The Cribs’ Ryan Jarman’s most treasured possession is a lock of Kurt Cobain’s hair gifted him by Courtney Love

The Cribs’ Ryan Jarman has revealed that his most treasured possession is a lock of Kurt Cobain’s hair, which was given to him by Courtney Love.

• READ MORE: The Cribs tell us about shedding their “punk rock guilt” on new album ‘Selling A Vibe’: “We’ve always had a real pop side”
  

The guitarist and singer opened up about the gift in a new interview with Far Out, and said that he was given the lock of hair by the Hole frontwoman – who is also Cobain’s widow – during a more hedonistic time in the band’s career.

According to Jarman, he was hospitalised after being cut by broken glass after jumping onto a table at the NME Awards in 2006. Afterwards, Love invited him to her home and gave him a lock of the Nirvana frontman’s hair as a reminder of “what happens when you die young”.

“Whenever I was in LA I would be living with Courtney Love at her house, which was great,” he explained. “After that NME awards incident she gave me a lock of Kurt Cobain’s hair. So, I have a lock of Kurt Cobain’s hair in a little baggy.”

“I’ve literally never told anyone about that because I felt a bit embarrassed to tell people,” he added. “There’s almost like a rub of whether or not that’s bad taste. But it’s like she gave it to me almost as this talismanic kind of thing. Because I’d had this incident, and she was like ‘Look, this is what happens when you die young.’

“That’s what she said to me when she gave it to me. I thought it was a cool gesture. It was nice of her, but it wasn’t like a fun gift. It’s funny because I just keep it in the bag. It’s in the bottom of my sock drawer.”

The interview comes following The Cribs sharing a ballad called ‘A Point Too Hard To Make’ back in October, and announcing news of a huge Leeds gig for summer 2026.

The track is taken from Wakefield trio’s ninth studio album ‘Selling A Vibe’, which is due for release on Friday January 9, 2026, and the lyrical content focuses on their intense early days as a band.

Their upcoming slot in Leeds will be held at the Millennium Square on July 11 2026 – 10 years since the band last performed there, joined by Sonic Youth legend Thurston Moore.

Aside from the gig in Leeds, the band will also be heading out on a UK tour in 2026, making stops in Brighton, Birmingham, Sheffield and more. You can find any remaining tickets here.

Speaking to NME over the summer, Jarman told us about how working with Chairlift’s Patrick Wimberley impacted the sound of the upcoming album, and how they decided to lean into a pop sound.

“We’ve always had a real pop side to the band, and we love pop music. We always really liked pop melodies and a lot of pop devices, like big hooks and all that stuff,” he said. “We’ve often – just out of some punk rock guilt – buried it. We focused more on the noisier side. So when we worked with Patrick, we felt like we had a good set of pop songs.”

Jarman continued: “We wanted to work with him so he could work on bringing that out. His production was really good for that. He came up with a lot of things that we wouldn’t have necessarily come up with on our own.

“I just didn’t feel like we had anything left to prove, as far as the indie and punk shit goes. We’ve done eight records of that.”

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