Not far off 6pm. Local boys Delorentos finish a blistering set in front of a few thousand fans who know every word. The Coral are next, followed by Supergrass and then the Arctic Monkeys.

It would be the biggest crowd the band had ever played to. Close to 20,000 would sway, hug and throw wellies at the stage and each other. The next night they would do the same and on Friday Alex Turner, Jamie Cook, Nick O'Malley and Matt Helders would wow 70,000 on Glastonbury's Pyramid stage.

Two years after the Mercury Prize-winning Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not became the fastest-selling debut of all time, the Arctic Monkeys followed up with Favourite Worst Nightmare.

Here is a band growing into themselves, both musically and publicly . . . they have even agreed to do an interview, the only one in print to take place on Irish soil this year.

Guitarist Jamie and drummer Matt are sitting a little uncomfortably in the portacabin. The heater is on. There's a bowl of fruit on the table.

Less than two years ago you played Whelans in Dublin. How are you feeling when you see all the people outside, there just to see Arctic Monkeys?

Matt: "It's good like. We've 'ad about a week off, like. When we got 'ere and see all this we kept forgetting it's like a festival, seein' all the portacabins, all the stewards. Oh my god, we're 'ere again. It's a bit strange."

Jamie: "I suppose people always ask you how you feel about it. I suppose when you get a bit older and you have kids and that and then you realise, 'Oh my god, I had a f***in' laff.'" Matt: "Things have been 'appening so fast you don't have time for things to sink in. Sometimes when I'm at home I think 'f***ing 'ell I've done quite a lot this year. But you don't want to think about it too much."

What are your families like when you go back home?

Matt: "Sound, we always see the same people, the ones we grew up with like. They always ask how much fun are we having but we don't want to talk about it too much. They come out a lot. Our mams and dads are 'ere, like, and some of our mates . . . they come most places if they can."

Do they ever worry about you?

Jamie: "Oh probably but they would never tell us. I imagine they would. It's only natural. They probably trust our judgement because they brought us up."

If you weren't in a band what would you be expected to do for a living?

Matt: "I went to college [with Alex Turner] and that but I never really fancied going to uni. When it came to deciding whether to leave college, I didn't even finish filling out the forms.

Jamie: "I were a tiler, I done the apprenticeship and that and I were tiling so I'd probably still be doing that I would imagine, fulltime.

Where we're from in Sheffield, everybody is doing something like that. All my mates are like brickies or something. I wanted some money me, like. I didn't want to go to uni."

Are you sensible with your money?

Matt: "Yeah we are. We don't know really, we're not really bothered by it."

Jamie [laughing]: "We don't really have much anyway, we've got a bit."

Matt [laughing]: "I think I'll wait till I'm a bit older before I think about that. Or go, 'Shit , where did all that money go?'" Jamie: "I should have done that Vodafone advert."

Matt: "We don't do stupid things like spend money for the sake of it."

Do you party hard?

Matt: "Sometimes but not every night. We were out last night but it does get a bit much if you get drunk every night. You need a night off. At gigs there are so many opportunities to drink. You get it every day."

Jamie: "I drink a lot more at home, me. I know it sounds strange."

Matt: "Yeah, more regularly."

Jamie: "When I'm at home I go out way more."

Does touring take a lot out of you?

Matt: "When you first go home you don't know what to do."

Jamie: "Yeah, when you go home you stay in bed for a day or two and then you get up on Tuesday and want to do something and everyone's at work and you're like. . ."

Matt: "By the end of the week we'll call each other up and we're like, 'Let's go and practice.' That's what happened after touring the first album. We had two weeks off and after a week we just wanted to go again."

When you went home did you sit down and gather all the press that's been written about you?

Matt: "No."

Jamie: "My mam gets it all."

Matt: "If there's a big piece in Q magazine or something I'll read it but you get misquoted that much there's no point."

Jamie: "If you're just f***ing about or say something like 'f*** you' they end up putting it in bold on the cover or something."

Matt: "Even little things like they might put in a word you said like 'wicked' and I'm like I don't even use the word 'wicked'."

Jamie: "My mam gets all the press and shows me nan and stuff."

Do you ever get hurt by anything?

Jamie: "Nah, we have a laugh about it and we know that it's a load of bullshit. You get a bit of hammer off your mates. 'Oh your 'ont f***ing gossip page. . .'" Matt: "When there's something personal. When the first album were coming out press went round to our houses and round to Alex's nan's house and started takin' photos and we were like, this has nothin' to do with anything. When there are other people involved it's like we kind of like think it comes with it but our nan's not going to be like [laughing], 'Oh Matt's in a band I better get myself a press officer.'" For a long time you wouldn't do any interviews and then gradually that became the story. What has changed?

Matt: "It just depends. We think we best do it because they are going to write it anyway. Our press people are good like that; they will tell us if it's important. They know what happens if you don't do it because they have seen it happen to other people. We will go 'oh f*** it'. They say it's up to you but this might happen if you don't do it."

Jamie: "We don't mind doing press but a lot of the time you just find yourself repeating yourself."

Matt: "It's not that bad doing it but you don't want to be everywhere."

Jamie: "If you do 20 interviews about 15 of them are just repeating yourself." "[Laughing] In Japan we did a day of promo . . . six hours or summit like that. And then someone would walk in and you would look so rude int room and it gets so that as soon as they've asked the question you'd have answered it.

They'd say: 'What were album like?' so that would be my cue."

Matt: "If Alex went to the toilet you could answer his questions for him you've heard it that many times.

They'd ask summit about lyrics and I could answer it now: 'Yeah he writes like this. . .' When it were over it were like the end of school."

There's nothing in your contracts making you do press now?

Matt: "No no, we just didn't want to do any."

Jamie: "No the press day was the first time we did it and we were like why the f*** are we doing it? People said everybody does it and we were like, 'We don't want to do it.'" Matt: "It weren't some big plan like we wanted to be mysterious or summit. We just didn't want to be everywhere. And it's more fun and enjoyable like that."

Were there any bands that you felt had the right approach to the media?

Matt: "We were thinking bands like The Coral, they have a good profile."

Jamie: "Oasis, but they were totally different. They could do it but we couldn't do that."

Matt: "It's like Kasabian. . ."

Jamie: "Yeah, he can do it. If we did it like that all our mates would be like, 'What are you doing?'" How have you grown musically since forming?

Matt: "When we formed the band that's when we started playing. We were 16. We're still getting better, still learning new things. When we went back into the studio this time we realised we were much better."

Jamie: "Yeah, we've all come on even just with our knowledge of stuff. Me and Alex used to just have a distortion pedal each. You meet people you like and ask them stuff and they tell you all this technical stuff and I don't really know. The first album were much more straightforward. We just did it in 15 days and this one we had three months."

And you are always writing songs?

Matt: "We had time. A lot of people are always asking us about that but I suppose if you're a songwriter that's what you do. You don't just think, 'Oh I've got to make an album.'" As sound starts to come from the stage the boys start shuffling in their chairs.

Do you want to go out and see The Coral?

Jamie: "Yeah, if you don't mind."

What time is it on at?

Jamie: "Quarter past six."

What time is it now?

Matt: "Ten past, they must be on early."

Oh go on so.

Jamie: "Sound."

Young punks

ON the back of next to no radio play, the Arctic Monkeys have become the biggest young band around. And yet they have no hits. No 'Wonderwall', no 'Live Forever', no 'Champagne Supernova'; their music is far more left of centre and innovative than anything Oasis ever did. In short, it is punk rock, in the way The Clash were punk rock.

There is no emphasis on writing the perfect pop song. They are uninterested in fame or celebrity, are not competitive with other bands and consider having an image anathema. "Don't Believe The Hype" is still emblazoned on the MySpace page their first fans set up; they don't want to 'sell out'. As indie rock has moved further and further into the mainstream it is the remaining eddy currents of the genre that are left to occupy the popular consciousness and an important part of indie rock is that it requires a bit of an effort to 'get it'.

Favourite Worst Nightmare is almost the perfect follow-up. It's hard and fast yet speckled with moments of vulnerability.

The worst any critic has accused Alex Turner of is being arrogant, mainly due to the band's unwillingness to do interviews and for writing songs about seeming plebs like in the single 'Brianstorm'. The band, incidentally, chose that as the album's lead single precisely because it wouldn't be a commercial success. That takes some guts . . . and belief. Turner's wordsmithery is also mature beyond his years.

A blend of rap and northern, kitchensink crooning, it is less the subject matter and more the delivery that beguiles. His enveloping couplets at times almost form another, separate, instrument. Some of the new songs reveal the personal side of the boy, although he may claim different.

'Do me a Favour' sounds like a bitter look back in anger at a lost love, while the closest song to an anthem, '505', is more Morrissey than Noel Gallagher. Indeed sometimes the Moz-isms are scarily apparent, from fatalist tales of romance at the steering wheel to repressed feelings in urban nowhereville. But of course if you put any of this to the band they'd just tell you to f**k off. Nice and politely, mind.