maestro
THE SICKEST KIDS
“When you’re on the road, your hygiene sort of goes out the window,” bassist Árni Hjörvar of THE VACCINES laughs. “Most of the time the band spend together is relatively dirty.” Take a shot of their sophomore album, Come of Age, which goes down the same way: dirty, rough, and mean—just how any young misfit would opt for. By Reena Mesias Photographed by Leon Diaper
I
“
f there’s anything The Vaccines’ music could cure, what would it be?” I ask bassist Árni Hjörvar. “Boredom,” he answers. In your face, Liam Gallagher—yes, the Oasis frontman who once called the band “boring” (but that’s when you know you’ve finally made it big, right? When you’ve acquired a few “haters”). Justin Young (vocals/guitar), Freddie Cowan (guitar), Pete Robertson (drums), and Árni are confident that their music, particularly Come of Age, wins with prescriptions. “I think the name Come of Age is more of a joke than anything else,” Árni expounds. “We’re not talking about the band coming of age. We don’t feel like the band have reached the mature point… It was sort of like a bubblegum reference to the 60s records, like, ‘Here comes the…’ It felt like a bubblegum thing to do. We found it very funny.” So stop overanalyzing. Sure, Come of Age has “more space,” “more organic growth,” “more intimacy,” and is “not as linear” as the debut; and if you listen to the lyrics and the ferocious guitars and drums, you could maybe get cardiac arrest, but the band ain’t bragging about their music taking a turn to adolescence. They are, in fact, far from kicking youth to
76 - statusmagonline.com
the curb, and they’re just taking music as it is—entertainment. “I think most of the songs had similar concepts lyrically,” Árni says. “It’s about being a bit disillusioned in your 20s. It’s a bizarre time when you realize that you’re supposed to have—in the eyes of your parents and the people around you—reached a point where you should know what you’re doing. We’re all sort of too young-at-heart to actually think so. We all just sorta wanna keep being young, really.” Fair enough, the surest measure of the band’s maturity doesn’t depend on album sales or how Árni dresses. Mature is a strong word, but undoubtedly, the band have grown, thanks to “spending every waking hour together and almost every night onstage or in the studio.” Árni adds, “Our friendship becomes a gang all of a sudden. It’s just like sort of you-against-theworld, really. And it feels like that right now… that The Vaccines are a real gang, and they know each other really well. I think we’re a lot better now than two years ago. And we’ll probably just keep getting better if anything.” All of them are in it for the long haul and Árni wants the fans to be in it for long, too. “I hope our fans will emotionally invest in this record,” he explains. “I hope Come of Age will have the effect where there’s a certain amount of people who will genuinely love it, and
a certain amount of people who will hate it. I don’t want it to fall flat. I want stated opinions. I want people to have strong feelings about it.” Strong feelings can beget even stronger music from The Vaccines. Warning: it’s therapeutic, but it’s a killer too.
thevaccines.co.uk
DOUBLE VISION
Árni completes the thought of the band’s song titles. There is “No Hope” for democracy.
When I’m in a “Bad Mood,” I cook. Touring makes me a “Weirdo.”
Justin Young is my “Teenage Icon.”