Ryan Jarman

Ryan Jarman
Ryan Jarman at Abbey Road Studios, London, October 2011
Background information
Birth name	Ryan James Jarman
Born	(1980-10-20) 20 October 1980
Origin	Wakefield, West Yorkshire England
Genres	Indie rock Power pop Punk rock Lo-Fi
Occupations	Singer, Songwriter, Producer
Instruments	Guitar, Accordion, Organ, Piano, Violin
Years active	2000 - present
Labels	Wichita Warner Bros. Records (USA) Universal Records(Philippines)
Associated acts	The Cribs Exclamation Pony
Website	Official Website Myspace
Notable instruments
Fender Mustang Epiphone Coronet Gibson ES-335 Fender Jaguar

Ryan James Jarman^[1] (born 20 October 1980 in Wakefield, United Kingdom) is the guitarist and vocalist with English lo-fi indie rock band The Cribs. Ryan Jarman now resides in Brooklyn, New York.

The Cribs

Ryan formed The Cribs in the early 2000s with his twin brother Gary and younger brother Ross. The band are known for their short, punchy tunes with pop riffs and a lo-fi sound – influenced by bands like Huggy Bear, Comet Gain and Beat Happening. The Cribs have released five albums on the Wichita label, the first two being The Cribs (produced by Ed Deegan and Bobby Conn), and The New Fellas (produced by Edwyn Collins, singer in influential indie band Orange Juice).

The Cribs' third album, Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever was released on 21 May 2007; the record was produced by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand.

Their fourth studio album Ignore the Ignorant, released on 7 September 2009 included ex The Smiths guitarist, Johnny Marr; Ignore the Ignorant was produced by Nick Launay in Los Angeles. The Cribs' fifth album, In the Belly of the Brazen Bull produced by Dave Fridmann and Steve Albini was released on 7 May 2012.

The Cribs' released their 6th studio album "Payola" which featured some of their greatest hits and rarities shortly after.

Playing style

Jarman is known primarily for his repetitive, high pitched and catchy guitar riffs. In a recent poll of The Cribs back catalogue the NME claimed that 'Another Number' was an "early indication of Ryan's status as one of the best – and most underrated – guitarists of his generation" ^[2] For Ignore The Ignorant, Ryan and Johnny Marr would refer to each other as "axe-bro's", as Johnny told Total Guitar in October 2010: "We're very deliberate about being a twin guitar assault, Ryan is a busy player and I am too, so we both fizz and whoever comes to the top is backed up. Ryan is one of the best guitarists to come out of British pop culture. He's in an elite handful of people doing innovative, unexpected things". ^[3]

Gear

Up until The Cribs' third album, Jarman played Fender Mustang guitars. He discovered the Gibson ES-335 in recording "Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever," and took to using it almost exclusively live afterwards. He now uses a Squier Venus for his Cribs work, and an Epiphone Coronet for his side project. He has also been seen using a vintage Mosrite Ventures, and a Pawn Shop series Fender Mustang in 'Lake Placid' blue. Aswell as a Sonic Blue Fender Mustang with a black hotrails pickup.

Although sparingly spotted with Vox amplifiers in the early days of The Cribs, Jarman has almost always played through Orange amps. Jarman has been quoted as saying that, out of habit, he runs both an AD30 combo and head at the same time with the combo on top of an Orange cabinet and the head hidden out of view . In situations where taking both would be impractical, he uses just the AD30HTC head and matching cabinet. As of 2012, Jarman has started using a Green Matamp head alongside the Orange head. For effects, his regular pedals are the Fulltone OCD and the Ibanez Tube Screamer, which was his pedal of choice until 2008. Primarily using just distortion, Jarman has however recently started using an Electro Harmonix Poly-Chorus regularly both live and in the studio. Jarman also claims to use the thickest possible strings, both for tonal reasons and to minimise any string bend, giving his playing a more robotic feel. Rotosound custom make his own gauge for him.

Production

As well as producing/co-producing many tracks with The Cribs, Ryan has also produced records by various other bands. From Springtime Studios, which Jarman set up with his brothers in Wakefield in 2002, he engineered and worked with various local bands as well as numerous records for Leeds based noise label Squirrel Records. In 2010, he produced the Comet Gain album Howl of the Lonely Crowd. More recently, he has produced tracks for Frankie & The Heartstrings, Kate Nash and has produced the debut record by This Many Boyfriends.

Professional History

Jarman has made some memorable TV appearances, including music panel show Never Mind The Buzzcocks, where he took credit for inspiring Live 8, by texting Bob Geldof and suggesting a Live Aid 2.

At the 2006 NME Awards, Jarman was seriously injured when he collected an award on behalf of Franz Ferdinand. In his haste to accept it, he jumped across the Kaiser Chiefs' table, breaking a large jar containing 'Flying Saucer' sweets and stabbing himself in the back on one of the shards.^[4] He spent 4 hours in hospital receiving 15 stitches before returning to party at the awards, where he went missing, only to be found by Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe bleeding heavily. Another ambulance was called and he returned to hospital, where he received both external and internal stitches to repair a rip to the membrane around the kidney that the first surgeon had missed and then discharged the next morning.

References