English Teacher say it shouldn’t be novelty that Northern band win Mercury Prize

Indie band English Teacher said it is “insane” that they mark the first act from outside London to win the Mercury Prize in a decade.

The four-piece group, who met while studying at the Leeds Conservatoire in 2020, won the prestigious award for their debut album This Could Be Texas.

Judges said the album stood out for its “originality and character” and revealed “new depths on every listen; the mark of a future classic”.

The band, which features guitarist Lewis Whiting, drummer Douglas Frost, bassist Nicholas Eden and vocalist Lily Fontaine, are the first act from outside London to win the prize since Young Fathers in 2014.

“To be honest, it’s insane that that’s a fact,” Whiting told the PA news agency after the win.

“There’s so much good music, not just in Leeds, but plenty of places, smaller places as well, that often don’t get too much of a look in from the music industry that’s very centred around here (London).

“How many classic albums and how many bands have come from those places, yet it’s a novelty that a band from the North would win the Mercury Prize – it is kind of insane really.”

He said representing the North as part of their win was “so important because otherwise the music industry becomes really homogenous and really boring”.

Whiting joked that he would be “horrendously hungover” and “crawl onto the train” back home on Friday morning after celebrating their win – announced during a ceremony at Abbey Road Studios on Thursday evening.

The award, presented by DJ Jamz Supernova, recognises the best British or Irish album of the year.

English Teacher beat competition from the likes of pop singer Charli XCX, Irish singer CMAT, rising star Cat Burns, and indie outfit The Last Dinner Party.

Frost told PA that the group “didn’t prepare anything” to say on stage as they were not expecting the win, describing their speech as “complete chaos”.

“We are very unorganised people so I think, if anything, it’s true to ourselves,” Whiting joked.

During the speech, Fontaine gave a shout out to her mother, who she said did the artwork for the album cover.

She later told PA: “I made the artwork before we finished the album, so it was my mum’s painting and then it’s this sort of weird, meaty, alien musical machine…Mechanical meaty machine and I put it on top of it, and I really liked how it looked.

“It was just a piece of artwork that I wanted to make using my mum’s work and my own.

“And then when we finished the album…it just felt like it fit.

“It was only afterwards that it actually really fit the themes as well, I realised.

“It’s (a) bit surreal, bit in-between. It’s all about in-between’s really, the album, and I feel that cover is in-between something.”

English Teacher are set to head to the US on tour with British rock band Idles next week, before returning for a European tour and a UK tour in the winter.

Last year, Ezra Collective became the first jazz group to win the Mercury Prize, taking the prestigious music award with their second studio album Where I’m Meant To Be.