Let’s not pretend that you don’t know The Vaccines.
They’ve been tearing up stages and festival fields around the world for over a decade with their scintillating blend of thrashing punk-rock and arena-sized indie choruses – and now, they’re heading across the UK this summer for another flurry of festival stages. We caught up with frontman Justin Young to talk touring plans, songwriting, and the importance of honesty in an artist forming a connection with their listener.
You guys seem to be playing in every field in the UK this summer. Do you think there’s a reason why large crowds respond so well to your songs, even if they might not be familiar with you?
‘That’s a good question. I don’t know. I guess it’s infectious – I guess all emotion is infectious in that sense. Whenever we play gigs we always give 110%. Our music is quick and rowdy and I think as a result a section of the crowd also often is, and I think that kind of spreads. We do seem to be lucky at festivals – we haven’t had too many shockers over the years…’
Your first album was full of really short and concise songs. That’s now a trend, but you guys were ahead of that. Do you think a younger demographic just naturally reacts a little better to short and sharp songs?
‘Well, I do think we’re increasingly kind of ADHD, and I think that we, as human beings, have an increasingly short attention span. You know, we were also kind of harking back to the original radio pop and all of our favorite music. Whether it was punk rock, or Fifties rock and roll, or even Sixties girl groups, that was all kind of two-minute songs, so that’s the kind of stuff that we were channeling. I remember when I was a teenager, one of my favorite albums had 15 songs on it and it was 22 minutes long, or something like that. You’d just end up listening to it multiple times in a row as a result.’
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Have you noticed that in yourself? Are you discarding ideas that don’t quite click immediately quicker than you were before?
‘I think part of what’s weird now is that when I used to write songs, I’d have to sit down and finish them, and then play them often enough so that I would remember them and not forget them. Actually, there are some songs on our first record where the melody probably ended up changing slightly from the day I wrote them because I couldn’t quite remember them and there were no recordings. Whereas now, you can voice note everything – and most of the time when you’re writing, you’re in a studio with someone running recording software. So there’s almost no such thing as a demo anymore. A lot of what you record on the day you write ends up staying on the finished recording.’
‘I think that plays into the notion of “if something isn’t great immediately, you just move on”. Or you can make it sound great immediately with all these little production tricks. I feel like I definitely don’t have the attention span to sit down if I’m on my own without someone putting a really nice vocal effect (or something) on my vocal straight away.’
As a writer, do the lyrics or melody come first? Is there a pattern?
‘I write lyrics every day, so I’ll go on a walk and I’ll write down something I found interesting, or affecting, or funny, or whatever. And then I sort of have this big folder of lyrics, and sometimes I’ll try to put them together and make sense of them. Then there’ll be a spark that will ignite a fire and that might make me want to write a song. Then other times, I’ll have a melody and I’ll wonder if there are any lyrics that kind of make sense to that melody, and I dig through my folder – so it sort of changes, really.’
I’ve always thought your lyrical style is pretty distinctive and almost has a knowing wink to it. Do you ever have to dilute that when you’re writing for other people?
‘I think it’s quite subjective what people think a good lyric is, but I think the most important thing when you’re writing for other people is for them to have their identity – and also for the songs to have an identity. You don’t want to dumb it down to the point of it being generic or uninteresting. So I always try to bring a bit of myself, but I suppose it’s more of a collaborative process.’
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Did you ever have to train yourself to get into a place where if you could go into a room and be like, I’m going to write a song today? Rather than having to come from inspiration?
Yeah, I think that you kind of get better with that when you do your 10,000 hours or whatever. I don’t think every day you are great, so I think a big part of that is surrounding yourself with other collaborators or artists, who, you know, are able to show up if you’re not creatively with it.
‘Some days you may feel like you really contributed to integral, essential, important parts of the song, whereas other days you might feel slightly more peripheral. I think that there’s not necessarily a one size fits all approach. You might not be able to come up with a great lyric one day, but you might come up with an interesting melody or vice versa – or you might even just be able to say, “Hey, I feel like this is maybe not inspiring, why don’t we try a new idea?” Even just steering it like that can be a valuable thing.’
Who do you admire nowadays in the contemporary songwriting or artist space?
‘There are tons of artists I think are amazing writers. In terms of my peers, I think Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend is an amazing lyricist, I think Alex Turner is amazing, and I think Taylor Swift is a great writer. They’re just artists who consistently write good songs.’
You spoke about the importance of collaboration. So, with a great live band, you guys have been through a few changes over the years, but do you think it’s simply a case of ‘practice will make perfect’? Or does there need to be an innate spark between the core members?
‘Well, it’s a good question. I think that it might not ‘make perfect’, but it might make something more permanent. I think the more you play, the better you get. It doesn’t actually feel like we are playing that much this summer, because we don’t have a record out. But it’s so fun when you end up playing every night in a row for 18 months and by the end of it you just feel completely unstoppable; you find a flow state. Even after 12 years of playing together, if you don’t play for six months it doesn’t feel quite the same.’
I guess it must be quite easy to go through the motions with some of the old songs as well. So reinvigoration must be a useful thing.
‘Honestly, when we’re rehearsing, whenever we play old songs they almost get worse because we’re almost on autopilot.’
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As a performer, do you still get nervous in front of a crowd, big or small?
‘I get nervous if my friends are there, but generally, I’m just excited. I really do believe in what we do. So it’s one of the few things I don’t get nervous about. London shows, and if friends and family are there? Yeah, I get a little nervous. But in terms of size, crowd, and all that stuff, it doesn’t bother me.’
So what parts of your job do you get nervous about?
‘I mean, it’s always nerve-wracking putting new music out. I guess it’s because you don’t know how the world will respond, but then it’s exciting in equal measure. I wouldn’t say I find it nerve-wracking, but it’s full of adrenaline.’
You guys rose up pretty quickly. Do you still think that’s possible for a band in this day and age where they might not be able to release an album for two years?
‘I think it’s different. I think the majority of acts do have to kind of release, like, seven EPs for five years before anyone will let them make a record, it seems. That being said, maybe I’m talking in broad brush strokes, so I don’t know. The world is always changing, technology is always changing, and art is always changing. The way it’s consumed and the way it’s made and discovered is constantly in flux. I mean, there are acts… I look at Wet Leg and that happened very quickly to them. I’d say they are roughly in the same lane The Vaccines are or were – so, you know, it definitely can still happen. I think it’s never been so easy to make it in music and I don’t think it’s ever been as hard either.’
Do you have any longstanding influences that might not be sonically or lyrically obvious when we listen to your stuff?
‘I was just texting a friend of mine a Leonard Cohen song. Leonard Cohen is my favorite lyricist, but I mean, like any music fan, I think we’ve got very broad tastes. I think when you start a band or an artist project – and perhaps it was 12 years ago – you don’t necessarily listen to music that sounds like yours. =
Are you influenced by literature and poetry?
‘Not so much. I don’t love fiction, I like non-fiction a lot more, and I like a bit of poetry – but music has always been that. The performative element of music has probably drawn me in as much as the creative side of it.’
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How much of your writing over the years has been autobiographical and how much has been written from the point of view of a character? Or a caricature of yourself?
‘I think it’s always autobiographical, to an extent. I think when I was younger, it was 100% autobiographical, and now it’s probably like 95%. It might not necessarily be literal, or on the nose, or a story: but the feelings and emotions and probably most of the situations are firsthand, for sure.
Do you think that’s part of the reason why people will connect with the music, even if they’re just discovering it now?
‘Well, I do think honesty and authenticity is why we connect to any type of art, whether it’s poetry or literature, or film. We’re looking for a bit of humanity in the people that are delivering it to us. We want it to reflect our own lives. So I think that to me, that’s what good music is – it feels authentic. ‘
What’s next for The Vaccines?
‘Well, we’re going to play a handful of shows this summer, and hopefully release some music at the end of it. We’re just mixing the next record now and then I think we’ll tour the world next year, which I’m really excited about. It’s a rock record – it’s probably the most like ‘The Vaccines’ we’ve sounded in a while. There’s not really much drum programming or synthesizers, or anything like that. It’s quite a raw-sounding record which feels cool. It feels exciting.’