{"id":545145,"date":"2026-04-22T19:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T19:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/545145\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T19:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T19:12:08","slug":"im-not-famous-but-i-cant-go-to-the-chippy-courteeners-liam-fray-on-filling-stadiums-defying-extinction-and-wearing-ms-pants-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/545145\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m not famous. But I can\u2019t go to the chippy\u2019: Courteeners\u2019 Liam Fray on filling stadiums, defying extinction \u2013 and wearing M&S pants | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester has yet to erect a structure that hometown boys Courteeners<\/a> cannot sell out. But tonight, a stadium band is squeezed into the narrowest of venues. At a heaving Night & Day cafe, disbelieving fans snap photos of their entry wristbands to a rare intimate show in honour of a new greatest hits collection. \u201cTwenty years,\u201d marvels frontman Liam Fray, contemplating his band\u2019s lifespan. \u201cYou don\u2019t get rid of us that easily.\u201d For most of the audience there has barely been a Manchester without them.<\/p>\n

Charlotte, 18, has seen Courteeners at their enormous Heaton Park shows. \u201cAll my friends like them,\u201d she says. Greater Manchester<\/a> mayor Andy Burnham tells me he became a fan through his son. Paul, 56, has seen them more than 100 times. \u201cThere\u2019s not many actual bands any more,\u201d he says, which seems key to their appeal.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI did a photoshoot in a Cortina but I can\u2019t drive, so someone pushed the car. Such a metaphor<\/p>\n

Arriving in 2008 as British guitar groups were becoming extinct, Courteeners survived a critical backlash to become one of their generation\u2019s most enduring bands. They fill big rooms nationwide and huge fields at home. It\u2019s left Fray with a complex profile. \u201cI\u2019m not famous,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I can\u2019t go to the chippy.\u201d He recently overheard a secondary school band practising in the same rehearsal unit that Courteeners use. They thrashed out a crisp Not Nineteen Forever, his band\u2019s signature hit. Delighted, Fray went and had photos with the stunned kids. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone multi-generational,\u201d he says proudly.<\/p>\n

Days before the Night & Day show, Fray, 40, greets me at the rehearsal unit where the band also keep an office. He\u2019s strikingly tall and warm, if nervous. \u201cI\u2019m a social creature,\u201d he says, ushering me to a sofa. \u201cBut I find people overwhelming and awkward.\u201d Since school he has navigated \u201coff-the-scale\u201d social anxiety. He recently become a father, which he says has made him more positive. Of the band anxiety that once gave him sleepless nights, he says: \u201cI can look at myself and go, \u2018This isn\u2019t as important as you think.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Fray was once typecast as the heir to the Gallaghers\u2019 throne, but swaggering sits awkwardly with him. In 2020, he began talking publicly about his experiences with depression \u2013 today \u201cfairly mild\u201d, but persistent. It began during his first flush of fame. \u201cNot being good enough,\u201d was part of it, but also \u201cthe comments section, the pressure, the lack of routine\u201d. Drink helped, \u201cbut then you\u2019re in a vicious cycle.\u201d And then there\u2019s the downtime between tours. \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to sit at home for six months,\u201d he says, \u201cand then go up and be Freddie Mercury? It fucks you up a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

He managed by adopting a classic frontman persona: slagging off rivals, hyping his band. When he begins to say he was a dick during the band\u2019s early years, he stops and apologises \u2013 to himself. \u201cYou know what that is?\u201d he says, reflecting on his often severe internal monologue. \u201cThat\u2019s, \u2018Who the fuck are the Courteeners?\u2019\u201d He reconsiders. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s an ego there,\u201d he says, hand on chest. \u201cAnd if there ever was, it was a defence mechanism because I felt out of place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fray was born in 1985 to teacher parents in the north Manchester<\/a> town of Middleton. \u201cHard work, compassion and empathy were instilled in us from a young age,\u201d says Fray. His future could have been football (he was a ballboy for Manchester United) but VHS tapes of Oasis and the Beatles turned him into an indie kid. He credits a teenage job at Manchester\u2019s Fred Perry clothes shop with his creative awakening: NMEs in the staff room, flyers for every gig in the city. \u201cI wrote Cavorting\u201d \u2013 his second-ever song, Courteeners\u2019 debut single \u2013 \u201con a Fred Perry compliments slip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dangerous work \u2026 Courteeners at Glastonbury in 2010 \u2013 Fray\u2019s tiptoe singing has caused arthritis. Photograph: Andy Willsher\/Redferns<\/p>\n

Seeing songwriter Stephen Fretwell live inspired Fray to make a go of music, while \u201cpretentious\u201d parties in Manchester gave him something to rail against. \u201cI seemed like the terrace hooligan,\u201d he says of his mod haircut and ever-present Middleton crew, but the \u201cdiscomfort\u201d excited him. It inspired the snarling, hyper-local diss tracks Acrylic and Fallowfield Hillbilly, defending \u201cthe normal kids\u201d against a perceived hip elite. \u201cIt was insecurity,\u201d he says, calling the songs \u201ctongue-in-cheek, satirical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fray loved the Strokes, the Libertines, the Cribs, and kept expecting a Manchester equivalent, so created his own. He started a band, corralling friends and neighbours \u2013 drummer Michael Campbell, guitarist Daniel Conan Moores, bassist Mark Cuppello (who left in 2015) \u2013 and they began gigging in 2006. Fray knew \u201csomething was happening\u201d at one packed early show. When his microphone broke during Bide Your Time, a demo available on their Myspace, he panicked. \u201cWe carried on playing, and the whole place sang the second verse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fray\u2019s songs began attracting industry attention. He thought signing with a major was \u201cselling out\u201d, but went with Polydor anyway. He fluffed his first NME interview by drunkenly taking potshots at the entire indie class of 2007, which he now regrets \u2013 mostly. \u201cIf you work at Lloyds TSB and you\u2019re in All Bar One,\u201d he says, \u201ca colleague\u2019s going to get slagged off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greatest hits \u2026 Courteeners at their intimate Night & Day gig. Photograph: Rachel Adams\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The moment didn\u2019t last. That era\u2019s gold rush on guitar acts was quickly disparaged as \u201clandfill indie\u201d. \u201cWe were unfashionable to start with,\u201d says Fray of their predicament, \u201cbut now guitar music itself is unfashionable.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he moved to New York. Fray had fallen for an American woman. He wrote the band\u2019s second album there, 2010\u2019s Falcon. But its big swing towards Elbow-style anthemics stalled commercially. On the first night of that album\u2019s tour, Fray left a dinner to take a call. Polydor were dropping them. \u201cI went back in and didn\u2019t tell anybody,\u201d he says. \u201cDidn\u2019t tell them for the rest of the tour.\u201d He stayed up that night drinking, then flew to Heathrow for a photoshoot. \u201cI had to get in a Ford Cortina for Q Magazine. I can\u2019t drive, so someone was pushing the car. I thought, \u2018This is such a metaphor.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What might have been the end became an unexpected second act. \u201cThe music industry will kick you around like an empty Pot Noodle,\u201d Fray shrugs, but he knew their audience was loyal: at gigs, \u201cI saw too many people having a good time.\u201d He left America when his relationship ended. Courteeners signed with indie label Pias. Critics remained unimpressed by 2013\u2019s Anna and 2014\u2019s Concrete Love albums, but the band transferred their ambition to the live market.<\/p>\n

For years, Courteeners had been reliably selling out Manchester\u2019s arena. In 2015, they sold out the city\u2019s massive Heaton Park. It fitted a pattern of northern indie bands thriving thanks to devout regional support. (They\u2019ve sold the venue out twice since.) Burnham remembers how their shows brought young Mancunians together first after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. The Saturday after the attacks, they turned their Old Trafford stadium show into a statement of unity. Fray read a Ryan Williams poem celebrating a \u201ccity of tracksuits and bibles and burqas\u201d. For Burnham, any backlash against them is \u201cwhat generations of northerners have found. People get punished for being completely true to where they are from\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hometown hero \u2026 Fray at the Night & Day. Photograph: Rachel Adams\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

For the new Courteeners greatest hits, Fray wrote two new songs: the romantic Plus One Forever and the plaintively catchy The Luckiest Man Alive. Courteeners once vividly catalogued Manchester hedonism, but the latter\u2019s target, a 4×4-driving pub bore, is suburban. It\u2019s a lifestyle that Fray is \u201cleaning into\u201d. He rhapsodises about National Trust membership, M&S menswear and The Rest is Entertainment podcast. \u201cIronically,\u201d says Fray, whose songwriting is studded with everyday markers from Debenhams to Parker pens, aren\u2019t those boring details exactly \u201cwhat people are interested in?\u201d<\/p>\n

Fray learned to enjoy the practical aspects of managing his depression: using the alcohol reduction app Reframe; setting his alarm to catch the sunrise; gratitude journalling. \u201cThe gratitude list is so nice,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you start noticing things, it\u2019s amazing.\u201d It fed into his songwriting, and 2020s songs Take It on the Chin and the jangling Better Man interrogated the awkwardness of therapy and his evolving take on masculinity. \u201cThat\u2019s why the lads like us,\u201d he suggests.<\/p>\n

He was recently diagnosed with arthritis in both feet from years of perching on his tiptoes to lean into the microphone, and wakes most days in pain. \u201cIt\u2019s injections for the rest of my life,\u201d he says. But it\u2019s not going to stop Fray from giving fields full of people joyful memories with their friends: inside the surging, sweaty Night & Day, lads have their arms around other lads, bellowing Fray\u2019s songs at the stage. Bands, he warns darkly, become a \u201cpermanent adolescence\u201d. Now he\u2019s making up for lost time. His 40s are for \u201cfinding out who I am. Because I was just in the Courteeners.\u201d He flashes a smile. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a lot for anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

God Bless the Band: The Very Best of Courteeners is released via Ignition on 28 August. The band tour the UK from July<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester has yet to erect a structure that hometown boys Courteeners cannot sell out. But tonight, a stadium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-545145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}