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It wasn't planned - it could have been someone with a piano -

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"It wasn't planned - it could have been someone with a piano - but we knew Abi and we thought a bit of sax would be good." Theirs was an entirely organic union, insists McCabe: "No one wanted to say, 'join my band'," he says. "We stood out." The guitarist Boyan Chowdhury, the band's quietest member, probably stood out the most - thanks to his smouldering indie-heart-throb looks and his penchant for carrying his sitar around Liverpool with him. He says nothing while my tape-recorder's rolling, but will later explain candidly how, as a boy, he sacrificed a cow as part of a religious ceremony while staying with his family in rural Bangladesh.The addition of drama-and-dance student Harding, who is also Payne's girlfriend, to the band was something of an afterthought. Mutual appreciation brought them together: "We liked the way each other played," says Payne." We were all a bit different," says McCabe. In fact, they only bothered to get themselves a manager at the beginning of this year, when they needed help keeping track of their growing calendar of live commitments."I met our drummer Sean [Payne] in a chippy," says McCabe brightly, outling his band's haphazard genesis.

Liverpool, say The Zutons, is a small place, and while only Payne and the bass-player Russell Pritchard had actually known each other before forming The Zutons (they played together in a band called The Big Kids), the remaining members had seen each other around town for years. Having garnered press attention within months of forming (on the back of the Coral-led explosion of Liverpool bands), their progress has been more of a meandering stroll than a heads-down sprint. And, to top it off, thanks to heavy rotation on TV the sweetly lolloping break-up song "Confusion" is becoming to Citro? what Aqualung's "Strange and Beautiful" was to the VW Beetle.But while 2004 has undoubtedly seen a steady and impressive rise to prominence for The Zutons, they're certainly not a band who were always on a fast track to the top. Though the band lost out to art-rockers Franz Ferdinand, just being nominated was enough for The Zutons "I'm dead happy about it," says McCabe.

"Until then only thing we'd ever won were fans at gigs - just being nominated was where we won really. If we'd actually won, it would have been too big a thing - there'd be too much pressure on us."McCabe is not being disingenuous; he appears to mean every word: for The Zutons, winning is unnecessary. Thanks to both their association with the Mercury Prize and their phenomenal festival shows, since its April release Who Killed The Zutons? has become one of the year's smouldering hits, scoring three Top 40 singles - the frantic "Pressure Point", the electrified, blues-ridden "You Will You Won't", and "Remember Me", a heartfelt plea to a love-struck best mate. Their feverish debut album, Who Killed The Zutons? was deservedly shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize.

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