The Courteeners eye chart success

Despite heading for the top of the UK chart, The Courteeners say they've called their debut album St Jude because they need all the help they can get.

The Manchester band named the LP after the patron saint of lost causes.

The album looks headed for the top three on Sunday and the band have been confirmed for the Glastonbury festival.

Of the album title, frontman Liam Fray told Newsbeat: "We need someone looking after us."

The Courteeners decamped to London's famous Olympic Studios, where bands including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Oasis have made records.

But the band say the biggest challenge in recording St Jude, was moving outside of their native Manchester.

Fray said: "The only difficulty was being in the same hotel room for six weeks.

Liam and Campbell from The Courteeners

"We didn't really think to change rooms with each other, so you're with the same person for six weeks.

"It's stressful enough living with a girlfriend or wife or partner, we were living in each other's pockets but we came out the other side, nobody got killed."

Hot for 2008

Hotly tipped by many music journalists for a successful 2008, it is almost a relief for the band that reviews of St Jude have been, largely, positive.

Fray said: "What I don't like is when it's personal. When it's about the music, it's fine but unfortunately a lot of reviews aren't.

"But I've not read a bad one. They've all been fantastic but I don't go out my way to read them.

"I'm just really proud of it."

The front cover is a little painting I did and it's such a strong image Liam Fray

On top of the confirmed Glastonbury date, are shows at T in the Park and V2008. The band are also one gig into a 16 date tour of the UK.

Their first headline tour last December sold out with tickets for shows in Manchester and London going in hours. They followed it with more live dates in January and February.

Fray said: "The last tour we did was like 30 gigs in 35 days and I thought, 'Are we gonna be alive by the end of this?'

"London is always brilliant and it's the same size venue as Manchester, around 2000, and for us to play to 2000 people in London is brilliant."

Festival prices

But the band are quick to point out that they want fans to have the same experience at one of the gigs as they will do at one of their festival dates.

Drummer Michael Campbell said: "We treat every gig the same whether it's 2000 people in Swansea or 10,000 people in Beijing."

There are mounting calls to make festival tickets cheaper as more and more UK music fans snap up tickets to festivals in Europe.

But Fray reckons the prices are all relative.

He said: "If they sell 80,000 tickets at that price then in a business sense, they're not gonna bring down the price if the demand is there.

"Going to a football game is expensive."

St Jude is out this week, the next single will be No You Didn't, No You Don't on 23 June.