If Jon McClure ever gives up the day job, with his band Reverend and the Makers, he would make a terrific cult leader, writes Chris Salmon

An hour into my conversation with Jon McClure, the lanky frontman of Reverend and the Makers suggests, with an entirely straight face, that he's the reincarnation of Bob Marley. Sitting in the cafe of Liverpool's Parr Street studios, where McClure is finishing his band's debut album, we're discussing careerism among musicians. "My career is to f**king explain to people," he says, eyes burning. "That's what I do." Right. Like a modern-day guru via the medium of pop music? "Bob Marley," nods McClure. He leans forward knowingly. "Bob Marley died while my mum was pregnant with me." Ah, so you think you may be Bob Marley? "Holy f**king Jah," says McClure. "Know what I mean?"

To be honest, not exactly. But then, while an audience with McClure is a fascinating experience, it can be a puzzling one too. Here is a likeable man with a self-confidence always hovering near hubris; aarticulate speaker who can sometimes tumble over his own opinions in the rush to express them. And an intelligent thinker who isn't immune to saying some daft things.

McClure was born into a working-class Sheffield family 25 years ago. Growing up, his mother would point towards the nearby Kelvin Flats tower blocks and tell him if he didn't work hard at school, he'd end up there. "But what if I live there and I'm happy?" thought McClure. It was this same contrary streak that led McClure to leave university and become a poet and that eventually fuelled Reverend and the Makers' storming debut single, Heavyweight Champion of the World. A rabble-rousing call to spurn nine-to-five drudgery, the song sounds like McClure's Sheffield pals the Arctic Monkeys covering the Rapture. It entered the British top 30 in May, and was still there as August broke.

"I'm right pleased that people are listening to it and responding to it," grins McClure. That "response" is crucial to his mission. "I'm proper obsessed with music. But it's also the best vehicle to get across what I'm trying to say. The message comes before the music and will be there after the music. There's a f**king point to it. A political dynamic."

And what is that message? "I think you can express it better as negatives. By which I mean, it's not beating your wife up, or declaring war on innocent countries or fighting at football matches. It's more of a don't thing than a do thing." Laudable sentiments, of course, if not far beyond the thinking of the average cub scout. And yet the intensity and vehemence with which McClure delivers those beliefs is oddly compelling.

"I think really he just talks common sense," says the dance music producer/remixer Jagz Kooner, who's taken the helm for Reverend and the Makers' album, The State of Things. "But you can't help but be drawn in by him."

McClure tells me two young fans have approached him in recent days to announce they've followed his single's advice: one quit university, the other their job. Their parents probably weren't overjoyed, but McClure clearly is.

It's not just fans who listen to him. McClure has apparently been a guiding light to Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner since they met on a Sheffield bus when Turner was 14 and McClure 18. Rumours even had it that McClure wrote much of the Arctic Monkeys' first album. "Bullshit," he spits. McClure does, though, admit to being like an older brother to Turner. "He's an only child, so I suppose in a lot of ways he listens to what I tell him. I'll give him a moral stance on something. Or if he doesn't understand summat, I'll explain it to him. Like I'll tell him what histrionics means."

Although McClure speaks with obvious fondness for Turner, he clearly sees himself in the ascendancy in their relationship. So it's no surprise that McClure resisted grabbing a ride on the Arctic Monkeys' coat tails when they burst to prominence. He's not the sort to exist in someone else's shadow.

"A load of A&Rs descended on Sheffield and started throwing money around. I got offered £200,000, which is a lot of money when you're on the dole. He were basically saying, 'Make me an Arctic Monkeys record.' I could've done it. But I didn't want to make music that sounds like theirs."

Lyrically, the two bands do share an obvious fondness for the Manchester beat poet John Cooper Clarke ("I introduced Alex to him," says McClure) but Reverend and the Makers' barrelling grooves owe much more to punk-funk, electro and reggae. Plus, of course, it's driven by the lyrical message that McClure's so proud of.

With his background in poetry, McClure's sharp, socially-aware lyrics are stronger than many of his contemporaries'. But you have to wonder if they're as seismic as he thinks. "I tell people how it is," he says, seemingly convinced his listeners won't know that life can be a conveyor belt, governments can be rotters and teenage pregnancies aren't a very good idea.

McClure clearly sees himself as an educator, a role model. When I tell him he'd make a good cult leader, he seems to take it as a compliment. "That's what it's been like for years, kids following what I do on the internet. I could get 100 kids mobilised and marching up the street." He tells me that around 20 of those followers have tattoos of his lyrics or poetry. In another time, I suggest, he'd have been a political campaigner. "I'd have been Timothy Leary or Allen Ginsberg or Bob Dylan or one of them geezers. Or, I dunno, Plato." When they gave out chutzpah, McClure clearly swallowed Sheffield's entire allocation.

"The world's become homogenised," he continues. "There's no identities any more, no dissenting voices. Beth Ditto speaking about size zero is as controversial as you'll get. A fat lass talking about dieting. It's hardly radical stuff. Compared to dropping B52 bombs on Baghdad, Beth, your weight issue is of minor concern to me."

The danger, I suggest to McClure, is that his hubris will overshadow his music and people will dislike him. "Loads of people hate me," he shrugs. "I read on the internet how a girl wanted to run me over, 'cos she didn't like some of the things I'd said."

He doesn't look concerned. Has he always been this confident? "It's not even confidence, I'm just sure of what I'm saying. I've thought about these things for years. I'm not trying to do this for myself, I'm trying to do this for a f**king reason. When you get these kids and they'll listen to you, that's a powerful thing. You have a duty to it. I might be an arrogant c**t, but I'm not a bad person." That, ultimately, would seem to be the case.

McClure is cocksure to the point of ridiculousness, his preachings rather less earth-shattering then he thinks. But he does, at least, have something to say. And it's easy to see how people are drawn in by his passion. Alex Turner apparently does all he can to help his surrogate big brother's band (guest vocals on their album, copious Arctic Monkeys support slots). Jagz Kooner's affection for McClure is striking. "I hadn't met him before I was asked to produce the album," he says. "But he's one of my best mates now. He's just such a brilliant character. And he's totally genuine. "

Does Kooner think the Reverend would make a good cult leader? "Ha. Yes. I think we should all follow the cult of Jon McClure." The veteran producer laughs hard and long. "To be honest, the world would probably be a better place for it."

The State of Things is released on Sept 17 on Wall of Sound - Guardian service