festivals and night clubs while Winston was also performing in concerts with Mumford & Sons.