Photo: Gary Jarman at Lollapalooza 2007

TheMusic.FM recently got the chance to sit down and have a long conversation with Gary Jarman, bassist and 1/4th of The Cribs. His twin brother Ryan is the lead singer, Ross his young brother is on drums, and Johnny Marr from The Smiths is on guitar. Not a bad deal, huh? Well, they have a new album out (read our review) and two shows coming up at the Bowery Ballroom. I hope you’re ready, because it’s a great read.

Before we get into what you are currently doing, I feel it is important to discuss Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever first. I feel like that album was a transition of sorts for the band.

Gary Jarman: I think what you are saying is true. It’s the first time we approached things in a different way, you know? I guess we got tired of being lo-fi, which was somewhat frustrating to us. We just had a very specific way of going about things. It wasn’t like a dogma thing or anything else, we didn’t really like multi-tracking. We just like to record live and I think now it’s a bit of a trend to be lo-fi and make the new record sound shitty.  It wasn’t like that when we started; we just want to record live because we thought it sounded better. The first two records, consequently, the first one was on 8-track and the second on 16-track, but still mostly live.

So yeah, the last record, Men’s Needs, we ventured outside of that and that was because of Alex (Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand) really, who produced the album. There was always this thing of being underrated in the UK and we were doing well on like a cult level, and while our contemporaries, I wouldn’t say peers because I never considered a lot of these, like a lot of these British rock bands or British indie bands or whatever, to be our peers because I didn’t feel I had anything in common with them. A lot of them were getting on the radio and Alex would say “Oh, you know, you guys should really make a record in a proper studio, really get in the ring, because if not you’re just not getting in the ring with them”, and that’s the only reason why we did it. I’m proud of the results, but it’s not necessarily, well I’m proud of some parts of the record. It’s just not necessarily how I want to continue.

Yeah, that’s interesting because it felt like you took chances. There are parts of the record, like the second half and songs like “Be Safe” which featured Lee Ranaldo that were different and a sort of threw people a curve. The album also garnered plenty of popularity for you as a band.

GJ: It was all frustrating. Everything was frustrating. I don’t mean to sound like a curmudgeon or whether we’re some ungrateful brats, I don’t know which would be the correct answer. I guess, the band was never about a specific thing, we got pigeonholed.

If you listen to the first record as compared to the second, the first one is poppier than the second; it’s much more lo-fi and much more stripped back. The second one is more punk, which we got pigeonholed for, or post-punk or whatever. The third one, I don’t think it was our pop record, in some ways it was; it was definitely more of a pop production. The second half of that record was something we were really proud of. People only really remember the singles, the fact it was on the radio a lot.

That’s sort of why I wanted to ask you about that, because I felt like this new record held some sort of connection with the second half of the last album.

GJ: Yeah, and it’s been something I’ve been saying. People ask all these questions about how the sound has progressed, or how we have matured and I’m like “Don’t take it all in one single, you can kind of hear it, you can hear the roots on the last record. That’s good that you said that, that’s kind of something I thought.

We kind of got bratty about it; we got pretty pissed off about some of it. The people who go to a band because they heard it on the radio were the same fanbase who were listening to anything remotely like that at the point. It was a little frustrating. We were trying to do everything we could to somehow throw them off a little. It’s difficult, you don’t want it to seem like you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth, or like you’re pissy and complaining all the time. At the same time, you have to a have a sense of pride of what you’re doing.

When the band first started out, the original intention was, we never thought we’d be in that type of position, so we thought “now that we find ourselves in that situation, let’s try to have some fun with it and try to fuck with it a little.

What is the dynamic like, being in a band as brothers? What are the personalities like?

GJ: For the most part it is a positive thing. You love each other and are best friends. You’ll stick up for each other over anything. If someone comes in with an idea then, even if you don’t automatically fully understand what they are trying to do, you’ll totally go with it. You’ll either see it through fruition or to the bosh, and that’s really healthy in a creative situation, just to have someone to bounce off of who is prepared to indulge you like that.

I think it makes things hard as well. You can be a little more harsh with people you are close with than with anyone else. It’s kind of bullshit, really, you kind of catch yourself every now and then. I mean me, in particular. I feel bad sometimes; we had this great tour in Japan. At one of the shows, I fucked things up. Well, I didn’t fuck things up; I was, uh, petulant with my brothers. I threw my bass at the amp. I wouldn’t do it to anyone else but my brothers and I feel guilty about that.

You’re so used to your own personal dynamics that sometimes you forget and now with Johnny in the band, I catch myself quite a lot because it would alarm him or freak him out a little bit if he saw me, or Ryan, or Ross giving each other shit. We had an argument after the show and we had to go off on our own and do things behind closed doors because I know it would freak Johnny out. You don’t want to see your band members, or mates, get into stupid, petulant fights.

It can get quite vitriolic between brothers but for the most part it’s a good thing; you’re all pulling together. You get to travel, and you get these weird ups and downs between brothers, but it’s really a privileged position. I think there’s no one else you rather do that with.

So I guess you learned your lesson from the Gallagher brothers?

GJ: Ha-ha, well exactly. I find that a bit embarrassing. You don’t want to share your brothers publicly like that. That’s such a strange thing. I couldn’t imagine humiliating, or humbling, or any of those things. Doing that to my brothers in public, I don’t think I would ever forgive myself for it.

Read more of the interview, including getting together with Johnny Marr, the latest album, and touring in America, after the jump.

So tell me about the latest addition in Johnny Marr. Were you the first one to meet him?

GJ: It was just as innocuous as any meeting.  We met through friends.  I met him through the drummer in Modest Mouse, Joe, he’s one of my best friends, I met him at Joe’s house. It was random, really.  It was cool, though, because I was a fan of the Smiths and I was a fan of Johnny and I didn’t recognize him at first, which was the stupid thing about it.  He approached me to chat and he was telling me how he really liked the Cribs.  I was like “oh that’s really cool”. It’s always nice to meet someone who is into what you’re doing and who’s polite enough to put it like that and chatting on me like that.  So I was really flattered but I was just confused as to who he was.  And then the penny dropped and Johnny been playing Modest Mouse and then it was really exciting because wow, he’s one of our influences and he’s a fan of the band!  So that was cool.

It was like meeting anyone really, just through friends.  And then Johnny and I became mates.  We would hang out together and I wanted my brothers to meet him because I know they’d get on as well.  And it just went from there.  It got a bit out of hand quite quickly.  We weren’t necessarily looking to add anyone to the band and he wasn’t necessarily looking for a band but we just enjoyed hanging together and we decided to play together and it took off really quick.  We wrote a lot of stuff and we enjoyed doing it.  Yeah maybe we were a little naïve in that count but it was just exciting for us all.

We were nearly at the end of the time for the last record and we weren’t really thinking of a new album but I between albums  we always have this period when you just think what am I going to do next, and it’s not just a conscious, tangible thought but it’s always in the back of your mind and you’re just thinking, “what’s the next thing we’re going to do?”, and when we started playing with Johnny Marr it was like “let’s just do this.”  It’s sounding really good and it might be weird some people out playing in a four-piece and Johnny was in another band.  But it didn’t matter at that point—playing together was the most exciting thing and the songs we were writing, we were most proud of.  All other trivialities go out the window at that point.

How was working with Marr in the studio? What sort of influence did he have over your brother?

GJ:  Those guys put a lot of thought in their guitars.  Ryan was always quiet.   It was pretty peculiar he plays like lead lines and maybe uses the top two strings and then he’ll use power chords also but he’s quite a weird player.  I think that he was really good for him to follow, especially Johnny whose playing I really love.  They both write a lot of riffs that was Ryan does, really.  He doesn’t necessarily write hard productions but he does riffs and really good riffs.  And Johnny writes really good riffs also. They had so many good riffs to work with that way. I was writing some stuff separately and I generally come up with some of the chord changes and like he has an influence on the songs the same way any of us do really.  And we work in a similar style to what we did before.

There were a few songs that were written separately, like I wrote “Cheat on Me” in my bed and I didn’t finish it off until I gave it to those guys.  The foundations of it, there are a few songs like that.  And it is fun to work together and have the sound come off each other like that.  In the studio it was pretty much the same like everyone had opinions that Johnny produced records, and before Ryan produced and had a studio a few years ago and Ross always knows what he wants out of his drums.  Everyone just putting that bit in and it was good but there was no real conflict.  The way we all worked pretty similar so it was quite…  I don’t want to make it sound like it was quite easy, it was not.  It’s nice to have someone who enjoys working and works the same way you do.

Let’s talk about the album title, Ignore the Ignorant, what was the inspiration behind that and the songs on the record?

GJ:  We planned out the last record before we made it.  This one was just taken from one of the song titles.  We had a few different ideas of titles going around but that one was a little more direct.  We thought it was a good slogan.  People got so many different interpretations of it and I think that was almost frustrating that we had to record straight but now we look at it and think it’s good that we have a title that’s really violent like Downfall or some shit like that, that no one even thinks about it later.  It’s good at least people discuss it, even if we get the wrong end of the stick.

What about the songs? It seems like on these album it tends to be more introspective.

GJ:  I feel like at least with the last record, and maybe on all the records, that there were quite a lot of songs that were that way.   They got overlooked by the bold statements.  It’s easier for people to latch onto the kind of more obvious statements.  This record I feel it’s like what you said, it’s less outward looking.  It’s good for people finally see that side of the band, there’s nothing covering it up or overshadowing it.  It was always the way the band’s been going.  It’s the main thing the band’s always been going that way.

It just took a while to assimilate and we are not “we started a punk band and all our influences are punk bands”.  Punk was always a big influence.  I feel like we exercised a lot of those demons.  We played with the Pistols.  We had a bunch of punk rock 7” and I feel we did that, and I don’t wanna keep doing that.

It’s almost like people are surprised the band is developing.  It’s funny how development is addressed by people. Like “how did you get to this point?” or “why did that change?”. I’m nearly 30 and on my fourth record, change should be expected. Although the album was received well, commercially and critically, you still get some people who say “why are you not harsh”, like it’s some sort of detriment. You want me to smash my bass or kick the amp every single night even though I did that in 2002. I’d rather be damned for changing.

It’s more difficult to be introspective. We always had this fear that if we were introspective we would be soporific, or self indulgent, or pretentious. Being from the north of England, there’s a real fear of pretense, you’re supposed to stay in your place from where I’m from, and that’s what you’re taught. I don’t want to be like “god, there are so many fucking bleeding hearts out there” and people making self-indulgent stuff like that. It took me a really long time to fully commit to it and I’m really proud of this record. I don’t want to look back in a few years and be like “shit, we should have been more open and honest”. I don’t want to regret not having done that. It’s difficult, because the people who know you best and it can be quite disarming. It makes me nervous to play the record to people I know and they’re catching on to stuff. I just don’t want to look back and think I could have been more sincere.

Interesting, because I always see mention that you’re outspoken with charity work and misogyny in the music industry.

GJ: It comes up a little bit, but that was almost pre-the band. That was with my involvement in the Ladyfest. That was awhile ago, like 2002. It was something that I was fully committed to and interested in but never espoused that in the band. I mean, yeah, I guess I got that reputation, and there is some of that in the last record, some political statements quite possibly. I don’t feel like I wave that banner, though, which may be to my detriment, I don’t know.

So, you do one thing, and when your name gets mentioned that gets thrown in and it becomes a bigger deal.

I mean, I’m absolutely proud of it. I’m proud to be associated with it. I don’t want to feel like I’m patronizing.

Not like Zach De la Rocha or anything like that?

GJ: I mean, I got some strong personal politics, and it’s nice some people attach that to me, and I’m proud of that. It’s better than seeming meek all the time, but I don’t want to feel patronizing for me to stand on a soapbox and shout about misogyny. Some people may be “Who the fuck is he to talk about that”, so I don’t make a big deal about that. I almost feel a little strange talking about it but it is a part of my past and I don’t want people to be weirded out by me making a big deal about something like that.

You got a small run of shows coming up, including one in L.A. and two in NYC (at Bowery Ballroom), do you have plans for a larger tour?

GJ: The reason for the short tour is that it’s expensive to do it. We also got a lot of commitments right now and Warner Brothers is only just now putting the record out, we didn’t know what the situation was going to be. We just wanted to be sure to play some shows and when we were booking the gigs, we didn’t know the release date, so we just fit in these days when we could. We’ll be back next year. We’re also going to do an in-store in Portland at Jackpot Records. We want to tour more. We have aspirations in America to do the things like we do in England, through word of mouth and playing a lot of shows.