Stop me if you've heard this one before: two warring brothers from the north of England of Irish extraction in a band who write pub-friendly rock anthems and aren't averse to the odd "we're better than the Beatles" type sound-bite as in this one: "We think The Verve are a great band but we write much better songs than them - Bittersweet Symphony wouldn't get on our album." Say hello to the McNamara brothers and give them a fair hearing - as far as they're concerned they're ready to join Morrissey, Shane McGowan, Elvis Costello and Oasis in the pantheon of Anglo-Irish rock greats.

So far, so pretty bloody impressive: when Embrace released their debut album, The Good Will Out last week, it sold 100,000 copies on its first day of release - a feat even the likes of Michael Jackson can't manage. Whether it holds up over the next few months remains to be seen, but so far Embrace are on the fast-track to leapfrog over Oasis and settle in at number two biggest rock band in Britain behind The Verve. If it all sounds like the media and the industry have conspired to manufacture an instant indie equivalent to The Spice Girls or All-Saints, elevating the Huddersfield band from mediocre also-rans to front cover, platinum-selling status in the space of the ad break in The Chart Show, think again. Embrace have a rather curious history which has more to do with a long and patient apprenticeship than a short and nasty demo tape provoking a bidding war among the majors.

"I'm quite happy to admit that we were totally crap when we started off," says songwriter and lead vocalist Danny McNamara, "we're not going to pretend that we were destined for this, as some other bands do. We just sat down and took a long, hard look at our shortcomings and tried to work our way through them." How and where? "We basically just retired to our bedrooms for seven years and worked on learning our instruments and worked on writing songs. The great thing was that when you're shit for so long, like we were, but you have all stuck together, then when you do get good it's like being in the army, or in prison or going through some sort of disaster. You come out really good and really close and a much, much better band for it. We've earned our colours," he says. "Too many bands just go into a studio and do a wham bam demo which they hope will set the world alight, but we stood back and worked on every last thing in the songs, with the result that when we sent out 30 copies of our demo to record companies, we got 18 replies offering us recording contracts, and eventually we chose to sign with Virgin. It's a lesson other bands could benefit from, I think, particularly now that 90 per cent of music is really, really bad," says Danny.

Earlier on in their career, the band would take up arms (sometimes literally) against anyone who dubbed them as "Oasis-lite", but the comparisons go right down to the manner in which both bands were formed. "It's just unfortunate, but there are so many comparisons, apart from the brothers/north of England/Irish roots ones," he says. "Embrace were formed when my brother, Richard, who plays guitar, was in another band and I gate-crashed one of their rehearsals and ended up telling them what to do and how they really could get somewhere if they just listened to me (laughs). People ask us about Oasis all the time, and as far as I'm concerned, they're a really good band, but we're better." Embrace's widescreen guitar sound with its big anthems and string-laden ballads is in fact equal parts Oasis and The Verve, if you're desperate for reference points. What is it with guitar bands and lush orchestral string arrangements these days: first The Verve, now you lot? "Yeah, it has become a bit of a cliche but then again a lot of our stuff was recorded before The Verve album came out, but either way we're going to stop using strings, there won't be any on the next album, I promise." .

If you could draw a line down the centre of rock music, you'd find the rather old-fashioned, non-experimental but massively popular sounds of Embrace et al on one side with the decidedly more contemporary and more critically valid likes of Massive Attack, Spiritualised and Radiohead on the other. But it doesn't bother Danny that his band are perceived as a white boy, no-nonsense, traditional guitar band.

"We're absolutely traditional, we use the traditional instruments of guitar, bass and drums" he says. "But you have to remember that this is our first album and we are going to develop musically. We're going to develop naturally though, we won't be putting in drum loops or break-beats all of a sudden. As for people who criticise our so-called `old-fashioned' approach, all I can say is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

With the album going gold in its first day of release, can we expect some hotel-trashing, photographer-punching, airplane-diverting behaviour, if only in that you have to live up to your contemporaries? "It's not us, not us at all. If I wanted my name plastered all over the tabloids I'd go and rob a bank instead - as long as you had nicked enough money, that'd be an easier way to be famous. We don't do the rock 'n' roll `lifestyle' - if your band is any good you spend 90 per cent of your time writing songs. Besides, if anybody in the band gets out of order, they get a smack." With the band gearing up to play every festival known to man over the summer and the album destined for triple AAA heavy rotation anywhere and everywhere, there will be no escaping the big stadium Embrace sound over the next few months. Don't expect too many Ivor Novello awards though for outstanding contribution to the art of lyric writing, Danny McNamara evidently went to the same I wanna fly/really high/feel free/be me night school as Noel Gallagher and Richard Ashcroft. "Well the lyrics always come last, if that's any help," says Danny, "I just sing something that fits the melody line, you just try and get in the way the least you can with your lyrics. No, I'm not really a wordsmith . . . "

The Good Will Out, the current number one album from Embrace is out on Virgin/ Hut records. Embrace play the Temple Bar Music Centre in Dublin next Tuesday.