Courteeners talk Glastonbury history and new music: “It’s like Mac Miller covering Leonard Cohen”

nme.com:

NME caught up with Courteeners‘ Liam Fray backstage at Glastonbury 2023, where the frontman told us about the impact of playing the festival and what to expect from the two new albums on the way.The Manchester indie veterans were up against Foo Fighters’ secret Pyramid Stage set as The Churnups, but still pulled an impressive crowd to their early evening set on Woodsies – formerly known as The John Peel Tent.“Eighth time lucky, it was pretty special,” Fray told NME after their set. “That was the most nervous I’ve ever been for a show.

But people just want to come and sing some songs with you and have a good time. Isn’t that mad? The stress can be running around your mind but when you break it dow, isn’t it nice?

People in a field singing your songs. Fucking great.“The excitement of the people coming here is palpable. These gigs are 99 per cent of our lives, but you realise that your set is less than one per of this whole thing.”Fray continued: “We’re enjoying the longevity thing – we weren’t cool in the first place, we’re not cool now, there’s no pedestal.”After their set, Fray said he was planning on catching sets from Maggie Rogers, Badly Drawn Boy and Christine & The Queens across the weekend.

After Glastonbury, he’ll be turning his attention to completing two Courteeners albums – one of which was previously slated to be a solo release.“We’ve have the time to be afforded the chance to do anything we fucking want,” he said. “I mean that in the freest sense.