Franz Ferdinand scoop Mercury Prize

Scottish art-rockers Franz Ferdinand tonight scooped the prestigious Mercury music prize with their debut album.

The Glasgow-based four-piece band were firm favourites with the bookies to win the honour and walked away with a £20,000 cheque.

Their debut album has sold over a million copies worldwide since its release in February this year and has also been heavily praised by the music critics.

Dressed to impress Franz Ferdinand stormed the charts with a manifesto to make girls dance using guitar riffs last heard amid the death throes of punk.

Their biggest single, Take Me Out, has a famed opening riff which has sent dancefloors wild across Britain all year.

The Scottish band are the standard-bearers for Britain’s “artrock” movement, which is inspired by everything from Joy Division to Talking Heads.

Franz Ferdinand, which was the name of an assassinated archduke, have also named obscure bands like Orange Juice and Josef K among their favourite artists.

They are part of a wider surge in guitar music which can rival dance tracks for DJs’ nightclub playlists.

For many, they are a welcome relief in a British music scene frequently criticised for pushing too many acts in thrall to conventional influences like The Beatles.

Their story is classic rock’n’roll folklore, a band who emerged from typically impoverished beginnings to become the toast of the music industry.

Lead singer Alex Kapranos was given a bass guitar by a friend near the end of 2001, “provided he did something useful with it”.

He in turn gave it to Bob Hardy, now bassist for Franz, who originally wanted to concentrate on his career as an artist.

Nicolas McCarthy, who met Alex at a party dressed like Adam Ant, eventually joined the band as guitarist while Paul Thomson became drummer.

The band’s first gig was in a friend’s bedroom and their next was in a disused warehouse in a part of Glasgow once known as the Gorbals, then infamous for its slums and poverty.

They even connected up electricity illegally in their base, called the Chateau, and used sunbeds to provide occasional light for hundreds of revellers.

But police soon broke up the fun and were forced to intervene again when the band used an old Victorian courtroom.

Famed independent label Domino Records soon signed them up and their second single, Take Me Out, released in January, reached number three in the charts.

Their self-titled album also entered the UK chart at number three the following month and has also gone gold in America.

The band has played across the world, wowed the Glastonbury music festival this summer and even won deals to wear designer clothes.