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Marr is thrilled to be a Crib. But a Smith? Well... (© John Davisson/Corbis)

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Jarman: "I don't like it when people play for themselves. I've always been a big fan of playing for the song. As far as wanting to impress, you're only impressing other guitarists. Some music that is so technically proficient, it says to me that there's been too many hours spent in the bedroom rehearsing and not enough living going on. You need to have a social life."

Marr: "You need to have something to say. Shredding, to me, is akin to having a incredibly overblown vocabulary at your disposal and saying very, very little. Or saying a lot that is ultimately meaningless and just a display of your virtuosity and practice power.

"I'm not saying underachieving is a good thing either. But I don't want to sit in front of somebody who has an incredible vocabulary but is talking bullshit. And playing the guitar is really just talking with your fingers, isn't it?"

What do the two of you like about each other's playing?

Jarman: "I really like Johnny's playing for being very romantic. It's very melodic, but it's not obvious. It paints a pretty picture. There's not many guitar players held in high esteem who are actually tasteful. That says a lot, really."

Marr: "When I first heard Ryan's playing, I found it to be really original in a way that was kind of confounding, which is always a great thing. I like when you don't know where it's coming from, and I think that's what innovation is. It gets harder and harder, as we've got like, 40, 50 years of guitar culture, to hear somebody who's really innovative."

Do you two actually practice the guitar? Do you sit down and work on scales, riffs or licks?

Jarman: "I don't. I don't even have a guitar at home. That's purely down to the fact that…I do love the guitar and I love playing, but when we get together to write, if I haven't played in a long time, I don't feel rusty at all - I feel excited. I haven't run the tank dry by sitting at home and trying to write constantly."

Marr: "I have a lot guitars around and I play if I'm on the phone or if the sound is down on the television in an absent-minded way. It's more of a physical thing. I think what Ryan was saying…it's important to protect your inspiration and enthusiasm. You can run the tank dry.

"I have a tendency to put aside time to play and really burn myself out, but that's not from doing scales, it's from coming up with, like, 300 chord changes. You have to keep the romance alive. The idea of sitting in a room and playing for eight hours and then writing a decent song absolutely terrifies me."

Let me ask you about another song on the new record, Stick To Yr Guns. That's a pretty sophisticated arrangement.

Marr: "It came about out of jamming and improvisation."

Jarman: "A late-night jam kind of thing. That song originally was, like, 15 minutes long. We just went round and round and round. Then we edited it down to six minutes and took the best bits. But because it was a jam, there was a lot of little tasty bits - obviously, we didn't want to use the same devices too many times. There was a lot of edits on it."

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