Local boys Matt Thomson, Chris Alterton and Elliot Brigg formed rock band The Amazons in 2014 and their first album reached the top ten of the album charts “certainly putting this Reading band on the map”, said their nominator for the award.
The Amazons were included in the BBC’s Sound of 2017 and MTV’s Brand New 2017, they added.
Over the past decade the band has played across the UK. The nominator added: “The Amazons are a Reading band for Reading people, playing local venues, a regular slot at Readipop and Reading Festival.
“Matt, Chris and Elliot’s support for Reading Football Club is well known, culminating this year with a set at the SCL Stadium for the last game of the season which also heralded the announcement that Rob Couhig and Todd Trosclair were about to sign the deal to buy Reading FC.”
The Amazons “have been putting Reading on the Map for over 10 years and deserve to be considered for this Pride of Reading award,” the nominator said.
After taking to the stage to accept their award, frontman Matt Thomson said: : “It feels very humbling– a lot of the other nominations are demonstrating selfless and community-driven people.
“I got a sense of humility of everyday people putting time and effort into things beyond themselves–it made our contribution feel a little trivial if I’m honest, so it’s humbling.
“It did come as a surprise; we’ve always been proud of being from Reading, and the temptation of a lot of bands is to be pulled into bigger places like London and tap into those cultural hubs, but we’ve always wanted to write our own history here.”
Guitarist Chris Alderton said: “We do so much of our work behind closed doors, it can be easy to forget that people care about what we’re doing, so this feels like the reward, the payback.”
As to whether the band would be celebrating, Matt said: “We’ve just been told we’ve been given the Golden Key to the Purple Turtle, so we’ll either be heading there, or to The Alliance, which is one of the last old-school boozers– and a huge shoutout to the Alehouse too!”
