Theo Hutchcraft gave a song he wrote to The Courteeners after Liam Fray serenaded him from a skip.

The Hurts frontman co-wrote 'Modern Love' with his bandmate Adam Anderson but couldn't find the right way to record it themselves, but they played it to their friends, and the rockers quickly fell in love with the song.

After Liam belted out his own version on a drunken night out, Theo knew he should give the song away to them.

He said: ''We always write all sorts of different types of music really. We've got shelves of music that we pitch and save. With 'Modern Love', we had a day in the studio and we wanted to try and write a song that sounded a bit like The Strokes, a bit like Pulp, a bit like those bands that we love.

''We did that one, and it was a song that we could never really do justice. It was a song with a purpose, and we just sort of sat on it for a while, and we thought, 'look, we both loved it so much at the time' and we were always a bit sad that it couldn't really fit on one of our records.

''Then Joe Cross, who is the Courteeners' bassist and producer, he heard it and he absolutely loved it. Then Liam and I went and got very very drunk one night and he climbed on a skip, and sung it for me. He serenaded me from on top of a skip and I instantly just knew that it was perfect. I was almost like 'It's your song, it's not really my song anymore. You can do whatever you want with it because that's what it was intended for'.''

And Theo doesn't even consider the song to be his any more.

He added to NME: ''We had a very heated and close heart-to-heart discussion sat next to a skip and we decided that would be it. He changed the words and they made it their own and they pretty much brought it to life.''

''I don't even really identify with it as my song really, it's their song. I've seen them play it live and it's just a magical moment, really. So it was a great thing to be part of, I'm really proud of it.''