Alt-J, the Indy rock band for Leeds, England, have revealed that they experimented with hallucinogenic drugs at the beginning of their career. The band recently received the Mercury Prize on Thursday 1st November 2012, and revealed that they never took drugs during the writing sessions for their songs.

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In an interview with 'The Daily Star', frontman Joe Newman explained: "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."

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After rehearsing for two years, Alt-J recorded their critically acclaimed studio debut album 'An Awesome Wave', which went on to beat 11 other acts to win the prestigious prize and the 32 thousand USD paycheque. Newman has revealed that the prize money will be used carefully, explaining that: "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."