Not all musicians are artists. In fact, Van McCann, the singer and principal songwriter for U.K. garage rock band Catfish and the Bottlemen, does not see himself as one.

Bowie, Gaga, McCartney: Those are artists. And McCann?

“I’m the frontman of this band, the singer of Catfish,” McCann said in a phone call from London last week, where Catfish and the Bottlemen were preparing to embark on an American tour that begins Sunday at The Fillmore.

“There’s people who could articulate themselves better than me,” he said. “Paul McCartney could make art out nowhere. He could reference a pet he had and write a song about it. I think that’s what he did with ‘Jet.’ ‘Martha My Dear’ might be about his dog. The way somebody could do that; completely reinvent himself and change his image and change his look and change his outfit—my head has never worked like that with music. Some people can shapeshift. That’s art.”

While “artist” may be a subjective term, there’s no denying that McCann and his band mates, guitarist Johnny “Bondy” Bond, bassist Benji Blakeway and drummer Bob Hall, are planners. Even as they were releasing their 2014 debut album, The Balcony, they already had the next three albums in mind. They already knew where they had to grow their fanbase to stay successful. They had already found their branding—a white monochromatic image on a black background, and at least McCann had spent years preparing for press interviews in the comfort of his own home.

They had a sound, too. With punchy single “Kathleen,” which climbed into American alt-rock charts, Catfish and the Bottlemen followed the footsteps of Oasis, the Strokes and the Killers.

McCann said he sees no need to reinvent the wheel. They like their sound, and their fans like their sound. For their sophomore album, May’s The Ride, the band stuck with the familiar formula. Catfish wanted to maintain the intimacy of a live show on record.

After two world tours, McCann and his mates saw which songs, and which parts of songs, had the biggest impact on fans, and they wanted to recreate that on record.

“Everything we wrote on the album was written based on the way people are going to react, the way people are going to move to it, the way people are going to sing to it,” McCann said.

McCann dissects the song “Soundcheck.” About halfway through, there’s a bridge sung quietly, which paves the way for a Bond guitar solo that kicks in at the end.

“We wrote that like a script,” McCann said. “I was going, ‘Can you imagine everyone dropping here? When Bondy’s solo kicks off, everyone goes wild.’ A year down the line, you watch it come together in front of 10,000 people at a festival. We got to watch that plot … acted out in front of us.”

If there’s one common criticism that the band has faced is that McCann’s songwriting is too literal. A song like “Soundcheck” is really about a soundcheck. There are no double-entendres or multiple meanings.

McCann counters that that’s the type of song that most resonated with him growing up, and cites advice that Dylan once gave Lennon: How a songwriter should say what he means and mean what he says.

“Writing has always been a positive thing for me,” he said.

Catfish and the Bottlemen are a band that doesn’t care whether their songs perform well on radio or the music charts. Those are just the perks. The live reaction is what matters most.

“It’s crazy that you can write a song that makes people react a certain way,” McCann said.

The band’s plans are arranged both day-by-day as well as several months in advance, and McCann has them memorized. They’ll be in America for 45 days, followed by an arena tour in the U.K., during which Catfish will play to its biggest audiences yet. Right after that, they travel to Japan and then Australia, where McCann first found an unlikely inspiration in a band name by watching a street busker by the name of Catfish the Bottleman.

They arrive in Oz on Boxing Day, a national holiday. McCann is working on a following U.K. tour immediately after that; this one will include support from musicians and bands who came up through the ranks with Catfish. McCann calls the concept a series of curated one-day festivals.

He refers to albums as campaigns. When The Ride campaign concludes, Catfish and the Bottlemen will immediately return to the studio and begin recording their next one. There will be no rest.

“We don’t feel right if we’re not touring,” he said. “Another album, another tour. We don’t take it for granted that we can go over to these places and play to these crowds. We very much want to expand on it as opposed to resting on it.”

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