FORMER Ely Cathedral chorister Gus Unger-Hamilton collected the Mercury Prize for music on Thursday night as part of indie-rock four-piece Alt-J.
Gus and his band mates beat off competition from rapper Plan B, The Maccabees, Michael Kiwanuka, Django Django, Lianne La Havas and Field Music with their debut release, An Awesome Wave.
Keyboard player Gus and the band received a �20,000 prize as well as the prestigious award, collected at the ceremony held in London.
As they collected their prize, the band said: “We might just thank everyone in team Alt-J who has ever made a difference to us. And our parents, thanks for not making us get jobs!”
The group first met at university in Leeds in 2007 and are now based in Cambridge.
Their name, Alt-J, is derived from a keyboard command, which creates the Greek symbol delta when typed into a Mac computer.
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