Courteeners front man Liam Fray has revealed the minute the Mancunian rockers knew they’d made it – when they played the King Tut’s tent at T in The Park last year.

The group, who play the O2 Academy next week, are rapidly becoming one of the biggest acts in the country, thanks to their mixture of passionate live gigs, anthemic songs and frontman Liam’s charisma.

But while both their albums have been chart hits, and won over fans like Morrissey, Ian Brown and Noel Gallagher, Liam reckons it was last year’s Balado festival that brought home how well the band were doing.

“After we toured with Morrissey, we only had a couple of shows lined up, and one of them was T,” he recalls.

“It was absolutely unbelievable. We hadn’t done UK shows for a long time and everything just felt right when we walked on, the atmosphere was electric. That was something special, and we’re really pleased we’re doing it again this year.”

After their festival appearances, the band retreated to the studio to finish off their second album, Falcon. As you might expect from a singer who’s known for making headline-grabbing statements, Liam reckons the album is a huge improvement on 2008’s St Jude.

However, while he’s clearly got plenty of self confidence, he’s not quite the loudmouth he’s made out to be. In person, he’s a more thoughtful character than might be expected, particularly when explaining why Falcon is a major step up.

“I felt a lot more confident in the studio this time,” he says.

“For the first album, with Stephen Street, we didn’t really know what we were doing – we weren’t naïve, but we really just went in and did it without thinking. This time I was a lot more aware of my surroundings and more confident.

We did a lot of demos in Manchester, and had written quite a bit while we were on tour with Morrissey. We did them in batches, so we weren’t sitting round saying let’s make it sound like this, it was all very organic.

“We’ve just got a lot better with our instruments, I didn’t approach writing it in a different way. I did write bits and bobs on the piano, or keyboards, but most of it was still written on an acoustic guitar.”

There’s something quite endearing about the way Liam talks about songwriting. He clearly considers it one of the most important parts of his life, and points out that he’s always writing ideas down into a little notebook.

“My two biggest downfalls are clumsiness and the fact I always lose stuff,” he says.

“Now, I’ve never broken a bone, and I’ve never lost my notebook – which is weird because I lose phones, or wallets, but never the lyrics book and I think that’s quite nice – it shows how important it is to me!”

However, it’s not just Liam’s songs that helped the band get attention. His mouth landed them coverage too, thanks to a string of claims he made about the group being the best in the country, and certain digs at other acts. While Liam admits he may have got carried away with some of his comments, he doesn’t see anything wrong with the band believing in themselves.

“When you say things like you think you’re in a great band, I honestly don’t see anything wrong with that,” he says.

“We’re not going to sit here and say ‘oh, we’re alright but not that good – don’t bother coming to see us’. If you get onstage with a guitar, you have to believe you’re the best around.”

And the Courteeners certainly have some famous fans. Morrissey asked the group to support him on his tour of America last year, and they’ll be joining Noel Gallagher when the former Oasis man plays a one-off gig at the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust. And, despite the warning never to meet your idols, Liam’s meetings with his heroes have lived up to his expectations so far.

We’re supporting Noel in a few weeks – it’s the stuff dreams are made of. In the last couple of years we’ve met Ian Brown, Morrissey and Johnny Marr – they’ve all been mega!

“These are guys that have been on top of their game for 20 years, but at the same time, we feel we’re up for playing alongside them – Morrissey didn’t ask us to tour for no reason, he asked us to tour because we’re good.

“Johnny Marr was great – we met him at a gig we did in Manchester with the Cribs. He came in and he never put his guitar down – that spoke volumes that he still doesn’t let it out of his sight. With Morrissey we just chatted about the previous night’s gig and stuff like that.”

And with their biggest tour set to kick off, hot on the heels of a huge, one-off homecoming gig last year at the 10,000 capacity Manchester Central venue,

Liam has every reason to be cheerful.

“We sold like 7,000 tickets on the first day for the Central show – when you get that news during making your second record, it’s definitely a good thing, as it buoyed us, and made us feel confident. If we’d only sold 200 tickets I don’t know what we’ve have done.

“Some bands get a song on the radio, and go straight to the big arenas – that could turn a lot of bands loopy. We’ve worked our way up. This is like our eighth or ninth tour in two years and that’s the way it should be, you cut your teeth that way. Everything feels good in the Courteeners camp right now.”

• The Courteeners, O2 Academy, Wednesday March 24, £16, 7pm.