"Day off? Not really, mate. I've just about had time to get to Sainsbury's for a bottle of milk!"
Liam Fray is a busy young man. Gigwise has been on the poor lad's trail for a week now, interrupting recording sessions and soundchecks in the vain hope of getting 20 minutes of the charismatic frontman's time. But when you're the singer in The Courteeners – a band who are probably the best-equipped British group since the Arctic Monkeys to become really fucking massive – even your days off are spent working.
After days of chasing, we catch Fray on his mobile as he's walking to the band's rehearsal room in Salford. This time eight days days ago, The Courteeners would have been warming up for potentially the watershed gig of their young career. The band played in Camden and, for the first time, proved that the mass adulation they are already used to in Manchester could be generated in the capital.
"It was just lethal", says Fray, his broad tones cutting through the whistling of passing vehicles. "We did have quite a few down from Manchester, but even so, the place was packed. It was quite surreal." It's something that Fray and his fellow Courteeners – Campbell, Cuppello and Conan – are certain to encounter with increasing frequency now that copies of debut single 'Cavorting' have been flying off shelves as quickly as they were put there. "It'll be interesting to see how the gigs in other cities go now the single's out. When people know the words and the tunes, that's when they'll start to let themselves go," says Fray.
'Cavorting', a tale of coke-fuelled nights out in love with being young, is pretty much the perfect debut single for any band – but particularly so for The Courteeners, so resonant are its themes with anyone who has ever swaggered into a club feeling like Liam Gallagher and staggered out later like Frank Gallagher. Manc clichés aside, the song, along with b-side 'No You Didn't, No You Don't', genuinely does make you feel like a rock'n'roll star. Who were the last band to do this? Please don't say The View…
As apt an opening statement as the single may be, it's not so well known that the lead track was written while Fray was performing as a solo artist. However, there is no question of The Courteeners being simply a vehicle for the singer's own ambitions. "It was always going to be a band," he asserts. "I was just pissing about before. But when a few people started turning up, I thought – 'if it's gonna go off, it has to be with a band'. And it's not my band – it's OUR band. Definitely."
Things certainly are 'going off' for The Courteeners. 'Cavorting' might as well have been called 'Cavorting: Single of the Week', so often has the juxtaposition been used, but even before the reviews started to come in, the band had already booked a show at Manchester's sizeable Academy 2. It's hard for parallels not to be drawn with the ascent of Arctic Monkeys or even Oasis, though Fray acknowledges this can be a mixed blessing. "It is a hindrance, because straight away people are given an angle. If we'd have been from, say, Leeds or Liverpool, we wouldn't have got the Oasis thing nearly as much as we have done. Yeah, I'm called Liam and I've got the haircut, but that's pretty much it! Obviously they're a massive influence, but I can't hear it in our music, to be honest."
One other aspect of The Courteeners which has drawn comparisons with their fellow Mancunians has been their surety of purpose and hunger for great things. Fray was recently quoted as saying that the band were waiting for a major label to come along to back up the band's confidence. However, Fray feels that the soundbite in question was an unfair reflection of his feelings on the matter. "I don't know where that came from! It made us sound proper fucking pompous!" protests the Middleton man. "The 'needing a major label' thing is all bollocks – if you've got enough belief in what you're doing, you could put it out on your Nana's label! Obviously, there's advertising and all that, but if you look at the internet, word of mouth and all that stuff, then you see you can do it on your own."
The band are currently in talks with a couple of labels with a view to recording an album, though the second single – which is yet to be selected – is to follow their first on Loog Records. Fray claims that around six songs have been recorded, but they won't stop recording as long as the label is paying for the studio time. There is also a tour scheduled with The Coral, the Wirral's most resilient band since Half Man Half Biscuit.
With a work ethic that is the match of their tunes, confidence and magnetic personality, mainstream success for The Courteeners is seemingly inevitable – and probably very imminent. But are they any different from the other indie or rock'n'roll bands that have barged their way through the doors of the charts only to be swiftly ejected? Is anyone really listening to The Twang, for example? Tell us why, Mr Fray, the world needs The Courteeners now?
Fray ponders this before answering. "I think there's a lot of shit around – a lot of shit. We need bands like The Cribs – they tell the truth, y'know what I mean? Us – we're not taking anyone for a ride; we give it everything when we play live.
"I get annoyed when I hear people say, 'Oh, we sing about the nine-to-five grind'. Hasn't that been done for the past 40 fucking years? I'm not saying we're doing anything that groundbreaking, but they're just looking for a niche. I'm thinking, 'Hang on, how can you write about nine-to-five jobs being shit, and still expect people in those jobs to buy your album? How condescending is that?"
Fray's anger doesn't stop with the kitchen sink approach either. "What about when people say, 'We're an art band'? Why? What do you – sit there and paint pictures all day in the studio? All it is, is so people who are slightly elitist can get into it." OK, we know now what The Courteeners are railing against, but where do they fit into this bleak landscape of 22-grand jobs and art-school dropouts? "Well, I don't really like the term 'everyman band'. I don't like it, and I don't know if that's what we are, but I can certainly see why people might say it. I'd rather be that than turn round and say, 'We're artists'.
Perhaps, then, it's a case of The Courteeners existing outside any so-called scenes or movements, creating music that speaks honestly about life and rings clearly in the ears of anyone who has sought solace in The Smiths, copped off to The Strokes or squeezed their trainers on to The Jam. "People spend so much time wondering about what's in and what's not," ponders Fray. "And they're not having a good time. We're just having a good time, and if we can do that, and people can come to our gig and do that, then that's all that matters in the end."
Our time is virtually up, and we leave Fray to get back on with the business of making The Courteeners huge. Nevertheless, in 15 short minutes, including a short spell of being cut off, Gigwise has barely had to prompt him to speak, so sure is he of his band's opinions and visions. There's something of Jon McLure, Alex Turner and even Noel Gallagher about him, in that it feels like you're talking to your best mate and the most brilliantly cocksure rock star at the same time. Crucially, its Fray and The Courteeners' complete dismissal of trends and styles that could be their biggest weapon. Some bands, as the man says, choose a niche and set about going down that often-doomed path. Divide and conquer, if you will. The Courteeners, one suspects, will not be afraid to take us all on at once.
