The Vaccines

About Event

There’s a difference between having fun and being happy, says Justin Young. And in the space between fun and happiness lies the sixth Vaccines album, Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations. It’s a record that drips with fun — 10 songs in just over half an hour, packed with hooks and melodies and pop smarts — but which explores the way real life lets us down, no matter what we tell the world on our Instagram stories.

“It’s about loss,” Young says. “And coming to terms with that loss — not necessarily grieving for it, but trying to get a new understanding of it. I don’t just mean in a romantic sense.”

The album’s title comes from a misremembered lyric in Don McLean’s American Pie (“I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck / With a pink carnation in a pick-up truck”), which sparked a train of thought. “I was living in LA while writing this record, and American Pie is a song about disillusionment with America and the American dream, and his feeling that something had died. I guess I was coming to terms with similar things — my understanding of what the real West Coast of America was, after growing up on a diet of American pop culture. That was all coming to a head as various relationships were ending, and Freddie [Cowan, guitar] was leaving the band. That was the seed of it. It’s about the loss of dreams.”

One of the most startling things about The Vaccines in 2023 is how young their audience remains. Many guitar bands find their audience ages with them, but The Vaccines’ keeps replenishing. There’s something in that euphoria and melancholy that speaks to younger crowds, and this record’s themes — which you could, if you wished, boil down to FOMO — will resonate strongly. “It really excites me that we have so many young fans.” Young says. “We do get new fans — I honestly look at people, and think, ‘You were four when Wreckin’ Bar came out!’ We’re not just trying to keep the people who were already there, we’re trying to engage new fans. I love reading comments on TikTok: ‘I’d never heard of you till today, but you’re my new favourite band.”

Young’s justifiably proud of Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations — “every single song on the record was my favourite at some point.” And so he should be. How often do you hear a band truly flower in their sixth record? It’s time to wake up and smell The Vaccines.