JOE already had the key for in-spiration on writing songs: his musician dad and hallucinogenic drugs.

“It was kind of a joke. We (Joe and bandmate Gwil) were talking about songwriting, playing the guitar and the way I sing, being affected by see-ing my dad play and doing hallucino-genics.

“I still see my dad but I no longer take mind bending drugs.

“I played the guitar because my dad played the guitar.

He was always writing songs, so I guess I just naturally picked up on that way of venting.”

Despite studying in Leeds, the in-die-folk quartet wasn’t your typical group of students who went out to clubs. Instead, they preferred going to quiet pubs with their friends.

However, they left their nerdy, tame student selves behind and act-ed more rock ‘n’ roll when they won the prestigious 2012 Barclaycard Mercury Awards.

Joe laughs and then adds: “We got absolutely smashed. I mean we just won the Mercury. We went to bed ridiculously late into early morning.”

Originally named FILMS, until a case of mistaken identity with the US band The Films, the northern

foursome quickly came up with the name Alt-J. Inspired by the Alt J keyboard button on a Mac, which creates a triangle or delta sign Δ.

The three fine art students Joe Newman, Gwil Sainsbury, Thom Green and Gus Unger-Hamilton, who studied English literature, all met at Leeds University in 2007 and formed the band in their second year. Al-though the humble, mild mannered introverted pop group is constantly viewed as the foursome who drew on all kinds of musical genres from hip-hop to folk, rock to pop and elec-tronic to indie, Alt-J were quite reluc-tant to describe their music.

“At a push we would say we are folk electronica”.

Joe, singer and guitarist, talks to us about the band’s tame university days and when they first got togeth-er as a group, practising in their hall dormatories.

“I had some songs I was writing and I just wanted other people to get involved. Right at the early stages I was just absolutely chuffed that I had friends who played musical instru-ments and that were keen to play the songs that I was writing.

“Not only that but they were play-ing their parts in quite an exciting way that was adding to the song a completely different unexpected twist. I was so super stoked. That was the exciting thing for me at that time, I was certainly not thinking about any kind of future.

“I was just living in the now at that point. We all had chemistry and just kept it going.

“We’re not one of those bands who have loads of stories about our an-tics. We’re not boring; we just don’t actually do wacky crazy things like set off fire extinguishers or throw stuff out on the road.

“It wasn’t like we were well be-haved students either, we all gradu-ated but I think half way through our

university degree I realised that the band was actually doing quite well, I started taking my eye of the degree and focused more on the band.

“We did have our fair share of lie-ins, but we wouldn’t have achieved what we have if we got up early to go to lectures and were well behaved students. I think we achieved what we did because we worked really hard at the music, and it was just luck

THE RIVERwww.riveronline.co.uk26

Alt-J’s lead singer, Joe Newman, speaks to Alexia Ganotaki about the band’s university days and how they won the Mercury Award

“When we won we were super bowled

over us”

‘I still see my dad, but I no longer do mind bending drugs’

ENTERTAINMENT

Alt-J pictured at the Barclaycard Mercury Awards IAN CHEEK PRESS