Mercury Prize champs Alt-J dabbled with drugs at uni

Mercury Prize winners Alt-J experimented with drugs after starting up the band while at university.

The fourpiece, who scooped the prestigious honour on Thursday, met while studying at Leeds University in 2007, and singer Joe Newman reveals they dabbled with hallucinogens in their early days.

However, the frontman insists the mind-altering substances were banned from songwriting sessions.

He tells the Daily Star, "In my first year of university at Leeds I did mushrooms and it ruined me. I actually didn't enjoy it at all. I don't think I'd ever do mushrooms again. We've all done mushrooms, acid and this, that and the other through uni. But we'd never do it before a practice or before we wrote songs."

The rockers spent two years rehearsing before recording their acclaimed debut An Awesome Wave, which saw off competition from a shortlist of 11 other acts to win the Mercury Prize and a £20,000 cheque.

Newman has vowed to be careful with the prize money, adding, "Management will get 20 per cent, then we'll split the rest equally among the band. The sensible thing is probably to start paying off our student loans as we haven't been doing that so far."