Rocking Out the Media Storm
The Vaccines hitting the road
Considering the last few months have seen The Vaccines create a violently buzzing hive of media excitement, frontman Justin Young looks surprisingly at ease. Sitting with his feet up in York’s Stereo Venue, he looks comfortable being in the eye of the media storm surrounding the band. As well as ignoring their own press, they seem to be also slightly outdated with current affairs. Young berates his fellow bandmate Freddie Cowan for not knowing where the 2012 Olympics are being held.
Although their first single is yet to be released, the colossal buzz around the four piece band have led to them being lauded, or burdened, with the accolade of driving the future of British guitar music. When questioned whether the media’s attention is a blessing or a curse, Young is aware of the band “not being judged on whether they’re good or bad, but if they’re the best thing since sliced bread”. In the music scene of today, he admits that “only three or four alternative bands in the last decade have increasingly sold records”, the pressure on the band to deliver is immense. However, Young is quick to point out that “we’re not the ones who’ve created that buzz”, and places the pressure on “the shoulders of the tastemakers”. His marker of success is refreshingly detached from any emphasis on popularity, and whilst the band can consider themselves to be “continuing to have fun, and push ourselves as artists and musicians”, the nature of their success remains entirely in their own ballpark.
Having previously won over audiences with the lilting melancholia of his previous folk outfit Jay Jay Pistolet, Young is no stranger to the music industry. However, his bittersweet tone now manifests itself in more of a gutsy roar, his melancholy more raucous than reflective. “Our music is steeped in nostalgia,” says Young, “But then again, so is life.” Indeed, The Vaccines sound draws influence from an “eclectic” range of older influences, with the front man referencing “50s rock and roll, 60s girl groups, and 80s American hardcore”, as well as Cowan’s love of kraut-rock’s sonic landscapes when pressed for musical inspirations.
However, the defining element of the band’s sound is their intensity, which elevates their ‘back to basics’ approach to songwriting from being merely derivative guitar fodder. That “rock and roll is never innovative, but is always fresh” is crucial to The Vaccines ethos, and their emphasis is on “simple, straight up pop songs, delivered in the form of rock and roll”.
In contrast to their name, the band are not out to cure any crisis of the current music scene, but rather attempting to reassert pop music’s fundamentals than getting “caught up in trying to be clever or weird”.
The band quote Mike Potter, the German artist, on their blog, calling his mantra “Nothing is wrong if it feels good…so apt we posted it twice!” Young is a firm believer that the best guitar bands make “something you’ve heard a million times before, feel like you’ve never heard it before”. Forthcoming single ‘Wreckin Bar/Blow it Up’ is such a song: firmly wedged somewhere between CBGBs and the laconic fuzz of Jesus and the Mary Chain, its seductive simplicity sticks with you for far longer than the brevity of the song itself, making it hard to disagree with Young. The Vaccines’ longevity lies in their preference of substance over style and intensity over innovation, in their passionate delivery of finely crafted scuzzy pop gems.
Tonight they play in a packed out Stereo, to a crowd of people driven here mainly by curiosity. The band play a set that ranges from the punk rock clatter of ‘Wreckin’ Bar’, through the Strokes-esque drawl of ‘A Lack of Understanding’ to the more brooding melodies of ‘Wet Suit’. Accompanied by the pulse of Anri Hjorvar’s bass, and Pete Robertson’s racing drum beats, Young and Cowan bump and jostle centre stage, enjoying the euphoric excitement of each increasingly familiar chorus as do much of the audience, most of whom are word-perfect by the second time they’re repeated.
The live experience is the substance with which the band intends to disperse any media hyperbole. “Lots of press isn’t the real way to build a band, you have to play and play and play. You get better, and win more people over – they appreciate it if you make the effort”, says Young, before Cowan details the Highlands leg of their current tour, and their attempt to spread The Vaccines word to areas frequently missed off regular touring schedules.
Although they infuse their considered approach to their image with their back to basics ethos, to complete the band’s sound, they resist the pressure for a new band to over expose themselves. “Nobody wants to know what you’ve had for breakfast”, jokes Young. He believes in justifying any media attention by “doing what we do best”, and playing live, instead of “standing on a podium for a magazine cover”. They’ve had a chance to demostrate this dedication to live performances, by recently appearing on Later with Jools Holland. Even the mere one minute and twenty three seconds of ‘Wreckin’ Bar’ was infinitely more exciting than the drivelling slew of country rock that Kings of Leon delivered on the same stage.
For every audience member, the camaraderie, and spirit, of the band, is obvious, and their decision to release their highly anticipated first release on their friend’s label Marshall Teller is no surprise. “Community values are something we really believe in”, and their repeated reference to the “sharing” of their sound in a live setting, and the breaking down of the barriers between band and audience, is highly endearing, be it in their physical involvement of the crowd onstage, or their presence at the merchandise after the gig.
With their debut record due to be completed at the end of this month, and released early next year on Columbia Records to coincide with their opening slot on the NME Awards tour The Vaccines will surely need no introduction before long.
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