The Courteeners

Courteeners
The Courteeners performing at the OXEGEN '08 festival in Ireland
Background information
Origin	Middleton, Greater Manchester, England
Genres	Indie rock Post-Britpop Post-punk revival Synthpop
Years active	2006–present
Labels	Polydor PIAS Cooperative Ignition Records
Website	thecourteeners.com
Members	Liam Fray Michael Campbell Daniel "Conan" Moores
Past members	Mark Cuppello

Courteeners are an English indie rock band formed in Middleton in 2006 by Liam Fray (guitar/vocals), Michael Campbell (drums/backing vocals), Daniel "Conan" Moores (guitar) and Mark Cuppello (bass); the latter was replaced by the band's producer Joe Cross in 2015. They also tour with pianist Adam Payne, who has been featured on every album. In December 2012, the band dropped the "The" from their name, continuing simply as "Courteeners".

They have released five studio albums: St. Jude (2008), Falcon (2010), Anna (2013), Concrete Love (2014) and Mapping the Rendezvous (2016); as well as several EPs and two DVD albums.

All the music and lyrics for the Courteeners' songs are written by the band's frontman Liam Fray. He claims that all of the songs he has written are about personal experiences.

The band members have known each other since they were ten years old. All members of the band are from Middleton: Fray and Moores attended Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School in Middleton while Mark Cuppello attended St Monica's RC High School in Prestwich and Michael Campbell attended St Cuthbert's RC High School in Rochdale.

At first Fray studied business studies at university, however soon realised it was a lot harder than he thought and not what he wanted to do. Therefore, he chose to study Creative Writing as he enjoyed writing poetry and short stories, but not reading. While at the University of Salford (studying Creative Writing), Fray started performing acoustic sets as a singer-songwriter around bars and at open-mic nights in Manchester. After getting positive reactions from the crowd, Fray decided to leave university and form a band. Liam recruited long-time friend and neighbour Michael Campbell, who had never played the drums before. They played as 'Liam Fray' until Moores and Cuppello joined the band.