Sleeping Giants: The Cribs

  Wearing pyjamas, growing beards, turning down The Strokes, and the fear of dying – its been quite a year for the Wakefield born brothers as they embark on their biggest UK tour yet. Kicking off the first leg tonight in Manchester, we caught up with Ryan, Gary, and Ross in their dressing room before hand for a review of their progress so far...   After the release of their self-titled debut album back in 2004, second album ‘The New Fellas’ took off and was one of the finest albums of last year. Gary casually comments on their progress saying “It’s been good ‘cos it’s been more of a natural step up. Nothing happened overnight and it’s been nice and gradual, which stops you freaking out too much. I’m really proud how it’s all come together, it’s been organic and it’s been done pretty much independently”.   A major influence on The Cribs’ rapid rise last year was Edwin (“I never know a girl like you before”) Collins, as Ryan recalls: “One of the things he did in the studio which kind of sums it up was we’d been writing this song (‘I’m Alright Me’), and the lyrics at the end (“Take drugs, don’t eat, have contempt for those you meet”), were a total piss take at the time, and was supposed to be ironic of what people were doing at the time and the people we were hanging out with, so it wasn’t meant to be an endorsement of it. But in the end when we were mixing the album we thought shit we better change these lyrics… so Edwin rang up is mate Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols and got him to come down, and he was like 'you don’t change any of those fucking lyrics' d’ya know what I mean."   When asked about what music is influencing them at the moment, Ryan enthusiastically jumps in and says “I’m going through a bit of a Spoken Word phase at the moment so the next album might be a bit influenced by that”. So will we see a third album in three years I wonder? Gary smiles and says,“Well we’ve been confirmed on the tour (of North America) with Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab For Cutie for six weeks.  But all I have been asking for is some time off to recover and write some songs. Once we’re recovered from that we want to get on with the record. I would like to say next New Year, but that’s probably unrealistic, so hopefully by next summer”. Ryan looking miffed tells how they had to turn down one of the world’s hottest bands for their UK tour, “It’s just hard to say no to offers when they keep getting cooler and cooler. One thing I was gutted about was because of the Japanese tour and Australia tour, we had to turn down The Strokes,” – not many bands at the moment get to do that very often.   It must get pretty intense at times being brothers and being together so much, and when asked about who gets picked on the most, a classic brotherly squabble breaks out as Gary raises his voice, “Ross probably thinks it’s him, but Ry feels victimised generally anyway. He always feels like he deserves more than what he’s getting for some reason. I’ve kind of got my own problems with stuff, but I just don’t bang on about it and keep it to myself, whereas he (points at Ryan) is a complainer (Ryan looks in disagreement at the accusation), Ross can hand out bollockings at times and takes the authoritative stands, he whines (again points at Ryan), and I keep myself to myself."   Ryan has had enough of the criticism, “I’ve been fucking banished from the bus on this tour!”. During the bickering Ross just sits quietly before adding, “I think there gonna start arguing in a minute, I'll just stay out of it”, Aaah brotherly love!