WHAT a difference a day makes.

Last Monday morning Ben Kirkland, Leo Willis, Adam Maxwell, and Ben Squires were getting to grips with their final lessons before their A Levels at Sir John Deane’s College.

Before the end of that college day their band Delights had been added to the Friday night line-up of North by Northwich.

“It’s so surreal,” says drummer, Leo.

“We’d seen on Tim’s Twitter that they had this exhibition. We wanted to go, we all like The Charlatans and thought maybe Tim might be there. We were like ‘can you imagine that, seeing Tim?’.”

So, it’s probably fair to say they didn’t expect what happened next. They might not have met the Charlatans frontman that day, but while their own singer Adam was still in class writing an essay, his band mates headed into town on their lunch break to check out the Barons Quay exhibition.

“We started talking to a guy called Nick. We had no idea who he was at that point,” says bassist Ben Kirkland. “He asked us if we were in a band and we just got chatting about that. Then he asked us to send some tunes over to his friend Meds.”

It turns out that Nick and Meds were none other than Nick Fraser and Meredith Peterson, two of the masterminds behind North by Northwich festival.

While they were in class that afternoon, the band’s tunes were played to Tim Burgess who gave the seal of approval and Delights were booked to play the Gladstone Club on Friday – much to their surprise.

“We sent an email out with two of our new tunes that we’d recorded at Oscillate Studios,” says guitarist Ben Squires. “We were in lessons at this point and half way through we get a message from Meds saying ‘can you give me a call as soon as possible?’

“We drove back to the exhibition after college and didn’t know what was happening,” adds Leo. “We sat outside waiting for a bit and she was on the roof with Tim and shouted down saying ‘we’ve got some news lads, you’re playing - we’re putting you on the bill’.”

With such auspicious beginnings what’s next for the four-piece, whose influences include Peace plus and a whole range of 80s and 90s indie legends such as The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Cure and of course The Charlatans?

“We’re still getting our heads around this at the moment,” said Leo. “It’s surreal but brilliant. It could have been so different. What if we hadn’t gone?”

“We’re going to take a gap year and just hammer this as hard as we can,” adds singer Adam. “Make the most of it and see what happens.”

Follow @delightsband_ on Twitter.