THE VACCINES are back! Back!! BACK!!! After a whirlwind journey through pop experimentation, their sixth LP, 'Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations,' delves into themes of disillusionment and heartbreak, reminding us to keep dreaming. Read our latest Dork Playlist cover feature now.

Words: Finlay Holden.
Photos: Wrenne Evans.

It's been a rollercoaster few years for indie-rock veterans The Vaccines. Although they've now been releasing music for over a decade, their post-pandemic re-emergence was truly the start of a new chapter. With the release of 'Headphones Baby', a revitalising, genre-hopping approach was adopted and with it the ability to summon some seriously catchy choruses. Following their fifth LP, 'Back In Love City', the group quickly came back with another sizzling pop record, the 'Planet Of The Youth' EP, which was fuelled by spur-of-the-moment excitement and rapid decision-making.

Although it seemed like a new trajectory was taking flight, detailed conversations were taking place behind the scenes with the band members reassessing their musical DNA once again – this is certainly not the first time The Vaccines have had to carefully consider their options, as frontman Justin Hayward-Young explains. "I think every time you make something, there's always an inevitable creative post-mortem where you look back in order to move forward. Sort of like constantly evaluating and re-evaluating what you've done before, hopefully in trying to refine what you're doing. Every time you do something, you learn something, but of course, every time you do something, you also want to do something new."

That fresh feeling had come and gone with the bubbly pop sheen of their recent efforts, and The Vaccines were on the lookout for another way to come at things. "It felt like 'Planet Of The Youth' was a really good way of wrapping up that sound and that era," he shares, but the next steps were not as clear-cut. "I was really lost; I didn't really know where we were going. We've got out of the rocket ship and back on the road, but we just didn't know which route we wanted to take."

Luckily for all, Justin soon went out for a coffee with producer Andrew Wells. Despite having a particularly pop-studded history (Halsey, Mimi Webb, Ellie Goulding), his guidance actually steered The Vaccines back to their roots. Providing a much-needed objective perspective but also bringing his long-standing love of the group to the forefront, subsequent meetings quickly resulted in tracks that would end up forming their sixth LP, 'Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations'. "It definitely wasn't what I was expecting or planning on; it just felt really instinctive and really honest," the singer recalls. "Straightaway, it gave us clarity and direction. It was a very natural, almost accidental process where we landed upon a sound that felt true to where we all are as musicians and music fans."

So, everything was starting to fall into place – then a serious challenge arose when lead guitarist Freddie Cowan left the band three weeks before they were supposed to regroup in LA. "I don't think any of us knew what that would look like and feel like creatively," Justin admits, "but actually… he didn't want to be there, and we all did." It's not the first time The Vaccines have had a line-up reshuffle, but while at once sad and challenging, the three remaining core members were able to maintain their excitement, with touring member Timothy Lanham now stepping into the foreground.

"If you all want to be there, that is the main thing," he continues. "Ultimately, being in a band is the best job in the world. If you stop feeling that that's the case, you shouldn't be there. I think that if everybody that's present does believe that, then it's going to create a much healthier, more positive environment. We were all as thrilled to be in LA recording songs as we were about just hanging out, getting out, and getting to make music every day."

Far from the Mexican desert that birthed their last album, working in the Hollywood Hills was, "even 12 years into our career, still an inherently exciting thing to be doing. If you're waking up every morning and happy and excited to be there, and you're feeling creative, relaxed, empowered and brave enough to try things… I think it leads to a more free-sounding record. This album is largely about loss, but it also feels quite optimistic. That's where The Vaccines are at their best: euphoria mixed with melancholy."

The euphoria we've already covered, then, but melancholy? Well, it turns out living in the city of your dreams isn't always as you'd expect, and this sense of disillusionment spawned the overarching themes of this LP, as a title referencing Don McLean's 'American Pie' can aptly surmise.

"It was a lot less specific than that overall, though" Justin counters. "'Pick-up Full of Pink Carnations' is a line that came to me and immediately felt super familiar, but I didn't know where it came from. It took me a few months to realise that I'd just misremembered a lyric, which was funny to me because that song has always been about the death of innocence substituted by the American dream, but it felt a bit like a dream itself."

"Living, writing and recording in LA, a place we'd all grown up intoxicated by, forced me to confront the fact that however much we may dream or run away, we can't escape our reality. From the very start, we're told that we can have it all, but actually there are many things you can't have, and some things we can have only to then lose. In accepting all of that, I think the record actually becomes quite positive. It's a reminder that we may have things, we may lose things, but you gotta keep dreaming. I do believe in that."

Lead single 'Heartbreak Kid' gives us the first taste of these ideas manifesting into song, encouraging The Vaccines' surprisingly youthful fan base to take a chance and risk having their heart broken while they can. "I think growth stems from that," Justin reflects. "The most growing I've ever done as a person is when I've been heartbroken, although it's definitely a function of time just like any wound. It's like when you're playing a racing game at the arcades, and you press that button to get nitrous oxide or whatever it is. It gives you those 10 seconds of going twice as fast; in terms of life lessons, that's what heartbreak is."

Reuniting with mixer Dave Fridmann – he previously mixed The Vaccines' 2015 project, 'English Graffiti', and is referred to here as "a mad genius" - a rich sonic tapestry has been woven together with clear care, with the retro style benefitting from Lanham's refreshingly melodic guitar lines.

"I don't think it's a step back in terms of exploration; it's more of a side-step into new territory where everybody really had the freedom to express themselves," Justin describes of the full band's direct contributions to the energy of the track. "When I listen to it, it still feels very three-dimensional, which I'm always conscious of when you are just four people in a room."

Although it audibly sits more within the worlds of their older projects, the undeniably catchy pop choruses of recent pursuits are retained; the fusion of these two attitudes sounds very familiar but also moves things forward. "I hope so!" Justin agrees. "It's all about us trying to evolve, isn't it? It has got that big, simple, sing-along chorus, but it's also emotive and has an audible depth to it. Those things are always what we're setting out to deliver when sharing new The Vaccines music." ■