‘When it went double platinum, Andy Burnham gave us the award’: how Courteeners made Not Nineteen Forever

‘If you don’t do this with me, I’ll be playing acoustic guitar in pubs for ever’ … Liam Fray of the Courteeners. Photograph: Edd Westmacott/Avalon/Getty Images

Liam Fray, songwriter/vocals, guitar

I had the lyrics to Not Nineteen Forever before the band existed. They were in a little red book of poems and scribbles that got me a place on the creative writing course at the University of Salford. Most of what became the songs for our first album, St Jude, were in that book. As well as uni, I was working in a shop and spending five nights a week at the Night & Day bar in Manchester, but in a nightclub I’d be the dude scribbling in the corner while everyone else was dancing or copping off.