The Cribs and Johnny Marr on the Smith's New Role, Bad '90s Music

For three albums, the Cribs — twin brothers Gary and Ryan Jarman and their younger bro Ross — kept things familial on their way to becoming a buzz band in their native England. But for their fourth album Ignore the Ignorant, the U.K. indie trio welcomed a big non-Jarman name as a formal member, recruiting the Smiths — and more recently, Modest Mouse — guitarist Johnny Marr. In this exclusive Rolling Stone interview, Gary Jarman and Marr discuss the genesis of this new union ("We just got together to play, really informally, just to see how it would go. Just for fun, really," Marr tells RS) plus Jarman talks about how the crappy music of the 1990s forced him to seek musical refuge in the music of the Smiths.

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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