Mumford & Sons Score Viral Hit With ‘Hopeless Wanderer’ Video

If Mumford & Sons look a little different in their newest video, there’s a good reason.

This weekend the British folk band released a video for their song, Hopeless Wanderer, one that appears to show the band members rocking out in a field and inside a run-down barn. But a closer inspection reveals that the band is actually made up of four comic actors dressed up in old-timey clothes and facial hair to look like the band — Ed Helms, Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Will Forte.

The reveal doesn’t come until about a minute into the video, when the camera shows that the actors are lip-syncing to the song as they pretend to play piano, guitar, stand-up bass, accordion, and banjo (though Ed Helms is a pretty mean banjo player in real life, he’s stuck on the piano and accordion in the video).

Things get a little crazier from there. The four guys get into a small boat stuck in the middle of a pond, then shed some manly tears as they get really into the lyrics.

The Mumford & Sons video has been a huge viral hit in just a little more than a day since it was released, with countless shares online.

Not everyone is down for the British folk stylings of Mumford & Sons. Rocker Alice Cooper recently blasted the group, and other up-and-coming folk acts like The Lumineers, as an affront to real rock music.

“I just feel like this whole generation maybe all need to eat a steak,” he said of the acts. “Maybe they need to quit eating, you know, vegetarian food and get out there and get some blood pumping in their system.”

Cooped admitted that Mumford & Sons are “great at what they do,” but said what they do is “an offense to rock and roll.”

“I guess they want to look like everybody else,” Cooper said. “I guess I’m old school that when you’re in a band, you’re an outlaw. You don’t play by those rules.”

But judging by the YouTube video for Hopeless Wanderer, close to two million people disagree on Mumford & Sons.