One-half of London’s hottest guitar merchants are beaming conspiratorially back at me in a dressing-room located in Ireland’s largest stadium. There are countless reasons for Justin Young – the English pipes – and Árni Hjörvar – the Icelandic bassist – to be pleased (though you can possibly strike off ‘being in a HP correspondent’s company’) mere hours before they take to the Croke Park stage, below Noel Gallagher and the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the bill. But their sheepish grins are holding back a secret. Early hype coming to fruition, and what it’s like vaulting up the indie ladder, are the burning issues on the agenda as Árni attempts to throw cold water on the conversation.
“I can’t really talk any more about it without name-dropping,” he grimaces. So naturally I needle him. “No don’t!” guffaws Young, the former Jay Jay Pistolet now sporting long locks. “I can’t, I won’t, haha! Yeah, go on...” responds Árni as he folds, quite easily, before whispering. “The Boss watched us from the side of the stage at Isle of Wight.” A pause for dramatic effect.
“Someone told us afterwards, I didn’t spot him.”
Would it have thrown them to catch sight of the New Jersey icon mid-set?
“It definitely would have thrown me,” Young nods.
But it’s certainly becoming a more common occurrence for the band, who raced out of the traps with What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? last year. The gigs have been getting bigger, as have the names they’re attracting. I melt a little to hear that The Zombies, one of my favourite acts, dedicated a song to them – “They’re one of mine too!” says a wide-eyed Justin – and Debbie Harry’s distinctive platinum ‘do was spotted at a recent Vaccines show.
“That was fucking surreal,” says Justin. “It’s as weird for us as it would be for you, man.”
The touring has been extensive but enjoyable, with free trips to the far-flung likes of New Zealand and Japan. For all the talk of the industry faltering, it’s nice to hear that some of the old rock ‘n’ roll perks still exist for our bright young guns.
“In terms of playing America...” Justin starts. “I mean, you could think of Ireland as the size of one state. Not even! So you can’t think of America as a country. You have to think of it as another world. Because of my throat problems we haven’t had a chance to tour it properly, but we’re touring it late this year. We’re excited to do it properly, play in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
And why wouldn’t they be? When they last hit Palm Springs for Coachella, they were staying at the place where Nancy Sinatra learnt to swim. In the hotel next door, Jim Morrison had once jumped off the roof and into the swimming pool. It seems no less eventful now...
“Everything around us has some sort of story like that,” Hjörvar proffers. “Every single hotel. One of them was just called ‘Rock Star Hotel’!”
Justin takes over. “We got there and we’d been travelling for two days. Freddie [Cowan, guitar] was really fucked. Then I told him the stories that I’d looked up online and suddenly he loved the place. We actually had to leave to go to Brazil straight after the show but that night in the hotel they had a Victoria’s Secret party at the pool!”
“It was just kicking off and we were picking up our bags to leave,” says Hjörvar, still rueing missed opportunities. “Going ‘shitting hell...’”
Was it a proper pool party? The models weren’t all wearing cardigans were they?
“Nobody wears cardigans in California!” he laughs. “I bet they do,” counters Justin. “I bet you did.” The blond bassist sighs. “I probably did.”
With all that going on, it would be easy to get distracted from the mission at hand (making music, of course) but admirably The Vaccines have forged on, planning to strike while the iron’s hot. The Vaccines Come Of Age carries a title as similarly larksome as its predecessor and arrives in September. Written on the road and recorded with Ethan Johns – “a no-bullshit guy” – they’ve added strings to their canon, sound more confident but less eager, and didn’t take an absolute age to make the record. Exactly the way it’s meant to be.
“You don’t want it looming and you don’t want to be a cabaret act playing the same songs over and over again,” Young explains. “I think playing comes before writing, that’s the most primitive part, but you want to be writing all you can, pushing yourself. It’s all done completely live, so there’s a lot more character, more intimacy. It’s a very searching record.”
Having only slipped into their mid-20s, it’s a disarmingly nostalgic work, signalling a move to proper adulthood whilst noting the sign posts of the past. Árni mulls this over. “There are these ‘growing up’ elements, you’re learning about yourself whether you’d like to or not, that was there on the first record. It’s just been sped up a bit over the last couple of years.”
Justin notes that “all those elements of classic pop songs” are still there and talk turns to influences, and the greatest pop songs of all time. We end up in the ‘60s as both of them cite ‘God Only Knows’ as a particular favourite.
Justin: “And ‘Waterloo Sunset’, countless Beatles songs obviously. I think there was so much space back then, there were still nursery rhymes to be written in their purest form.”
Árni nods. “Also, people hadn’t really realised what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not. That music was in its infancy, the rules weren’t there.”
Which begs the question – is it all just youthful rehashes and big band reunions these days? At the time of talking, The Vaccines are gearing up to support The Stone Roses at Heaton Park.
“What legitimises a comeback is making new music,” Justin asserts.
“Otherwise it’s just a cabaret,” Árni concurs. “Just a caricature of what you used to be. When there is no progression, there is no point.”
His singer nods. “Or forming without original members. But I suppose who can blame them? We’ll have to wait and see if the Roses write new material but who can stop four guys wanting to get back together? If you left this magazine, would you come back and write a one-off article in 30 years for a new editor? I mean, it’s very easy for people to go, ‘Oh
it’s just about the fucking money’. But it is about
the money!”
While it’s clear from speaking to them that the pair are devoted to their craft, they’ve irked some critics for their devil-may-care approach. Then there’s the constant chatter about ‘the death of guitar music’.
“Oh, I don’t even want to talk about it!” Justin laughs through sheer exasperation. “It’s just become a self-fulfilling thing where, because some people started asking it, now people ask constantly.”
He assesses his surroundings and looks forward to the show they’re about to play in support of a globe-straddling Californian act. “How is guitar music dead when a band with a guitar virtuoso are about to walk out onstage in front of 80,000 people in a country with a population of how many? Less than five million? That’s a huge percentage.”
Turning the tables, what questions irk The Vaccines? The answer comes quicksharp from Árni with a look Heaven-wards.
“What should we expect from the Vaccines?”
And yet they’ve stuck with the ironic titles. Please tell me album number three is going to be entitled The Vaccines Go To Camp?
“They’re obviously both pretty tongue-in-cheek,” says Justin. “But I like the classic ‘bubblegum pop’ nature of them. I’ve seen a couple of journos taking it seriously... Yeah, ‘we’ve come of age’ – Pfft! You really don’t understand. That’s really not what’s going on here.”
Nearly 50 years on and Mister Jones still doesn’t quite get it. But, as the pair exit amiably to prep for their first ever stadium performance, there’s
little doubt that something is going on here with The Vaccines.