Progress Report: The Cribs
Every week or so, Jessica Suarez's Progress Report updates you on what your favorite bands have been doing. Or not doing.
NAME: The Cribs
PROGRESS REPORT: Wrapping up recording on their fourth album, Ignore The Ignorant (out 9/7), with new band member Johnny Marr. Recorded at producer Nick Launay's home studio in Los Angeles.
Gary, Ryan, and Ross Jarman have worked with indie rock's elder statesmen before: Scottish legend Edwyn Collins produced the Cribs' second LP, and Sonic Youth's Lee Renaldo performed a spoken-word track on their last record, 2007's Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever. They've also worked with Suede's Bernard Butler and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos. But those collaborations have nothing on working with their newest member, Smiths/Modest Mouse guitarist Johnny Marr. Adding in anyone with his own sound and reputation should have been tricky -- the Cribs' lineup has always been twins Gary and Ryan, along with younger brother Ross -- but Ryan says the transition into a four piece was very easy. "It all comes together really organically. We just jam and treat him the same way we treat each other," he says of their songwriting sessions. "None of us felt weird about telling each other what we did and didn't like."
Though the band just completed a few long weeks recording in LA ("all the bars close at 2:00 and we're in the studio til 1:00 every night, so there was no point in going out"), they really wrote the album over the past year while on the road. Ryan says he and Johnny would sit down together to work on guitar parts separately from the rest of the band when they started working together in the fall. The biggest change? Switching to lead guitar. "But the thing that's fortunate about it is that both our styles just happen to go together really well. We're not off or anything at all, we just happen to play really good together anyway."
Because many of the songs were written on the road, they'll sound much like the did during their last tour, where Marr was introduced as a member. Other songs, like the intense, 10 minute long "City Of Bugs," and "Save Your Secrets" haven't been played live yet, but Ryan considers them a development of the compact, prickly Britpop on Men's Needs. "It still sounds like you can hear Johnny and the Smiths influence on it too, so there's that combination. The sound has just gotten a little more cinematic. It's got a little more atmosphere to it. I put a few extra layers on, we haven't polished it because that's not the kind of band you can polish, but there's more of a cinematic feel, I think."
Ryan hopes that their new album extends the lyrical theme of Men's Needs -- the differences between genders, worrying about your own behavior, even feeling guilty about "being a male." Ryan says despite growing up in a house full of men, his family was very matriarchal; there's a track on the record called "Emasculate Me." That self-consciousness may explain the band's all-work, no-partying schedule during their LA recording session (though the early last call time might too). "We're the good guys! I can say pretty much that I've never been a dickhead," he laughs. "We're good as gold."
Here's the Ignore The Ignorant tracklist:
01 "We Were Aborted"
02 "Cheat On Me"
03 "We Share The Same Skies"
04 "City Of Bugs"
05 "Hari Kari"
06 "Last Year's Snow"
07 "Emasculate Me"
08 "Ignore The Ignorant"
09 "Save Your Secrets"
10 "Nothing"
11 "Victim Of Mass Production"
12 "Stick To Yr Guns"
And here's track one "We Were Aborted":
You can get it at thecribs.com as a free MP3 for a limited time. "Cheat On Me" will be the first official single out 8/31.
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Posted at 4:47 PM by Jessica in Progress Report
Tags: Johnny Marr | The Cribs
Slowreader / The Artificial Heart progress report, please.
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it's good to see them. Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever is still great.
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Awesome - always excited to see what Johnny Marr is up to. Great job!
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Smiths progress report please.
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GOOD LADS!
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I've been waiting for new Cribs for what seems like several years now. Am very nervous about this record. I'm just saying that Men's Needs (and New Fellas before that) was so fucking good...so they change the band's whole Jarman Family Band dynamic? I'm all for taking risks...but in this particular case, I would've been thrilled with Men's Needs Part Deux. But how can adding Johnny Marr be a bad thing? So conflicted...
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With Marr as part of the 4th album, it can't go wrong. The man is a genius, as are the Jarman lads. However, I'm concerned by Ryan's "cinematic" comments, I hope this isn't spin for it being more widely acceptable than the previous albums. Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever was a top album but it was the poorest of The Cribs' three releases. It will not stand the tests of time as well as the other two have. In 5 years time I'd much rather be jamming out to Another Number, Hey Scenesters!, Mirror Kissers, or Baby Don't Sweat than any of MWWNW. I'd prefer if the new album reverted back to the raw, lo-fi, more avant garde feel of The Cribs and The New Fellas. Direction is my favourite Cribs track, and I would hope for similar energetic and meaningful creations. From what I've heard on the last tour, we won't be disappointed.
The Cribs deserve an awful lot more recognition, but from those who matter and who genuinely care. I don't want Marr being in the band to become a gimmick, old school is the new new school, and an excuse for NME to continuously 'big up' the boys; creating a false enthusiasm for such a great team, whereby such 'scenesters' will fail to note the irony and choose Wakefield and Manchester's finest as their new fad.
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First single "Cheat On Me" debuted yesterday afternoon (USA time) on BBC1. Looks as though my concerns mentioned above were unfounded. Sounded just like the Cribs plus J Marr. Go to the BBC iPlayer page and search yesterday's Zane Lowe show -- 29 minutes in.
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