#005: FOREVER YOUNG – THE VACCINES FRONTMAN ON STILL MAKING MUSIC IN HIS 80S
📸 by Wrenne Evans
Justin Hayward-Young is the charismatic lead singer of British indie rock band The Vaccines. With the release of their sixth album coming up, as well as UK, EU and US tours, Aux Haus caught up with Justin in London for a talk about his most memorable live shows, his love for Abba and if he still will be making music when he’s old.
Hey man! How are you doing?
I’m good, thank you! How are you?
I’m great! I recognize that yellow couch you’re sitting on from the NME interview.
Haha yeah, it was in a few interviews during lockdown. I don’t even live in this apartment anymore but I’m back in London for a month or so.
So where do you live now?
I’ve been in LA for the last couple of years. I’m not sure what’s next really but I’m going back there next month.
I’m guessing you’re keeping busy?
Yeah, I think like most people in the creative industry, I’m either too busy or not busy enough.
I feel that. Ok so going back in time a bit, you released your first demo in the summer of 2010. Less than a year later you were playing a stadium gig opening up for Arctic Monkeys in front of 10 000 people. And shortly after that, you did your American TV debut at Late Show with David Letterman. Looking back, how do you remember that time?
It’s kinda crazy when you put it like that but I think there were a few things at play. Firstly, when we released the demo the four of us at the time had been writing music together for a solid like year to eighteen months. So we basically had our first album written before any record label, manager or agent had even heard any music. It wasn’t like we only had one song, we kinda spent a lot of time getting our ducks in a row.
The Vaccines play live at David Letterman, 2011.
And The Vaccines weren’t even your first band, right?
No, we'd all been in other bands and projects. I had been living in London for four or five years, making music every day, playing open mic nights and going on support tours. But it all happened insanely quickly. For whatever reason, it all just fell into place. As it very rarely does and you can’t really plan for it. It was the perfect storm of timing and luck and hopefully good songs and a great team around us and all that kind of stuff.
The Vaccines – 📸 by Wrenne Evans.
But did it feel sort of crazy in the beginning, when you were realizing that it was about to take off?
Yes, looking back now it feels even more insane. I remember there was a time where we felt like every single door that needed to open for us was opening. The momentum just felt unstoppable. That being said, even if nine doors out of ten opened, the human psyche makes you focus on the one door that doesn’t open. So I remember at the time being like “well, so and so doesn’t like us” or “it’s really only in the UK that we’re blowing up”. I think I’ve gotten better at that now, but back then I was an inherently negative person.
You’ve had a long career and you’ve played with tons of even bigger bands, what’s your most memorable live performance?
The first time we did Reading and Leeds main stage were special. And playing with The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park. Just because their first concert in Hyde Park, in -69 after Brian Jones died, was so etched in rock’n’roll folklore. So to be a part of that some 50 years later was amazing. And it feels super sad now but we played with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Imagine Dragons in Moscow, and then two days later we played the national stadium in Kyiv in front of 80 000 people. It was surreal at the time and obviously with all that’s been happening there since then, it feels even more surreal now.
The Vaccines on playing with The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park.
You’ve been in The Vaccines for 13 years now, what have you learned from writing music, touring and just being in a band?
I think that ninety percent of being in a band is just hanging around waiting to be in a band, if you know what I mean? It’s a lot of time spent in transit and that can be quite unglamorous and unexciting. But then there are like five-ten percent of the time where it’s even better than you could’ve possibly dreamt, when it’s above and beyond your wildest dreams. So I think being in a band can be uncomfortable at times and I guess that’s why a lot of people give up and walk away from it.
But you’ve never thought about quitting?
No, I feel slightly institutionalized by it and addicted to being in a band, performing and traveling, always being in new places. To find an audience is the hardest thing for any artist in any medium, so when you have one it’s to be nurtured and cherished. But even if you’re Coldplay you probably wish you had a bigger audience, like “damn, we wish we could’ve done eight nights at Wembley Stadium instead of seven”.
Talking earlier about playing with The Rolling Stones, do you think you guys will still be playing together when you’re 80?
Well, I’d like to be alive when I’m 80.
Haha, right, that’s certainly a good start.
For every passing year that we're able to see the world and make a living playing festivals and stuff, we feel luckier and luckier. So will I still be writing and recording and performing music at 80? I really hope so, though I can’t imagine that a lot of people would wanna come watch that or listen to that. But what I really hope is that just as people discover our new music now, people will discover and breathe life into our old music then.
You’ve had two people leave the band, Pete Robertson and Freddie Cowan. How has that been for you?
In that moment it’s quite traumatic because you like to think of yourself like The Beatles or U2 or something, like you’re this unchangeable and unbreakable little gang. But I also think of bands in some ways being quite fluid in who they are and what they represent.
How do you mean?
I was thinking the other day in the analogy of a football team. You know, people love a team throughout the course of their entire lives. But in that time period the shirt changes, every player changes, the manager and all the coaching staff changes, the owner and the emblem changes. In American sports, sometimes even the city in which the team plays changes. So I think that a band always continues to be what it was you fell in love with in the first place, and it’s almost irrelevant who is representing them, if that makes sense.
Speaking of leaving the band to do other things, some bands are very possessive with their members, but you don’t mind solo projects?
No not at all, I think we all got different things we wanna do and I think that creativity should be encouraged. It really only acts to serve the band.
Justins side project Halloweens with the song “Hannah, You’re Amazing”.
You’ve covered “The Winner Takes it All” by ABBA, and you’ve worked with Swedish producers Daniel Ledinsky and Joel Sjöö. What’s your relationship with Sweden?
Well I met both Daniel and Joel in LA, and as you well know the Swedes have a disproportionately large contingent of successful musicians and songwriters. So I’ve come across a lot of them through the years. I think particularly when you meet Swedes in LA, you guys have sort of a no bullshit filter too and that’s rather lacking in the US. I don’t know if all Brits feel this way but hanging out with Swedes is kinda like hanging out with British people. So I’ve always loved Sweden. I actually came to Stockholm last Christmas for a couple of weeks to write.
Do you listen to any Swedish bands or artists?
Yeah tons, probably all the same ones that you like. And obviously Abba is one of my favorite bands of all time, I probably listen to them every day.
You’ve made five studio albums so far, does it get harder or easier for every album?
It hasn’t gotten harder yet. Or you know what, it probably has been hard making some albums. But the latest one has been easy. That’s life though isn’t it, some things come easy and others you have to work for slightly more. I think that every time you make an album it’s a process of refinement, you’re figuring out what you did right and wrong with the last album before you start the new one.
What album are you most satisfied with?
I’m very proud of the first one because it changed our lives. And I don’t think we would ever wanna chase the songs or the sound from that album again, but I suppose you’re always chasing that feeling that it gave you. If you’re a fan of The Vaccines it’s no secret that I think we made the second album too quickly, and I’m not as proud of that. I wish we had another year to write and record that one. But other than that, I’m pretty proud of our catalog really.
How would you say your music has progressed?
It’s not so much that it progresses, rather it evolves and you don’t necessarily know what form it’s gonna take. I was actually thinking on a walk yesterday how every album that we’ve made is really representative of a time and a place and actually a person. And if I’m being really honest, every album is connected to one particular person. So I think the albums are all different because the people that are making them have changed and will continue to change.
I read that you talked about your fifth album as a concept album, do you think that’ll be a new thing moving forward?
No, actually we just finished our sixth album and that’s not a concept album at all, it’s an indie rock album with no overarching concepts or stuff, but I’m really proud of it and excited about it.
Looking forward to hearing it, the new single sounds great. Do you have any plan for your sound moving forward, like trying out different genres?
I think in the past we’ve sort of made music like that but I actually think you have to let the songs kind of come in a more sort of natural way. I try not to get too calculated about it. I kinda just let whatever happens, happen.
