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The Cribs can now start out conversations by saying, “Remember when that guy from the Smiths was in our band?” The act, who originally hail from England, have released a statement that they will be continuing on as a three piece without legendary guitarist Jonny Marr. It reads, “So, as some of you may know by now The Cribs are gonna be a 3-piece again. That is a slightly less dramatic way of saying that Johnny Marr is no longer in the band. We don’t want it to be seen as a split, that just has so many negative connotations and really doesn’t represent the way everyone is feeling right now.”

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They went on to explain, “The truth is that, as Johnny said, we did more than we ever set out to do together really – we were initially just playing together as friends, and decided it might be fun to do a trademark Cribs ’surprise one-off seven inch’ or something of that ilk, but as we went along we just kept writing. First it was a single, then an EP, we just happened to really enjoy playing together and ended up writing a full album. We were/are all really proud of the work we did together and we did mean it in our assertions that Johnny was very much a full-time member of the band.”

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The statement continued to say that Marr is currently working on an album with his longtime backing band, the Healers, and the Cribs are currently demoing new material in bassist Gary Jarman’s basement in Portland, Oregon. “We have a bunch of new songs and are embracing the lo-fi again. It never was about fancy studios and LA and all that,” the Cribs summarized at the end of their statement. “We are back in our usual environment and feeling good about it. We’ve got everything we need.”
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