Mercury Music Prize: Quotes

Muso’s Guide hung out on the red carpet, the balcony, the smokers’ haven, the toilets – not just for fun, oh no, but for the chance to catch up with a few of the nominees.

We’re dead glad Elbow won, for what it’s worth – and since Awards night, we’ve been listening to The Seldom Seen Kid over and over, and it’s seeped into our bloodstreams. 17 years in the making, their fifth album is arguably their finest, combining the symphonic quality Leaders Of The Free World with the question-posing omniscience of Cast of Thousands – and it was a tad the musical versin of watching Kelly Holmes finally win gold, and do it twice.

Enough gushing, here’s the night in quotes.

On their posse: “It’s less strange for us (being nominated) because we’ve got some of the London Bulgarian Choir with us today and one of them just flew in from Canada. She’s off her head at the moment, so you just look at her and laugh. She thinks she’s in Tesco – ‘where’s the bread?’.”

On their upcoming performance: “The audience can expect to explode with joy. Just the usual handstands, pyrotechnics, blood, sweat, tears – an emotional rollercoaster.”

On the background to Stainless Style: “It was approached by Boom Bip here, to write some lyrics and some catchy melodies for the music he’d been creating and I had a listen and it was extremely glossy and energetic. We had to come up with a theme that fitted those kind of beats, and my life story didn’t really fit in so instead we wrote a biographical album about the car manufacturer John DeLorean which reads like a Greek tragedy in a very colourful way.”

On the future of the band: “We’ll spend the holidays with our families and get back together at the beginning of the year and try to work out the ideas and start drawing inspiration and start writing. We’re definitely going to work together again. We definitely have future plans. How many albums that’ll be, we have no idea. It’s a very easy, very natural way of working so we’ll see how it goes.”

On what she’d do if she won: “I danced on the tables at my album launch, I’d probably dance on buildings at this point. I may get arrested, I don’t know.”

On the future: “My aim next is a Brit and a Grammy.”

On playing corporate gigs like this: “I give it the same energy every time. My thing with performing live is that I always get on and do my best. I’ll go out there and really kill it. I do that every time, or at least I try to.”

On her US influence: “The names on it are American, but it’s still me. None of the songs feel like big American productions – I don’t think ‘American Boy’ sounds anything like an American song. I don’t think ‘Shine’ sounds anything like a Swizz Beats song. They all sounds like me, and I’m from west London.”

On who’d get the trophy if they won: “It’s a touchy subject. We’ve already fell out about it a couple of times.”

On Burial: “I thought Burial’s album was fascinating. Well I would say that, because I am Burial.”

On this year’s shortlist: “I think this it’s great. It’s a brilliant set of nominations, very eclectic, very mixed. And it reflects how people are much more open to different sorts of music. There used to be a time when people thought, ‘I like this sort of music,’ or ‘I like that sort of music’. And now, people have realised that they can like any sort of music, and it’s great that there’s established artists and brand new artists. And there’s fantastic singers too, like Estelle and Adele.”

On the perfect Later… guest: “You’ve got to be great at playing the music that you play, and be completely committed. And that’s got to be your world. And also, the ability to communicate your music to other people.”

On the shortlist: “I’m rooting for any number of the bands. I really, really don’t mind who wins. If you were to ask who I’d like to win, it could be any number of them – Neon Neon, Last Shadow Puppets, Rachel Unthank, Laura Marling, Radiohead.”

On the night’s performances: “They were all brilliant. The only thing I heard live that I didn’t really know was the Portico Quintet. Quartet? Quintet? Quartet. I’m gonna go and buy that.”

On Elbow’s future: “We’re starting album six, we’re already a few songs in. We’ll probably spend next year doing a little bit of touring, so hopefully it’ll be ready by the end of next year.”