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By 9.30am, the tide has receded far from Leigh-on-Sea, leaving boats moored on the sand and a heavy mist over the Essex town. Everything looks grey and washed out – everything, that is, apart from the 50-odd dressed-up McFly fans milling around the tiny train station.

They are faced with a difficult decision. In nearby Westcliff, fans at the Cliffs Pavilion are shivering like marathon runners under silver blankets in anticipation of tonight’s low-key show. It’s not that they don’t have tickets; it’s just that 12 hours spent queueing in the October damp is a small price to pay for a decent view of their favourite band. If they do that, however, that means they will miss the chance to get their copy of the new single, The Heart Never Lies, signed when the band appear at the tiny Leigh-on-Sea record shop, Fives.

What would they do if they knew that they were being watched by the very band they’re here to see? Through smoked windows, the group’s songwriting co-frontmen Tom Fletcher, 22, and Danny Jones, 21, see everything, but show little reaction to it. If the band’s heart-throb bassist Dougie Poynter, 18, seems more interested in pointing out where he used to skateboard, it’s perhaps not so surprising. McFly’s fans have been screaming for nearly four years now. Since before the band released their first record; before posh drummer Harry Judd, 21, had a much regretted fling with Lindsay Lohan; before seven No 1 singles put them alongside Robbie Williams and U2 in the list of serial chart-toppers.

“You never forget your first scream, do you?” says Fletcher, turning to Jones. But Jones – all tousled hair and morning pallor – has clearly forgotten, so Judd picks up the story. “We were on our way to CD:UK to do [their debut single] 5 Colours in Her Hair, and another band arrived at the same time. Sort of a Westlife thing – D-Side, I think they were called. Anyway, D-Side made their way in, and it sort of carried on. At that point, we realised they were screaming for us.”

They sound like old hands now – but then, even in 2004, at the time of our previous meeting, McFly had the air of a band well rehearsed for the gruelling realities of a pop star’s life. Fletcher had already seen pop success at close quarters, having co-written with Busted. Crucially, he had also been given the chance to gauge how badly he wanted it for himself when, in the early weeks of Busted, he was told he had passed an audition to be in the band. “I think I was in for 24 hours,” he says. “Then the management company that helped to put them together had second thoughts and decided they would work best as a three-some. I was gutted.”

It is Jones, though, who seems the most irked by the lack of attention accorded to McFly’s own ability to cut it as a “real” band. He’s still visibly hurt by an episode a couple of years ago when he made plans to see an acquaintance’s indie band. “They told my sister that perhaps it would be better if I didn’t go.”

He takes the antipathy of the indie music press as a given. When talk turns to the Liverpool combo Town Bike, who have released Dougie tribute to Poynter, their response is initially guarded, as though the song must be a spoof. It seems appropriate at this point to tell them that when I interviewed Arctic Monkeys, the group were broadly complimentary about McFly. “No!” says Judd, “Really? What did they say?” The exact quote from the Arctics’ drummer Matt Helders was: “It comes from the heart with McFly. You can tell.”

To a degree that’s actually quite heartbreaking, Jones looks touched. “It would be nice to just get one thing like an Unplugged or Later . . . that shows what we can do. I even went up to Jools Holland’s daughter – who is a huge McFly fan – and asked her to try to get us on Later . . . but it hasn’t happened.”

Instead, they are more likely to get booked for events such as Brighton’s disastrous Big Culture Show, which lost Mid Sussex District Council £150,000 earlier this year due to poor attendance.

You can empathise with Jones’s frustration. The best songs on their imminent Greatest Hits album radiate an ebullience that places them closer to revered American new wave combos such as the Raspberries and the Rubinoos. Perhaps, in years to come, McFly will be remembered with similar affection.

Right now, though, Fletcher seems more accepting of the place in which the band find themselves: “There are people whose job it is to book you on to programmes such as Later . . . and it would be surprising if we were near the top of their list.”

Fletcher’s measured response is typical of the pragmatism he brings to the job. A graduate of the Sylvia Young Theatre School, he seems the most reconciled to the realities of being in McFly – realities that, he says, amount to doing two jobs. “You do the stuff that NME bands do – writing and playing live – plus all the promotion that manufactured bands do.”

The more time you spend with the band, the greater the contrast between the sanguine, sensible Fletcher and the bluff, forthright Jones. When the subject of Fletcher’s showbiz schooling comes up, Jones smiles: “I’m from Bolton. We had nothing like that up there.” While Jones bemoans his inability to wake up before 10.30am, Fletcher – who is studying for a pilot’s licence – espouses the virtues of an early start. After a show, if he gets to come home to the house he shares with his girlfriend, Giovanna, he’ll usually unwind at the piano. Without a serious relationship of his own, Jones starts drinking before the band go onstage and picks up where he left off afterwards.

If the differences between certain members are striking then so, it must be said, is the absence of tension. In 2006, after living in the same house for two years, McFly all bought houses in the same street. This summer, when they had a month off, they went to Barbados together. “I simply can’t imagine making a record without these people,” Fletcher says. “No matter how strange a day you’ve had there’s always someone who knows exactly how it feels.”

By the time they descend from the people carrier into the rear entrance of Fives it’s beginning to look like today might be one of those strange days. Cuddly toys, chocolates and letters containing outlandish requests are gracefully received. A girl has her breasts signed while her mother gazes on, proudly.

After four hours the Sisyphean nature of the teen idol’s lot becomes clear. The first fans to queue have rejoined the line and are now coming around for a second time. This could go on indefinitely. “I know,” says Judd. “It’s a war of attrition. How long would we have to stay before they got bored with queueing? Well, one day we will stay. That will freak them out!” McFly: Greatest Hits is released on Monday by Island/Universal.

The Greatest Hits tour begins at Odyssey Arena, Belfast, on Nov 21 2007.www.mcflyofficial.com

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