Dublin based outfit Villagers have spoken of their surprise at featuring on the nominations for the Mercury Music Prize.
Each year the nominations for the Mercury Music Prize through up a few surprises. This year the panel has plucked some relative unknowns out of the hat, including Dublin based group Villagers.
Debut album 'Becoming A Jackal' was a critically acclaimed success, with the band's natural songwriting shining through. Nonetheless, the nomination has come as a surprise to both Villagers and their fans.
"It's a real honour and a definite surprise to be nominated," frontman Conor O'Brien told NME. "I wasn't even expecting it, there wasn't even a sense of 'maybe we'll get this', I'm super-surprised, it's something I never would have thought about."
Continuing, the singer insisted that he wanted to maintain his distance from the award. "The thing about prizes, it's a real honour to be included but I want to maintain a little bit of distance from it because I want to keep creative, I want keep writing and I think if you get obsessed too much with stuff like this then it's not too good for your song-writing."
Nominated alongside Villagers are a number of maverick talents. The xx have been named as the bookie's favourites, while Kendal's silken voiced Wild Beasts lurk not far behind with their album 'Two Dancers'.
Villagers star O'Brien struggled to split the two. "I really like the Wild Beasts album" he said. "I think there is a lot of space to it and I really dig it - its kinda groovy too. It's one album I've come back to consistently since it has was released. I also dig The XX album, I've only just started listening to it and again I get that kind of spatial vibe to it."
The singer insisted that even if Villagers won the prize the money would not change them. "Winning would mean I could take the band with me (on tour) a lot more. At the moment, the reason we're not doing that is money, we're getting up to that position anyway, but the prize money would go towards that or probably into recording the next album" he said.
"Either way it would gradually make its way back into the band. I don't think I would go out and buy a boat or something."
The winner of the Mercury Music Prize will be announced on September 7th.