The Courteeners

Making his name as a singer-songwriter at solo acoustic shows around Manchester, Liam Fray started writing songs while working in a Fred Perry clothing store, inspired by the shop's soundtrack of The Strokes, The Beatles and Motown. Teaming up with schoolmates Michael Campbell, Daniel Moores and Mark Cuppello in 2004 to form The Courteneers, the band quickly built up a large local following before working with Blur and The Smiths' producer Stephen Street on debut album 'St. Jude' (2008). It proved a big success, reaching number four in the UK Albums Chart, and included top 20 singles 'What Took You So Long' and 'Not Nineteen Forever'. The band went on to play Glastonbury, T in the Park and V Festivals before two huge homecoming gigs at Manchester Apollo. Buoyed by praise from their hero Morrissey, second album 'Falcon' (2010) received an 8/10 rating from the NME and the lads were set to fill the void left by Oasis as the unofficial "band of the people" - in Manchester at least. Subsequent albums 'Anna' (2013), 'Concrete Love' (2014) and 'Mapping the Rendezvous' (2016) also charted well, with 'Anna' reaching number six, 'Concrete Love' number three and 'Mapping the Rendezvous' number four on the UK Albums Chart. It was shortly before the release of 'Anna' that the band dropped the 'The' from their name and became known solely as Courteeners. In 2015, the band's bassist, Cuppello, left the band and Joe Cross filled his place. In 2020, they returned with 'More. Again. Forever.', featuring the singles 'Heavy Jacket' and 'Better Man' and the titular track 'More. Again. Forever.'.

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