Music Features

I find The Cribs amongst the snaking corridors of the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I say The Cribs, but really they were going to be a man down - Ryan smiled politely before escaping the dressing room and therefore the range of my recording device.

Gary at the Corn Exchange

I wasn't going to ask about Kate Nash, honest!

It's not like we could have fitted him in anyway. Ryan's two brothers, Gary and Ross, were just about able to find enough room for me in what was their residence for the evening in the bowels of the Corn Exchange.

"It's pretty outside, it's just funny how this room we're in now just reminds me of gym class at high school," says bassist Gary.

"It should smell like Lynx deodorant or something that's synonymous with that physical education smell."

Fortunately the three Wakefield boys are pretty used to the smaller setup, having toured Yorkshire social clubs relentlessly to make their majestic steps up the musical ladder.

It's paying off too; after all, the reason they were in Cambridge was to headline the NME Awards tour with Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong and the Ting Tings.

"They've always been good to us. There's a lot of organisations these days who will just back a horse who they think will be the next big thing but the NME, I think, have a genuine love for this band," says Gary.

"The writers that I've met from the magazine in the past seem like they have a lot of integrity. It seems like it's come in for a bit of flack recently. But my own take can only be on my personal experiences which have been completely fine."

Their time in Cambridge has been limited, with trips down to London at a premium. Ross, the younger of the three brothers, pipes up with a slightly fatigued voice.

"We've had a bit of a rough day today, we had to be up at five AM because we were in London. We had to get our visas done because we're off on tour to the US after this."

Ryan takes flight at the Corn Exchange

Although it hasn't all been form filling and queuing - they've had the chance to play Cupid, with Gary noting that the city's backs prove the ideal match-making environment.

"Our guitar-tech went on a blind date so we sent our sound guy out on a surveillance mission to keep an eye on him. They were going to go punting down on the river."

Does that mean covert actions with ducks on the head?

"He's pretty good our sound guy, he's a like a James Bond type character. Not only in his surveillance skills but also his debonair image that he puts across. We knew we had the right man on the job, he kept an eye on it and apparently the date was a moderate success."

"We're going to go on a mission now for the rest of the tour, even when we get to America, we're going to try and schedule a blind date for our guitar-tech on every single day of the tour."

"I think it's still a Valentine's Day thing, we all fancy ourselves as a bit of a Cilla Black," adds Ross.

According to Gary, the band's plight to setup their unlucky-in-love colleague is evidence of how the indie-club favourites have yet to be sucked up by record label politics and commercial antics.

"We don't want to get caught up in that cynical music industry cycle. It's no wonder bands get fed up, obviously we get fed up sometimes, but we're in a peculiar situation. If we didn't have people around us who came up with us in the first place I think touring would be something I'd absolutely detest."

Ross and Gary take centre stage

You can't get more home grown than this band of brothers. Ryan, who can sometimes be more renowned for his relationship with songstress Kate Nash, twin Gary and drummer Ross survive while living in each other's pockets. The sticksman admits it can be a bit of a tightrope.

"You know exactly which buttons not to press, you know which ones to avoid, but if you ever felt the need to you know that you can press them buttons. But you know it'd go really, really wrong if you did."

It's not as if they have time to wind each other up anyway. Busy does not do justice to The Cribs' outlook at the moment. Fresh off their 2007 Alex Kapranos produced album, Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever, they are working with Johnny Marr on new material and are ready to jet off to the States and Mexico.

"We get the feeling the kids are digging it down there," says Gary. "The kids want to shake, you know? And we're gonna go down there and do that."

"Then I'm going to burn myself into nothing, get my ashes burnt down into a fake diamond, which will then be mounted on a delightful plinth and shot into the cosmos, and that's the last you'll ever see of me."

You heard it hear first kids.