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Interview: The Vaccines Infect South Street

By Michael Cerio

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As people line the sidewalks of South Street in Philadelphia, quietly tucked away a few floors up sit The Vaccines.

"It kind of reminds me of like Camden High Street or like Bourbon Street in New Orleans" explains singer Justin Young from a couch in the darkened room above the stage at The TLA. "Maybe unfairly I'd kinda written off Philadelphia of quite like a sleepy place. We've always played in venues that are slightly industrial. This is the first time I've actually seen the heart of Philadelphia. It's awesome"

Like Philadelphia, The Vaccines are not always quite what they seem. Their latest album English Graffiti is often disaffected, filled with hard-charging guitars, swaying rhythms, and an occasional dreamy song of longing. It manages to sound both melancholy and apathetic. Pensive unless it gets to be too much, then screw it.

In reality though, its creators are sweet, lively, and endearing. On stage at The TLA that night, Justin Young sings through a smile with big theater-like gestures. They're a really fun band to watch because they seem to be enjoying themselves. That kind of thing is reflective and bounces around a room, as discontent becomes a party and a shared rallying cry.

The Vaccines passion for music is very real. It's what drove them to work towards making English Graffiti a "genre defining" album that wasn't concerned with being "timeless", comments that got them plenty of notice in the UK press. A statement that was always more about pushing things forward in what can be a homogeneous status quo rock music scene.

A few hours before they hit the stage, Young and guitarist Freddie Cowan passionately debate the state of rock music in 2015 from the room above the stage. "It is what jazz was thirty, forty years ago. It's the music of our parents, and it's not the most daring, it's not the most anarchic" remarks Young. "Rock N' Roll isn't a genre that's pushing things forward. I would put ourselves in that category as well, which is why English Graffiti was such an important record for us, to try and branch out, to try to break down those kind of self-imposed barriers."

"Up until this record I think we listened to Mick Jones on Combat Rock, and we'd listen to Buddy Holly and be like 'wow how can we get those sounds'. Then we realized I guess at some point along the way that those people weren't looking back thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years. They were trying to do stuff with guitars and instruments and music that no one had ever done before. I suppose that's probably what the more interesting important artists currently working today are trying to do as well. So I think this record was our first attempt at doing something like that" says Young.

They both agree that The Strokes Is This It was the last perfect Rock N' Roll record, the subject of a separate debate as they made their way to Philadelphia. "I think the last band that had an all-encompassing culture tsunami on the world was The Strokes," says Freddie Cowan. "It changed the way guitar music sounded completely. It had that much impact."

Only time will tell what kind of imprint The Vaccines will leave on the world of rock music, but this weekend they managed to leave their imprint on the crowd of The TLA.

To hear more from The Vaccines, check out the full interview below.

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