“We write the tunes we want and we’ll put them out sounding how we want"

The Cribs make damn catchy songs and they've been doing this for a long time. When a band has been consistently putting out songs at this standard, it's easy to fall into the trap of taking their continued excellence for granted. Some bands hit a slump, where one or more albums just don't reach the hits of previous efforts. Maybe they eventually return with an effort that almost reaches those heights, but not quite and we, the fans, all decry "yes, it's a return to form".

But this isn’t how it’s gone for the Cribs. They just go consistently about their business. There's no fanfare for The Cribs’ return to form, because as new album 'For All My Sisters' shows, it's just as good as anything else they've done.

They make it look easy, which surely it isn't. If it was, all bands would be this good.

Album number six for The Cribs sees the Ryan Jarman and his brothers Gary and Ross take a more pop hooky approach. To assist them in nailing that sound, they worked with producer Ric Ocasek (of The Cars). In retrospect, it seems like such an obvious fit between producer and band. But as Ryan Jarman explained it wasn't as straightforward as phoning up Ocasek and getting him to be producer, "He actually sought us out this time. We had been looking to work with him for years but it took until now to work with him. He’ll only work with bands he has a genuine interest in." 

Looking at the producers The Cribs have worked with is an enviable list most bands would kill for; Steve Albini, Alex Kapronos, Nick Launay. When trying to define what differentiated Ocasek from the rest Jarman elaborated, saying: "Ric had this laid back vibe that complemented what we were trying to do. He’s great at helping produce these really hooky songs which is what we wanted this time on 'For All My Sisters'. He made us weirdoes feel right at ease".

As part of the PR for the new album, Ryan and Gary Jarman had given a song by song breakdown for The Guardian. It revealed that nostalgia was a common reference point in the writing of the new album, but nostalgia for what? Was it yearning for the years back in Wakefield?

Not so, according to Ryan. "It’s not nostalgia for when we lived back there [in Wakefield]. It’s more for things that have happened recently, like in the past few months or a few years ago, like a gig we did or someone we met. Being in the US, living this sort of nomadic existence and being displaced has led me to look back fondly on things that we’ve done recently as a band or how I was living between recording or touring with the band." 

The writing process though has remained more or less the same over the years, “For All my Sisters, we rented out some space, hired some equipment and wrote together when rehearsing. It’s was trying to capture that vibe we had at ‘Springtime’ (the studio in Wakefield where they recorded first demos).”

Jarman did admit that when he can’t listen to other music when writing. “I find that I’m either writing music or listening to it. But if I’m listening to it, then it’s preventing me from writing so I just don’t listen to music. It just gets in the way.”

It's been three years since The Cribs released previous album ‘Belly of the Brazen Bull’. For a band to keep their longevity and still come back means that the individual members need to keep their creative instincts finally honed.

Part of that for Jarman was working with other people, as he did with Jen Turner formerly of Here We Go Magic. "It’s important that we go off and do other things. Otherwise we would just get stuck writing the same riffs over and over singing the same melodies. You need time to think and write differently.

"That’s what made writing with Jen [Turner] so enjoyable. I didn’t have to write typical Cribs songs and it opened up lots of possibilities. When you do go back to the band and playing with my brothers, it’s usually after a period apart and we get back with a renewed energy." 

Though The Cribs have worked with some hugely influential artists like Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Jarman admitted there was never a plan to do so.

“There definitely was not any way were looking to collaborate with anyone. It just turned out this way. It sort of did help with finding out that I could work with other people and that I wasn’t inflexible in my song writing or playing. One person that I really enjoyed working with was Julian Casablancas, we just sort of had an understanding of what we wanted.”

The Cribs have long been known for their DIY ethic and, on ‘For All My Sisters’, this extended to starting up their own Sonic Blew label. Other bands like Mogwai have taken this approach, with the Chemikal Underground label. But for Jarman the motivation was different.

“It’s not to sign other bands as there is nothing else out there that interests me. It’s purely that I don’t trust anyone in the music industry. We got screwed over a few times and this way, on our own label, it gives us the control to do this ourselves.

"Sony don’t tell us what to do, that was one of the conditions of us signing with Sony. We write the tunes we want and we’ll put them out sounding how we want. We were never going to sign to a major label and be told that we have to wrote a chart friendly pop song, because that just isn’t us. We do everything ourselves, even driving the van. The whole DIY approach is something that has been so important to us from the moment we started the band.”