So then, bored of the old line-up? Fancy a new guitarist to lively things up a bit do we? Alright then, how about Smiths legend and all round God-like-guitar-genius, Johnny Marr for ya? D’you think that’ll do?

Actually, that’s not quite the way it happened. The Cribs never envisaged changing line-up when they were thinking of ideas for the new album. They knew they wanted to do something very different, but bringing in another guitar player had never crossed their minds. It wasn’t until frontman Ryan Jarman received a phone call from America from band mate and twin brother, Gary (now based in Portland), that the proverbial ball started rolling.

Interrupting his brother’s important schedule (“I were eating a pizza at the time”), Gary explained how he’d just bumped into Marr, who’d confessed to being a massive fan of the band. The feeling was mutual. Later Ryan met Marr at Glastonbury where more mutual adulation was exchanged and it seemed like something might be on the cards. It wasn’t until the Q Awards in 2007, though, that the brothers arranged to get together with Marr to write some songs and jam.

Four days and five songs later the yet-to-form band (The Cribs plus Johnny Marr) realised that what they’d put together in such a short amount of time sounded amazing. They soon had a whole album, and when Marr suggested he teach Ryan some of the guitar parts so they could play the songs on tour, Jarman’s reply was something along the lines of: “You what? Are you not gonna come with us?”

So then, The Cribs had a new member. And what a member. Frankly, anyone in an indie band over the last 20 years would have wet their pants at the prospect.

“Everything that he’s ever done we’ve had a lot of respect for and we got on really well and have a lot of shared opinions,” says Ryan Jarman. “I’d always been a big fan of The Smiths but mainly for Johnny Marr’s guitar playing.”
And did Marr – always known for being the creative driving force in The Smiths – have a big influence on the band’s new sound?

“Anything that he came up we completely took on board and listened to,” I’m told. “In the end we’d try and put things together so that it was like an exact mix of us and him. We wanted to make sure it had both elements.

“So he did have had a big impact, yeah. He’s definitely helped us make what we think is gonna be our definitive record. The thing with Johnny is that for him coming into our band – with us being three brothers that have been together for a long time – he adapted to being able to work with us very well. He is used to pretty much just writing songs all on his own you know, so he had to adapt to the fact that we were pretty driven in what we doing to begin with. It must have been like coming into a closed unit really.

“I think he also helped bring out a few more subtleties that maybe we didn’t have before. In the past, you know, it’s always been kind of like turned up to eleven, where as this time we wanted it to be more subtle, and he really helped us with that.

“And also, he’s really just such a great guitarist. He gets such an amazing sound. I’ve always thought there was only two guitar sounds really, like ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’, where as Johnny can just make a guitar sound like anything and that’s been really good for adding atmosphere to the record.
So then, is this a new band? The addition of another guitar player doesn’t usually turn things on its head too much, but when that guitarist is Johnny Marr things are slightly different. Gary Jarman has been quoted as saying the new line-up feels like a “fresh start”. Does his brother agree?

“After the last album we thought we needed to do something different with the next record. We’d done three records, just the three of us and though we knew we needed to do something very different, we hadn’t actually thought about getting another member, and then we met Johnny and it just seemed to be the perfect coincidence. When we got together to write things just went so well that it couldn’t have worked out much better.

“It definitely feels fresh again but it doesn’t really feel like a fresh start, because I feel like it’s actually building on everything that’s come before it, you know. It took us a long time to get to where we are now anyway. It’s been a really slow progression. We’ve never really been an overnight thing. We’ve never been on the radio that much so it’s been a really kind of organic growth. It does feel exciting again though. It feels like there’s something new been injected.”

It’s true. The latest Cribs record (Ignore The Ignorant – out this month) feels fresh. While the Alex Kapranos (of Franz Ferdinand fame) produced 2007 release Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever saw The Cribs go ultra catchy, with radio friendly, big indie pop melody after big indie pop melody, their latest offering is a much less immediate, more introspective affair.

Ryan tells me that working with producer Nick Launay had a lot to do with the shift in sound. Having previously worked with the likes of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and The Arcade Fire, the English producer has gained a reputation for theatrical, epic, cinematic soundscapes. Added to this he has a way of working which involved recording mainly live. Both of these were things that appealed to the Jarman brothers…
“Alex (Kapranos) was all about making things more pop and that was what we needed at the time, and it was fun to do, but we definitely didn’t want that for this record. We wanted it to be more atmospheric.

“I understand that this record is less immediately catchy. It is more of a cerebral kind of record. The last one was – in the best possible way – kind of like cheap thrills, you know. It was big catchy chorus after big catchy chorus, where as this one is a bit more thought provoking really.”

And what of the lyrical themes? In the past the band have been vocal about the pretentiousness of the indie scene that surrounds them and the attitudes of “in it for the money” bands; not to mention issues such as social ignorance and sexism. The acid title of the new record provokes suspicions that its lyrical content will be along the same lines of the previous two, with their outspoken airs of frustration at elements of society or the music industry. But Ryan tells me that this time around (for him at least) the band are pointing the finger at themselves.

“I never ask my brother what his songs are about but on this record mine have definitely been a bit more kind of self critical,” he says .

“The last few records have always been about criticising other things that are going on where as this one is more like taking a look at ourselves. I’m not sure in what ways exactly though. In lots of ways I guess.”

Since Gary Jarman moved to America, Ryan says that the writing process of the band has improved. Rather than taking the time they have together for granted they meet up for more intense, productive and creative month long writing sessions. The addition of Johnny Marr too has made for a stronger work ethic, with the older musician encouraging the band not to give up on a song too easily, and to work harder on the smaller, more subtle parts of the music that they may have ignored in the past.

All in all, through an amalgamation of factors, The Cribs feel like a band that has matured and grown in the last couple of years. The new album is a definite move away from the catchy indie pop of the last record into new, more introspective grounds and generally this feels like a band that is coming of age.

What next you may ask? Well they could do someone singing backing vocals on the next album. Err, how about Morrissey? He’s not up to much these days…

The Cribs play The Forum on 15 October 2009.