The Cribs Release 'Never The Same' Video
([PIAS]) The Cribs have shared a music video for their new single "Never The Same", the final track to emerge from the highly-anticipated forthcoming album Selling A Vibe, out this Friday, January 9.
Selling A Vibe marks their first full length release in over five years, with August's lead single "Summer Seizures" seeing a deservedly passionate response from fans and media alike. Its follow-up "A Point Too Hard To Make" paired chiming guitars with classic Cribs call-and-response dual vocals, and landed on the BBC 6 Music A-list. On new single "Never The Same" the band considers personal evolution, and what comes from leaving a part of one's self in the past.
Guitarist and singer Ryan Jarman comments: "Never The Same is kind of a throwback to our original approach: trim all the fat, bring it in as short as possible and keep out of the way...streamlined. Stylish. It's almost a little paradoxical as lyrically it's about feeling like a different person at this point in life, and missing the chaos of your previous existence, even if it wouldn't make sense anymore."
Bassist and singer Gary Jarman says: "We wrote Never The Same the evening that we returned home from Italy, after playing Louis Tomlinson's 'Away From Home' festival. The night before, we had been talking with Louis' manager about maybe writing and/or producing some tracks for his next LP, so upon our return to Wakefield we got to work and banged this out, fully formed, in a couple of hours. And then we became attached to it and decided to keep it for ourselves! I think that the freedom of conceiving it for someone else just meant that we didn't overthink anything, and just got straight to the point - it came together fast. So yeah, in an alternate timeline it could've been a Louis song."
He continues about the video: "We have been interested in directing our own video for a while. Ryan in particular has always been very interested in film, and had recently made a video for Exclamation Pony that had come out really good. So we bought a bunch of 8mm film and decided to try and document our US tour. Shot on location in San Diego and featuring live footage from the shows, the video was mostly shot by Ryan and then edited by Gary, so it's all on us. We were busy so we knew the chances of us all getting together to make another video on 16mm was unlikely, and this allowed us to try and keep it in the same world whilst also having the opportunity to make something candid and honest."
For the three Jarman brothers, The Cribs has always been a heart-on-sleeve endeavor, documenting a realness and honesty, imbued with a raw spirit and a love for pop melodies, that winks with a healthy skepticism at a world increasingly weighed down by quantity over quality, style over substance. You need only look as far as the new album title for evidence of that. It can be argued though that with Selling A Vibe, that honesty is increasingly turned in the direction of each other, the first time they have so openly done so on one of their records.
With a feeling in the camp that the band were stuck on the release-tour-release-tour treadmill, and with the brothers living apart across three timezones, they knew they needed to revive the essence of their relationship as family, and get away from solely feeling like band members. A summer spent together with no music, no writing, just reconnection proved the perfect place to start that process, something they say they're grateful for the opportunity to do after 20 years together making music.
If behind the scenes Selling A Vibe became about a return to truer relationships, the goal with producer Patrick Wimberly was very much about not reverting to type. Having worked with bucket-list rock producers on previous albums - Edwyn Collins, Alex Kapranos, Nick Launay, Dave Fridmann, Steve Albini, and Ric Ocasek to name a few - the appointment of former Chairlift man Patrick Wimberly for Selling A Vibe came from a place of continued curiosity, possibility, and adventure. They wanted to work with someone who operated in a more contemporary way, and Wimberly's list of production credits (Solange, MGMT, Lil Yachty) more than caught the eye. "We'd always said if we made another record we would specifically focus on enhancing the pop element of the band, so Patrick's way of working and experience in that realm seemed a great fit whilst also being a completely new experience". For The Cribs, it wasn't about recapturing lightning-in-a-bottle moments of yore, it was about breaking the bottle entirely and seeing what could be inside. That meant a slower, more considered recording process, and time in the studio to indulge their love of melody. Selling A Vibe becomes a record not only anchored in reconnection, but one put together to illicit that same response.
Bassist and vocalist Gary Jarman says: "I think as time has gone by our albums have become more and more open - and as such the songs on Selling A Vibe feel very personal. So it can be nerve wracking releasing them because they matter so much to us. I know that may sound overly romantic or idealistic, but ultimately - it's the only thing that matters when all is said and done. Did we connect with people? We don't want this to be seen as an "indie rock" record or a "punk" record or whatever - all those things that used to seem to matter to us - our only hope is that people enjoy and connect with the songs and lyrics for what they are. We want them to be for everyone, really. And as such, I suppose you could say that makes it our most ambitious album, as we have fully given ourselves over to that. In short, we sincerely hope you enjoy it."
Key to the band's creative output is that they now only release music when it feels like they have something new to contribute. A new record needs to add something to theirs and their fans' lives. In this case, the renewal of treasured relationships seems as good a reason as any for their return after a five-year absence.
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