HI JUSTIN, what are you up to?
We were supposed to have a day off, but we're on our way to do a weird little one-off show. We're all a bit tired at the moment so I think we'll probably do some of the slower songs and maybe some acoustic stuff.
How is your voice holding up on the tour? Early reviews said you were sounding a bit croaky?
Yeah, I had a bit of a chest infection, but thankfully it seems to have cleared up over the past few days.
You had to cancel a date here back in 2011 because your voice went – does that happen often?
No, I'm pretty good with that stuff now. I guess I've finally trained myself to become a vocal athlete now.
The one thing I have to be able to do to do my job properly is breathe in and out – and that's quite hard to do when you've got a chest infection. But it was fine. Thankfully, the audiences were singing all the words over and above me, which was great.
What was it like to play three sold-out hometown shows last week at one of the best venues in the world, London's Brixton Academy?
It was amazing. I worked out that the final night was our 10th gig there since January 2011, when we were first on the bill (they headlined that July in the wake of hugely successful debut LP What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?).
It's always been a massive stage and I think in the past we were slightly overwhelmed by that. But having done even bigger venues than Brixton now, coming back there was the first time we ever really felt we owned it, you know?
So The Limelight in Belfast is going to be a massive anticlimax then?
Absolutely not! It's been a long time since we played a headline gig in Belfast, like April/May 2013 maybe? We also played Tennent's Vital with The Undertones, who were excellent. We watched them and then fanboyed over them a bit.
Do you think they need Feargal Sharkey back?
No, the new singer is good – but they just have so many self-fulfillingly brilliant songs, don't they? Mind you, I did see Queen with Paul Rodgers. There's definitely only one Freddie Mercury.
On English Grafitti, was the aim to deliver a record that sounded musically progressive (Dream Lover, Give Me A Sign) without losing sight of the band's rock and roll strengths (Handsome, 20/20, Radio Bikini)?
Definitely. It's a very searching record, I think. It's us trying to work out who we are, now that we know we're not just 'ramalama ding-dong'.
I think time is kind to the artists who take risks and break free from their self-imposed sonic limitations.
Is it getting difficult to fit all your favourites into the live set now that you're on album number three?
No, to be honest it's much easier to construct a set now – in fact, it's almost hard to imagine us playing a gig without being able to draw on all three records.
There's much more of an arc or a journey to the set now, it's a lot more of a three-dimensional show rather than a straight-up rock and roll gig. Plus, we can fit quite a lot of songs in anyway because a lot of our material is quite short.
We've always had people complaining that we don't play for long enough anyway, so we're finally giving them their money's worth.
As a band, we're such big believers in entertainment being intrinsic to rock and roll – so we're definite people-pleasers when it comes to writing the set-list. We don't leave big songs out – because the bigger the reaction from the crowds, the bigger the kick we get out of it.
So playing the hits is definitely a mutually beneficial arrangement.
You've recently been putting a couple of songs per night to the vote via Twitter, is it ever annoying when fans don't pick the song you would have preferred to play?
No, not at all. The people who are voting are exactly the people we're trying to engage with – they are the ones we've been putting comments on Facebook and Twitter over the past four or five years saying 'please play this song'. It just felt like a nice thing to do.
It's always quite nice when they pick Blow Your Mind, because Arnie (bassist) gets to sing and swing his mic and I can take a break!
:: The Vaccines, Wednesday December 9, The Limelight.
