THE morning after the night before, Klaxons' Bournemouth- born bass player Jamie Reynolds was still buzzing from his band's unexpected Nationwide Mercury Music Prize victory on Tuesday.

"I'm sooo drunk, happy but drunk, just going round Trafalgar Square," he said.

"But not surprised, no, not at all. I wanted it and it happened, but I was a bit put out because at one point it looked like it wasn't going to happen, after the live performances, but it did and that's right. Yes, of course I'm pleased, of course I am."

Klaxons bagged the £20,000 prize after their debut album, Myths of the Near Future, took the judges on "an ecstatic musical adventure", the award's panel said.

In accepting the prize, 26-year-old Jamie - who grew up above the Criterion pub in Bournemouth town centre and worked in Borders bookstore in The Square before leaving for London - said he felt Klaxons deserved the prize more than bookies' early favourite Amy Winehouse.

"It wasn't about putting one over Amy Winehouse, not at all," he told me.

"It's just that I feel our record is forward-looking and hers relies on things that have happened in the past. It's good for new music."

Jamie and his fellow Klaxons, keyboard player James Righton and guitarist Simon Taylor, also pocketed a grand windfall of their own after each bet £100 on their album winning at odds of 12-1.

The award comes in the best tradition of the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize which has consistently celebrated the best in new British music, regardless of sales figures. Once again the winner confounded music industry hype and bookies' tips with pundits predicting a second win for Arctic Monkeys or Dizzee Rascal; or a first for the favourite, singer-songwriter Natasha Khan, known as Bat For Lashes.

As he received the award at London's Grosvenor House Hotel, Jamie also said: "A year ago, we were recording this album, and we were watching the Arctic Monkeys collecting their Mercury, and we were thinking: We're also going to make a great album'. The award's about great music, and that's what we've made."