With an Australian tour looming for Splendour in the Grass, we caught up with Freddie from London’s rising up-and-comers The Vaccines. We chat about their new record What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?, the Australian tour, and what the band really thinks of UK series Skins.
Freddie! Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. I understand it’s pretty late in the night there… How’s it all been going?
It’s good! We just did a gig in Stockholm, to a room of beautiful people. The things they tell you about Stockholm are very true.
I actually interviewed White Lies yesterday or the day before, and they’d just come out of a gig in Stockholm too!
Yeah we saw them last night and they said we’d have a great time! *laughs*
Is it your first time playing in that part of the world?
Yeah, it’s my first time in Stockholm full stop actually.
So it’s all going pretty great for you guys, it sounds like it’s been a whirlwind couple of months.
It has! But to be honest, people say that and then you think yes it has, but I mean I spend my time thinking about the day ahead, thinking about the next show – not so much about the bigger picture. So in that sense it doesn’t seem like a whirlwind. We’re definitely busy, but you’re busy when you’re doing anything aren’t you?
The following you’ve amassed back home in such a short amount of time is truly impressive. I know you had a big show in Manchester and London sell out pretty quickly.
Yeah, but I mean the crazy thing is, we’re touring around Europe and we had a show in Belgium a few days ago, and we sold out a venue that holds 700 people, which is just mad! There’s only one single out there.
With only that one single out there, what other factors do you think has attributed to your success so far?
I think people want to hear guitars again. That’s not necessarily just to do with us, but I guess there’s a honesty to the music that people respond to. Because we sing about universal subjects, we don’t isolate anyone, everyone can relate to it. I don’t know… I think we must be a good band?
You talk about the guitar focus of your music – some have commented this stems back to a 60s/70s feel, others that there’s that stadium rock element – how would you your influences?
It’s not really about making music that sounds like the 60s or the 70s, mixed in with stadium sounds… You’ve just got to make what’s natural to you, and that’s it. It’s funny because people ask you about it and you try to explain it. But really we just do what’s natural, I don’t really know.
You formed last year, and what’s the story of you all getting together? I know you at least come from quite a musical family (Freddie’s brother plays in The Horrors)
Yeah definitely. I mean I was playing with a load of people, and I was working… I was in a bit of a shitty place, I was doing waitering at big convention centres which I fucking hated, and working for a couple of other people playing guitar for crap money. Then I met Justin, who was on the verge of giving up on his career as a solo artist, cause he tried and tired and tried. And we just said fuck it, we want to do something that we love. We want to forget about being successful, or any ambitions. Let’s just do something that we care about. So we just started in May 2009, and it was great, it gave us something to do and believe in.
Then Arnie, he had played bass for Justin, so we played him the bedroom demos – and he said he really wanted to be on board, and then we had a different drummer, but he quit. And Arnie knew this guy Pete, and Arnie had played him the songs a few weeks before, and Pete had already said he wanted to be involved – so this guy quit and we got Pete. And that’s when the band became a band, in May 2010.
I was still working then, unfortunately you can’t just say you want to be in a band and quite your jobs. So that was May, then in June Justin finished University and I had saved a bit of money, so we decided we’d just go for it.
Possibly the best decision you’ve ever made by the sounds of things…
Who knows! But it was the first time I’d really felt instinctual. I was like, I HAVE to do this. So I quit the band I was playing for as a hired guitarist. You’ve just got to care about it, and listen to your heart. Just do it. It doesn’t matter if it fails, because you’re doing something that’s important.
If you never tried you’ll always regret it.
Yeah exactly! You’d rather try and fail…
… than have never tried at all! Rarely better advice to give.
Yeah exactly.
Now we’re quite excited to hear that you’ll be down here in the middle of the year for Splendour In The Grass. Are you guys looking forward to making it down here?
I bumped into Marcus from Mumford and Sons, when we were in America, and he was saying that Australia was their favourite place in the world to be, the weathers amazing, the people’s awesome, and I’ve never been before, so I’m pretty excited.
Have you been able to gauge what the reception has been down here so far to your material?
I dunno! I guess we’ll find out when we get down there. How would I find out?
I guess through Facebook and Myspace – see what the Australian fans have been saying, and how many you have!
Yeah, I don’t really think about stuff like that *laughs*.
And of course you have a new album coming out in two weeks What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? – can you talk a little bit about recording this one?
Basically we started writing songs the moment we got together, so we had about six months in rehearsal studios. Not solidly obvious, but six months of thinking about it, and coming up with new sounds, new songs and new ideas. So by the time we actually got a record deal, and we got someone to put us into the studio, we were so ready, we didn’t want to take long. We rehearsed in this little room, and everyone used to come see us and would say that we needed to record it now, how it sounded.
So they sent along this guy called Dan Grech. He hasn’t produced that much, but he’s a great, great engineer. So he came and heard it and said he’d be really good for this, and we ended up doing the first single with him (“Wrecking Bar”), and it was perfect. So we chose him to do the record – and then it was really quick! “Wrecking Bar” blew up and we toured, so we did a week in the studio, then back on tour, then back to the studio for a couple of days, back on the road…. All in all, two and a half weeks in the studio. We were just ready. It was quite a quick process, recorded live, we knew how we wanted it to sound. I think Dan did a really great job on it.
It sounds like it should translate quite naturally live.
Yeah! It’s the sort of record, too, where you don’t really know what to expect from it until you hear it. People hear “Wrecking Bar” or “Post Breakup Sex” (their second single), and they think it will be like that, and it’s not. There’s a lot of variety on our record.
There are indeed too many albums out at the moment where every song sounds the same, so that’s great to hear.
Yeah, that’s called a bad album *laughs*.
And I understand, too, that you had “Wrecking Bar” on the premiere of the new series of Skins (UK), which seems to be a rite of passage for many UK bands these days…
*laughs* Yeah. Well first of all, none of us knew about that until my cousin called me, who’s like 15 years old, and to her, it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread when you end up on Skins. I guess I’m happy about it, but not really… I don’t like Skins. Does anyone anymore?
Not really since the first two series.
My ex-girlfriend loved it, and fancied the main guy, so I hated it then even more. But now it’s even worse! How sad is that that it’s a rite of passage *laughs*, Jesus! Actually, we were at the NME awards, and the people from Skins were sitting next to us, and I’ve never seen such a bunch of fucking idiots *laughs*. The guy was standing on the table, air fist pumping to all these songs he didn’t know, and then he was trying to get a taxi out the front. You know when some people get really drunk, and they try to get in fights with cars? A car drives up and they’re like “what the fuck!? Bring it!”. It’s like, if a car hits you, you’re going to die… this is a tonne of metal going 50 miles an hour! You are a drunk homo sapien – it’s not going to end well for you mate *laughs*
You’ll always lose.
You’ll always lose! I mean the fact we’re even talking about this is mental. What a fucking idiot. So that’s my opinion on Skins right there…
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The Vaccines’ debut LP What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? is out now. You can check them out LIVE at Splendour in the Grass – with sideshows still to be announced.
