Only toff ‘n’ roll but they like it
Whether it’s novelty-bearded ex-public school boys (Mumford and Sons), the offspring of prominent literary families (Florence and the Machine) or showbiz brats (Lily Allen), the face of contemporary English music is increasingly well-heeled, trust-fund supported and, frankly, rather posh.
The latest example are the Vaccines, four hyped-to-the-tonsils Londoners whose super-rapid ascension from the bottom rung ‘toilet circuit’ to the front pages of the music press has been accompanied by some uncomfortable questions about their provenance.
Purveyors of authentically scuzzy garage rock, there were some raised eyebrows when it emerged that frontman Justin Hayward Young (the descendant of a prominent 18th century landscape artist) had a murky history as a purveyor of Mumford-ian ‘nu folk’ under the sobriquet Jay Jay Pistolet. But that was a nothing against news that Freddie Cowan, the band’s guitarist, songwriter and most charismatic member, grew up in a £4 million apartment in Kensington.
A few hours before the group’s debut Irish performance, it’s clear that the handsome, self-confident Cowan, owner of a cut glass accent straight out of Brideshead Revisited, is fed up batting questions about his exclusive upbringing. More than fed up actually. He’s plain annoyed.
“I don’t know too much about it,” he says, holding a hand over his mouth and going into a sort of quasi-crouch. “I think they [the media] have their facts wrong. I’ll leave it there.”
He can surely appreciate, though, that his background would come under scrutiny after his band’s dramatic rise? He squirms. “Well, it would be that or something else wouldn’t it. I think people don’t care.”
It is the only moment in the conversation when his silky smoothness deserts him. Otherwise, Cowan is a picture of officer class charm. Speaking of the group’s already legendary first show, at London’s Flowerpot last October, he admits the band were as blindsided as anybody at the reception they received from an audience which included members of some of the city’s leading indie rock bands and its most influential music journalists.
“We’d all turned our phones off and were sitting upstairs. Unbeknown to us, all the people we had invited — they couldn’t get in. The guestlist was shut after about half an hour. Streams of people were trying to get in. We had never seen or experienced anything like that. I guess that was a moment.”
They’re grateful for the attention, he says. But hype has its obvious downsides too. “The British music press see something they like and then they go and write something ridiculous. The thing is, everything that is said about you is taken as their word rather than yours. And then people get angry at you and it’s not your fault. They think you’ve gone around spouting all of this when it simply isn’t true. A journalist reads something another journalist has said. It’s a horrible mess and you’re not really responsible for that. We tried to get through it and keep it going.”
Hence, he explains, their self deprecatingly titled debut album, What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? “It was a cheeky reference to all that hype. Hopefully in a short amount of time all of that will go away and it will be a cool album name and the music will be remembered rather than the ephemera.”
He is frank about the fact that, when they formed last summer, none of the line-up had especially high sigh hopes for the Vaccines. At the time, Cowan was earning a living as a session guitarist (playing with groups such as Herman Dune and the Horrors, which includes his brother in the line-up), while school chum Young had seen his Jay Jay Pistolet ‘nu folk’ project sputter out and was scratching around for something to do. Formed on a whim, the Vaccines were a way to kill time as much as anything else.
“We were all doing stuff. I was playing for a number of artists. Justin was finishing his session stuff. At the time we were feeling reluctant. As soon as we did it — actually went and played the first show, it was incredibly galvanising. When you find something like that, which gives your life new meaning, it can change everything. You don’t care about paying your rent or anything like that. You are so excited about this thing you are doing. None of us had ever felt a anything like that before. It really opened our eyes to be honest. It has been the most amazing experience.”
With years of thankless struggle under their belts, the speed with which the Vaccines have taken off has been frightening to behold, says Cowan. “We did one tour of small clubs and since then it’s gone ‘whoosh’. It’s weird. In a way, it’s easier playing bigger venues. You’re 15, 20 feet from the audience and you can get lost in your own little world. Whereas in smaller venues you have to look the punters in the eye. There was a bit of that early on. Only a bit, though. We’ve basically left it behind.”
The Vaccines have certainly arrived at a fortuitous time. Late last year, a British newspaper kicked up a minor controversy by suggesting rock music had reached its expiration date, its primacy in the culture supplanted by pop and r’n’b. Cowan laughs at this.
“People have been saying rock and roll is dead for nearly 50 years,” he says. “It was literally only a few years after it started up and already people were saying it’s dead. Maybe it will be dead in 50 years — I don’t know. But it’s not on the way out now, that’s for sure.”
* What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? is out now
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