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10.08.12 Music Week 15
Great expectations: The Vaccines’ Justin Young (far left) says the group are “becoming a better band”
‘WE CAN SUPERSEDE THE FIRST RECORD’ Team Vaccines believes Come Of Age has the right ingredients to take
the band to the next level, without losing the media and fan support which has been so valuable thus far. The band could even make further in-roads into the tricky US market,
where they’ve already appeared on The Letterman Show, impressed at Coachella and tied single If You Wanna into a TV sync with make-up brand Rimmel. Red Light Management’s James Sandom tells Music Week: “We’re
the big indies operate in the same way that majors do. I find that majors obviously have a much bigger game plan - it really feels like you’re operating within something that’s essentially a big business. But you know what you’re getting into: it’s really naïve to kind of complain about how badly you’re treated or how your art was diluted. [Columbia] has never interfered with what we do, they’ve never said we can’t release anything, they’ve never said “you should release this instead of that”.
You used crowd-sourcing to involve your fans in your Wetsuit video, getting them to send in pics that were used in the final promo. We’re hearing more instances of that philosophy actually becoming an business model – with Amanda Palmer recently raising more than $1m through fans. What’s your take? It’s a really important part of people emotionally investing in your band. That’s something I’ve always believed, since long before The Vaccines. You read interviews with bands talking about
connecting with fans and how there shouldn’t be a barrier, but I couldn’t really see much evidence of that in a substantial way with us - even though we like doing our own merch and obviously run our Facebook and Twitter and little things.
Then someone came to us with the idea of
getting people to send in their pictures. It was a really good way to involve people. That said, going it alone [i.e. selling direct to fans] is far from our minds at the moment. Anything you can do to involve people is a positive thing because it becomes a shared experience, and a shared goal.
It’s a harder time than ever for acts to prosper on record sales alone. How do you feel about the prospect of brand partnerships? If it’s non-compromising and we have no objections to the brand - which I guess is a big thing in itself – then I absolutely have no problem with it. I have friends on indie labels and they’ve been able to tour for a year off the back of doing stuff like that. That’s the thing; as well as the money, the biggest
thing for me is the idea that many more people are going to be opened up to your music. That’s exciting. And I think most brands are becoming quite savvy these days not to partner in a really cynical way - they’ve become quite creative.
If you could change one thing about the music industry tomorrow, what would it be? I’d probably make it so that things didn’t suddenly change overnight.
building on what we achieved first time round. It’s no exaggeration to say that The Vaccines were 12 weeks old when they made their debut record. They’ve experienced a lot and enjoyed a degree of success in every key market in the world. “The key moving forward is not only to supersede what we achieved
on the debut record in the UK, but try and get some of those markets where we laid a good foundation first time round up to the same level.” Sandom points out that The Vaccines have now scored six A-listed
singles on Radio 1 in a row. “It feels like the band is a core artist to the station, and we think
we’ve made a record that can encourage that to continue,” he adds. “But it’s not easy. Culturally, whether it’s Radio 1 or commercially-
minded radio stations, no-one’s playing a glut of guitar-orientated alternative music at the moment. The flip side of that is that The Vaccines get a lane that’s comparatively empty – it’s down to the band and the team around them to make the most of that.” Mark Terry, who was appointed co-president of Columbia UK in April,
adds: “There was a lot of hype around the band initially, and it’s always very difficult to get through that. The Vaccines have done it in spades. “The beauty of working this record is that the first album is still
hanging around the lower end of the Top 75 chart. We’re moving seamlessly into this campaign.” When asked if the new record could outsell its predecessor, he adds:
“Having seen the reaction this summer and having heard the new album, there’s no question. The last record took a while to get into its stride after a good start - we’re going into this campaign with a lot of intensity and energy around the band. They feel like a big band now. “I’m really confident about our week one [sales], I think we’ll have a
really strong opening statement. We’re doing well on pre-order charts - we can absolutely supersede what the band’s done in the past.”
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