Ryan James Jarman is a British musician who is the guitarist and one of the vocalists of the
indie rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...
band
The Cribs
The Cribs are a British indie rock band originally from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, that formed in 2001. The band consists of twins Gary Jarman, Gary and Ryan Jarman and their younger brother Ross Jarman. They were subsequently joined by ex-The ...
.
The Cribs
Jarman formed
The Cribs
The Cribs are a British indie rock band originally from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, that formed in 2001. The band consists of twins Gary Jarman, Gary and Ryan Jarman and their younger brother Ross Jarman. They were subsequently joined by ex-The ...
in 2001 with his twin brother,
Gary, and younger brother,
Ross.
The band has released six albums on the
Wichita label, the first two being ''
The Cribs
The Cribs are a British indie rock band originally from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, that formed in 2001. The band consists of twins Gary Jarman, Gary and Ryan Jarman and their younger brother Ross Jarman. They were subsequently joined by ex-The ...
'' (produced by Ed Deegan and Bobby Conn), and ''
The New Fellas'' (produced by
Edwyn Collins, singer in influential indie band
Orange Juice
Orange juice is a liquid extract of the orange (fruit), orange tree fruit, produced by squeezing or reaming oranges. It comes in several different varieties, including blood orange, navel oranges, valencia orange, clementine, and tangerine. As ...
).
The Cribs' third album, ''
Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever'' was released in May 2007; the record was produced by
Alex Kapranos of
Franz Ferdinand.
Their fourth studio album ''
Ignore the Ignorant'', released in September 2009 included ex-
Smiths guitarist
Johnny Marr
John Martin Marr (Birth name#Maiden and married names, né Maher; born 31 October 1963) is a musician, songwriter and singer. He first achieved fame as the guitarist and co-songwriter of the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. He has sinc ...
; ''
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
David Lawrence Fridmann is an American record producer and musician.
Career
From 1990 onwards he co-produced most releases by Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips. Other bands he has worked with include Weezer, Saxon Shore (band), Saxon Shore, Neon ...
and
Steve Albini
Steven Frank Albini (; July 22, 1962 – May 7, 2024) was an American musician and audio engineer. He founded and fronted the influential post-hardcore and noise rock bands Big Black (1981–1987), Rapeman (1987–1989) and Shellac (band), ...
was released in May 2012.
On 12 March 2013, The Cribs released ''
Payola
Payola, in the music industry, is the name given to
the illegal practice of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing the payment. Under U.S. law, a radio station must disclose songs they were paid to pla ...
, a'' 22-track compilation album featuring some of their greatest hits and rarities.
The bands sixth studio album, ''
For All My Sisters'', was released on 20 March 2015.
Playing style
Jarman is known primarily for his repetitive, high pitched and catchy guitar riffs. In a recent poll of The Cribs back catalogue, ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' claimed that "Another Number" was an "early indication of Ryan's status as one of the best – and most underrated – guitarists of his generation" For ''
Ignore the Ignorant'', Jarman and
Johnny Marr
John Martin Marr (Birth name#Maiden and married names, né Maher; born 31 October 1963) is a musician, songwriter and singer. He first achieved fame as the guitarist and co-songwriter of the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. He has sinc ...
would refer to each other as "axe-bro's", as Marr 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".
Gear
Up until the Cribs' third album, Jarman played
Fender Mustang guitars. He discovered the
Gibson ES-335
The Gibson ES-335 is a semi-hollow body semi-acoustic guitar introduced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation as part of its Gibson ES Series, ES (Electric Spanish) series 1958 in music, in 1958. It has a solid maple wood block running through the cente ...
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 (well known as Fender Pawn Shop Mustang Special) in 'Lake Placid' blue as well as a Sonic Blue Fender Mustang with a black hotrails pickup.
Signature Squier Guitar
After using Fender guitars for many years, Jarman was given his own signature model in 2016, released through the
Squier
Squier is an American brand of electric guitars owned by Fender. The former manufacturing company, established as "V. C. Squier Company" was founded in 1890 by Victor Carroll Squier in Battle Creek, Michigan, producing strings for violins, ban ...
brand. The Squier
Ryan Jarman Signature includes Duncan Designed single-coil Jaguar neck pickup and a 'high output' humbucking bridge pickup, blended with master volume and tone controls along with phase and on/off switches for each pickup, and a toggle killswitch. An adjust-o-matic bridge with Fender Jaguar tailpiece, large '60s-style headstock and metal control plate offer vintage looks and practical usage. Combining elements of the
Fender Mustang and
Jaguar
The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large felidae, cat species and the only extant taxon, living member of the genus ''Panthera'' that is native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the biggest cat spe ...
guitars, the
Squier Ryan Jarman Signature Guitar is more commonly referred to as the 'Mus-Uar', as it was influenced by the Fender
Jag-Stang.
Amps and effects
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 AD30R Combo. 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, Jarman 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.
Personal life
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
Kaiser Chiefs are an English indie rock band from Leeds who originally formed in 1996 as Runston Parva, before reforming as Parva in 2000, and releasing one studio album, ''22'', in 2003, before renaming and establishing themselves in their cur ...
' table, breaking a large jar containing '
Flying Saucer
A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...
' sweets and stabbing himself in the back on one of the shards. He spent 4 hours in hospital receiving 15 stitches before returning to party at the awards. He subsequently went missing and was found slumped in a hallway by
Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe
Alexander Zane Reed Lowe (born 1973) is a New Zealand radio DJ, live DJ, record producer, and television presenter. After an early career in music creation, production and DJing, he moved to the UK in 1997. He came to prominence through pr ...
. Jarman was bleeding profusely and another ambulance was called to return him to hospital. He received both external and internal stitches to repair a rip to the membrane around the kidney that the first surgeon had missed. Jarman was discharged the next morning.
Jarman was in a four-year relationship with
Kate Nash, however it was announced in 2012 that the pair had split.
In 2015, it was reported that Jarman had been in a two-year relationship with musician
Jennifer Turner.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jarman, Ryan
1980 births
Living people
British identical twins
English male singer-songwriters
English singer-songwriters
English record producers
English rock guitarists
Musicians from Wakefield
Twin musicians
British expatriate musicians in the United States
The Cribs members
English male guitarists
21st-century English singers
21st-century British guitarists
21st-century British male singers