The Vaccines have introduced particulars of their sixth album ‘Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations’ and shared its first single ‘Heartbreak Kid’, plus information of a brand new UK tour. Test all of it out under together with our interview with frontman Justin Younger.
‘Heartbreak Kid’ marks the band’s first piece of recent materials since their 2022 EP ‘Planet Of The Youth’ and the primary launch because the departure of authentic guitarist Freddie Cowan.
The observe particulars romantic loss set to widescreen, surging guitars and a punchy, anthemic rhythm part – whereas Younger sings a few relationship crumbling to nothing.
“I’m not necessarily professing to be the protagonist,” he advised NME. “The whole record is very personal and real, and experienced and lived, but there are some songs on the record that are very literal and there are some that are stories. With ‘Heartbreak Kid’, I think it pretty much does what it says on the tin.”
The refrain of the one finds the frontman switching between two usages of the title, first urging: “Let your heart break, kid.” Later, he twists it into a brand new moniker, singing: “Oh you never thought they’d leave you but they did / Now everybody calls you the heartbreak kid.”
“I do enjoy a call to arms sometimes, which I don’t really know how often we’ve done because maybe it can be hard to get right,” Younger stated. “But there’s a subtle flip in there, which I quite like.”
Loss in many alternative kinds fuels ‘Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations’ – a theme that Younger stated has been part of The Vaccines’ DNA for a very long time. “That’s always been in not just our lyrics but our sound as well,” he defined. “There’s a way of nostalgia and looking out within the rearview mirror and questioning if what you left behind is healthier than what you’re heading in the direction of.
“It’s quite explicitly in the lyrics, but then it’s in the music as well. It’s in the melody and the sound. This record feels nostalgic. Something I’ve said about our music so many times is there’s euphoria and melancholia in equal measure. I don’t think this is a sad or depressing record – I actually think it’s quite hopeful and euphoric – but I do think it has these melancholic undertones.”
The album was written whereas Younger was dwelling in LA and going by way of his personal interval of loss. Though the album just isn’t strictly about rising disillusioned with the fact of America, he stated it makes use of that feeling as a “quite literal, overt metaphor for what one expects versus what one experiences”.
“A city like LA or New York, or even London, is in every song, every book, every movie and every TV show,” he stated. “These sorts of locations, we predict that they’re going to offer us with this sanctuary or escape, or this surroundings to domesticate this one who we all the time hoped we’d be capable to turn out to be.
“Then actually, you realise, ‘Am I running to something or from something? And, actually, even if I’m running to something, am I going to be able to escape what I’m running from?’”
‘Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations’ finds The Vaccines making a clear break from the sonic palette of 2021 album ‘Back In Love City’ and ‘Planet Of The Youth’, which pulled from every thing from disco to spaghetti Westerns. That’s been changed in favour of one thing extra natural. Wanting again on that earlier period of the band, Younger stated he was pleased with what the band had achieved with these two data, however that there have been components of him that questioned in the event that they had been utilising their members greatest on it.
“We have this incredible, amazing rock drummer [Yoann Intonti], who everybody I know that plays with him is like, ‘This guy is insane’, so why are we programming all the drums?” He stated. “Why are we taking the humanity out of that? Tim [Lanham] is now playing guitar and he’s this incredible, melodic guitar player – why would you not bring that to the front of what you do?”
He added that, now, it feels tougher to “create something that feels natural and human and imperfect”, suggesting that was drawing him extra in the direction of reside drums, “parts that are being played and lines that are being sung, and having a bit more vulnerability and imperfection in the music”. “I think that’s ultimately why we’re all drawn to music and musicians in the first place, right? And why AI will probably not triumph in that respect.”
That humanity and vulnerability was additionally recorded in LA, with The Vaccines teaming up with producer Andrew Wells (Halsey, Phoebe Bridgers). “We were in his home studio in the hills with this amazing view,” Younger shared. “It was a very inspiring, exciting place to be every day and I think you can hear that too. The more we make records, the more I really value being somewhere with someone that makes you feel excited to be there.”
The band’s sixth album marks a brand new period not simply in sound, however in personnel too. It’s the first Vaccines document to not function authentic guitarist Freddie Cowan, who left the band final summer season. “He actually left about two weeks before we flew to start recording,” Younger defined. “There was maybe some trepidation going for all of us, wondering what that was going to be like.” Inside 10 minutes of the classes beginning, although, they settled into their new roles and issues “felt very natural and easy”.
Though there was some apprehension going into the studio, the frontman reasoned that if the band didn’t assume they’d be capable to work with out Cowan, they wouldn’t have “attempted to get through it”. “Ultimately, bands can often end up being quite fluid and I think we all had faith in each other,” he stated. “There was trepidation, but mostly just a renewed sense of purpose.”
Younger described ‘Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations’, as with each album The Vaccines make, as the most recent step in a “never-ending quest for perfection”.
“It’s more cohesive than most [of our] records in terms of songs, but sound as well,” he defined. “It feels like we achieved what we set out to achieve. There’s this brief love affair that you get to have with the album you’ve made between finishing it and everybody else hearing it, and before people telling you it’s not pretty enough or clever enough, or whatever it may be. I’ve really enjoyed that period – I’ve played the album to death and it’s given me a lot of joy, so hopefully it’ll give other people joy too.”
As The Vaccines look ahead to one other chapter of their story, 13 years after forming and with a lot success and alter below their belts, the frontman stated it’s the easy issues on the core of the band that maintain him pushing ahead with it.
“[It’s] the catharsis that comes from writing and recording music and the fulfilment that comes from performing around the world with your best friends,” he stated. “I understand why people don’t want to keep doing and maybe as you get older, if you don’t get any bigger, it maybe becomes less comfortable, but I’ve just never stopped loving writing, recording and performing music.”
Younger added: “I feel so lucky to have an audience of people that want to hear it and connect with it. I can’t really think of anything else in life that would bring me so much joy. We want to keep getting better and enjoy what we do.”
‘Pick-Up Full Of Carnations’ can be launched on January 12, 2024
The band’s new European and UK tour dates are under. Tickets will go on pre-sale at 9am on September 26, with a normal on-sale starting at 9am on September 29. Go to right here for tickets and extra data.
The Vaccines’ 2024 UK dates are as follows:
February 2024
5 – Birmingham, O2 Institute
6 – Manchester, Academy
7 – Nottingham, Rock Metropolis
9 – London, Troxy
11 – Margate, Dreamland Margate
13 – Folkestone, Leas Cliff Corridor
14 – Southampton, O2 Guildhall
15 – Bristol, O2 Academy
17 – Oxford, O2 Academy
18 – Brighton, Dome
19 – Sheffield, O2 Academy
21 – Leeds, O2 Academy
22 – Glasgow, Barrowland Ballroom
23 – Newcastle, NX
