Jarvis Cocker on judging the Booker prize: ‘It’s just like being in a band’

The singer on how being in Pulp prepared him for judging a literary prize, reading 163 books while on tour, and feeling like the odd one out on the panel

• M John Harrison becomes the first science fiction author to win the Booker prize

Judging the Booker prize is like being in a band. A band will often bring together a very disparate set of people, their only thing in common the fact they’re in the same group. And a good band takes account of the interests and strengths of its members – that’s how you get a unique sound. Being part of this year’s Booker prize judging panel – chaired by Mary Beard, and featuring the writers Patricia Lockwood, Raymond Antrobus and Rebecca Liu – felt much the same. We were all very different, but we had a common cause: to pick a good winner.

Both bands and Booker prize panels are, at least ostensibly, democracies (though in Pulp, I’m the singer, so I make more noise than everybody else). But they shouldn’t be bland democracies. Mary didn’t expect us to toe a party line, and our panel managed to avoid what can sometimes happen when you’re on a jury and you end up agreeing on the least offensive option.

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