When the time comes for Supergrass to spill the beans in an autobiography, the easiest part will be coming up with the book's title - it has got to be called Growing Pains. What else can you call a rite of passage that involved juggling schoolwork with releasing records, spending your teenage years globetrotting and playing rock festivals, producing three chart-topping albums and being hailed as one of the brightest hopes in rock when you are barely into your 20s? The story of Gaz Coombes, Danny Goffey and Mick Quinn is the stuff of rock'n'roll legend, a dream many adolescents aspire to realise while playing air guitar in their bedrooms. However, as they would confess, their past sometimes weighs like a millstone around their necks - because they burst on to the scene as a bunch of young, carefree kids, they risk being remembered only for their juvenile bravado.
They might be three albums and five years into their pop career, but for many punters the name Supergrass only brings memories of Alright, their 1995 crossover hit cherished for its youthful naivete.
The way in which they hit the big time, with a single about being nicked for possession of hash (Caught By The Fuzz, a real-life experience for Coombes at 15), and became household names through singles titled Mansize Rooster or Going Out did not help matters.
'It all stems from [debut album] I Should Coco. We were teenagers when we first recorded our first album so it was bound to be haphazard and full of spunk,' said drummer Goffey. When Goffey entered the studio for the I Should Coco sessions, he was 19; now he is 25 and married with children. However, he still cuts a figure of youthful joviality.
Indeed, the Oxford trio still look pretty much the same Supergrass that rocked the scene five years ago: there is Goffey, the jokey drummer with a face of a 12-year-old; guitarist and vocalist Coombes, a flurry of untended facial hair; and Quinn, the chubby bassist who forever looks stoned. In fact, their records still bear the band's logo of those years - the caricatures of three young men raising their limbs in the air like they just don't care.
The trio in part grew up in the public eye, though they are probably the last to admit it. 'It's not like The Jacksons or The Monkees where you live right out of each others' pockets - I've grown with my girlfriend as well as my family,' said Coombes, 23.