Three years ago, The Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess found himself at breaking point. Years of habitual drinking and drug use had taken their toll.

Determined to reclaim his life, he went to celebrity detox specialist Dr Joshi. He says: "Obviously I was really fragile when I walked through the door. I told him the truth that I do huge amounts of cocaine, crystal meth, pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I drink two bottles of wine on a day off. I came completely clean and he said, 'Okay, we'll get you better'. He gave me a 21 day plan which just freaked me out at the time because it felt like seven years.

"He gave me a load of pills to take because my kidneys and liver were so messed up, stabilisers and mood balancers and stuff like that. And then I went to the KLS Hotel in London and pretty much had five, six, seven days, climbing walls. But I was determined, you know?"

Burgess is on his mobile pacing restlessly through the backstage of Warrington's Parr Hall before the second date of the Charlatans current UK tour which reaches Preston's 53 Degrees next Friday, October 17.

The Charlatans have endured more extreme highs and lows than most. Since second single The Only One I Know became one of the anthems that defined the 1990s Madchester sound, they've been among the godfathers of the movement.

Enjoying hits across two decades, they have also endured tragedies – the jailing of keyboard player Rob Collins for involvement in an armed robbery and then his subsequent death in a car crash in 1996.

And they've survived strangely unscathed. Burgess seems oddly ageless but speaks nervously fast, with stammering enthusiasm.

This year, they made history when they released You Cross My Path, the first ever entire album to be given away legally free on download, through radio station XFM.

The idea came after Burgess asked longtime friend, Creation Records legend Alan McGee, to manage them after learning he was already managing his close friend, Dirty Pretty Things and Libertines star Carl Barat.

He says: "The Charlatans and their last manager's relationship had broken down quite a few years ago. And then Carl said something about his manager, and I said, 'Who's your manager?' And he said, 'McGee.' And I thought, oh, that could work really well! "

McGee, who quit drugs in 1994, is often credited with getting his friend clean but Burgess insists it was his own decision. He says: "Even though no one really saw me going downhill, I saw myself. I felt myself on the verge of totally losing it. So I thought, well, I'll stop and we'll go on this new adventure together."

The You Cross My Path giveaway was planned on a DJ tour around England in October 2006, jokingly nicknamed the Bananas and Diet Coke Tour, due to the newly sober Burgess's massive consumption of both.

Burgess says: "We knew that people were downloading it anyway so we were just saying, 'Look, here you go'. But obviously that made every record company in the world really upset – which was quite good because I'm an anarchist!"

Burgess and Barat have a side project, ramshackle supergroup The Chavs, including Razorlight's Andy Burrows and The Klaxons' Jamie Reynolds, which plays just once a year at The Tap and Tin in Essex.

Burgess says: "I was going to do an acoustic gig on my own. But I couldn't really sing and play guitar at the same time so I asked Carl.

"He said he would and I thought, oh, it's never going to happen because he's so unreliable. But he showed up - and he showed up early in fact!

"And then we started getting cocky and we thought we'd get George Clooney and Paris Hilton to join! It was just bravado really."

Following Dirty Pretty Things split last week, Barat announced he would pursue other projects. Burgess says: "The idea now is to actually do a record which I think me and Carl will write and then bring in people.

"It's still too early but I think Carl's star still shines quite bright. It's not going to be the end of the story. I think he'll probably do a solo record and the Chavs thing is going to happen, it's just about when really."

He's also recorded with Manchester supergroup Freebass, composed of three bass players, New Order and Joy Division's Peter Hook, Primal Scream's Mani and The Smiths' Andy Rourke. He grins: "It is the indie Travelling Wilburys. I mean, Hooky, yeah, I'll do anything for Hooky. The song that we did, I think it's up there with anything I've done. It's beautiful."

But the Charlatans is where he belongs and he's planning a hell of a party for the 20th anniversary of their first record. He says: "I'd like to do something in the summer of 2010. I'd like to do it in Manchester and I'd like to do an all day event where people come and pay their respects to me. Just me, hahaha.

"I'm going to start off with 52nd Street and then go into A Certain Ratio, and Johnny Marr's got to play with both those people. And then I'll get Hooky to do something and then maybe 808 State, you know, and then I'll get something like postpunk, maybe Manicured Noise could be quite good."

Although Manchester dominates his life, he has lived in LA for years.

He recalls: "When I met a girl from Atlanta, Georgia, who wanted to move to London or LA, I said, 'Let's move to LA'. I think I was always searching for somewhere to call home, and after five years of touring America, I actually fell in love in Los Angeles. Is it home now? Well, I've been there for 10 years so I guess it probably is."

His obsession with Manchester began when he moved from Salford to Northwich as a child. He muses: "I was always fascinated with moving back to Manchester because I felt torn away."

Factory Records boss Tony Wilson inspired the record giveaway too.

Burgess says: "We paid for the record ourselves and we gave it away for free. Absolute Northern perversity. It's very much inspired by something that we thought that Tony Wilson would do. He was probably in a lot of ways more of a hero than the music. He actually put a philosophy behind all the music – whether he believed it or not. And he brought music into my parents TV in my 6ft by 6ft living room in dull Northwich. I mean, he gave me everything."

* The Charlatans play 53 Degrees on Friday, October 17

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