The Australian indie band’s fourth LP is out now via No Fun Records, exploring nostalgia, personal growth & life’s shifting expectations
Pursuit of Anything marks the fourth studio album from Australian indie rock band Vacations, representing an evolution not only in their sound, but in their lives. Exploring the shifting expectations, uncertainties and emotional complexities that accompany getting older, the record reflects a period of transition and reassessment.
I sat down with frontman Campbell Burns in Brooklyn to unpack the experiences and emotions behind the album, and explore how they informed its songwriting and sound.
Approaching the conversation from my perspective as a visual artist, I was interested in using visual language as another means of understanding the creative process behind the music, and exploring how two seemingly opposing mediums can evoke emotions that extend beyond what is simply seen or heard. Both have the ability to distill complicated life experiences into something immediately recognizable and deeply felt, offering a point of connection through our shared inner worlds.
The experience of growing as an individual and developing a greater understanding of what it means to be a person is explored throughout Pursuit of Anything, its layered and elegant melodies carrying an emotional resonance that extends well beyond the sound itself.
I have also entered my 30s and deeply relate to the themes of this album. It’s a time where we come to find things to never be as we expected. Have you found that your definition of fulfilling life has changed as you’ve gotten older? Are there things that were once essential that no longer matter to you or that you’ve come to value that you never anticipated?
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to value my family so much more than when I did. When I was in my adolescence or my early 20s. I’ve realized how important my mom, my dad, my grandma, my brothers, everyone is to me, how much they perform, everything that I do. And I don’t necessarily take that for granted. They’ve all been there to love and care for me and support me. I think by getting older, you realize how similar you all are and how relatable your experiences are. So I’ve been able to view my parents not just as my parents now, but as my best friends. So that’s something that’s definitely changed, I think, as well, friendships realizing how almost brief they can be or how significant they are.
I’ve realized that not everyone sticks around forever and that those that do stay by your side are people to be valued and treasured, but also the experiences that you make along the way to as people come and go into your life. I think when I was younger, I felt like if I was friends with somebody, that was for life. I’ve realized that it’s the many different versions of myself throughout my 20s and now entering into my 30s, I’ve realized that’s actually just sort of a consistent thing throughout life. So I try to be more mindful these days of who I spend my time with, what I’m doing with these people.
I think as well, I put a lot less pressure on myself when it comes to making art. I used to be very intense with myself in my earlier 20s because it felt like I had to be. And I realize now that I can be much more gentle with myself, there’s a lot of value in that.
“Yesterday” is my favorite song on the album. I think about the lyric, “If you could see yourself now, what would you say?”. When you wrote that, were you imagining a conversation with your younger self? And do you think that person would be proud of you, or would they have a difficult time understanding the life you’ve built?
I wasn’t necessarily imagining a conversation. I was more just thinking about my younger self, seeing the life that I’ve led now. And I know that I would be proud because I’ve exceeded all expectations of my younger self, which does feel pretty good. But I think there’d be a lot of value in my younger self also. Maybe being able to give me perspective or see things differently that maybe I’ve lost sight of now, or maybe I think differently now.
I think it’d just be an interesting conversation if I could. I wouldn’t necessarily change anything that I’ve done. I don’t really believe in that. But I think they would be proud. If anything I sometimes think, maybe I would have done this differently, or maybe I would have done that differently, whether it’s a song I wrote or a show I played or whatever. But ultimately if I did that it would change the whole course, and then there would be a whole different set of outcomes, and then it becomes this impossible game of just infinite possibility. That doesn’t really help anybody.
Are there particular periods of your life that you find yourself returning to? Do you think you miss those moments or do you miss the person you were when you experienced them?
There’s moments where I miss being a teenager and there’s moments where I miss being 21 to 24, just because back then life felt a lot more carefree with less responsibility. And I felt like I had a lot more people around me than what I do now. Simply by going to high school or being in the local music scene of my hometown. It felt like there was a real sense of community. And when I’m saying a lot of people, I genuinely mean like, you know, like 50 plus people. Like more people than is normal. It felt exciting, I felt like anything was possible. Anything’s still possible now. But I think everyone’s lives are just branched in such different ways.
It’s interesting and I feel like I’ve gone through so many iterations of myself, like I was saying earlier, but especially because over the past couple of years, I’ve lived in Australia and then I moved to LA, and then I was touring a lot. Now I’m in New York and it’s like, I’ve only been here for two years, but I’m 31. So it’s like, what’s gonna happen next? It’s interesting.
I do think about the relationship between art and music and how they’re opposite forms of communication. I frequently notice when I talk to musicians that they use visual language when they’re describing their work. Almost as if painting with words. As a painter, I get drawn to imagery which becomes a translation of something I can’t articulate. Like I’m saying something without saying anything. I imagine musicians are doing something similar through sound. Using music to express something internal that might otherwise be difficult to communicate.
That’d be correct.
Do you find that music allows you to express things you wouldn’t necessarily know how to put into ordinary language?
Yeah, but that’s something that it took me a while to figure out as well, because when I would write songs, I would just simply write the song. I wouldn’t really think much more than that. But I’ve come to realize that you can really shape the emotion and the narrative within a song by your songwriting choices and production, which, again, seems very obvious. But simply using music to highlight maybe a certain lyric or, I don’t know, signify some kind of change in the song. I’m trying to think of an example right now, maybe “Congratulations” is a good one. The opening track on the album sort of shifts at the end of the song where the violins come in and there’s that guitar solo, and then it changes again, and it almost feels more somber with a little drum machine. It’s just like you’re getting different emotions. You’re getting something that’s hopeful and joyous into something that’s maybe more somber and uncertain, which reflects the lyrics and kind of the narrative that it’s trying to convey to the listener. There’s lots of ways to do it that’s interesting.
Do you find yourself visualizing things when you write your music? Do you imagine an image or an atmosphere?
Always. I think it’s important to try and give your song, like, a sense of place or time. You should think about it in a visual sense, like, what is it going to look like? What’s the scene you’re trying to create for the listener? Again using “Congratulations” as an example. I thought about my 30th birthday and then I thought about other people’s birthdays that I went to. You know, maybe there wasn’t really anybody there. Or maybe I went to someone’s birthday party and there were a million people there. That’s already within itself. That’s a lot to take in.
I used to not think visually when I was writing. I would just be writing for the sake of writing a song and I would be proud that I had something that went from start to finish. But these days it’s more like, oh, okay, like, what do I want the listener to feel? What do I want it to look like? Feel like? Smell? A lot of people have said, oh, this is a very fall sounding album, for instance. I think that’s important. I think all of those choices might seem insignificant, but they all kind of shape the listener’s experience in a lot of ways.
I once had a musician describe his song as being white as snow.
It’s like how some albums are, like, they’re like a winter album or they’re like a summer album. You associate certain imagery with that and then you as a listener start to build your own imagery because you’re associating your own memories with those records. Like, I have plenty of records that I would associate with being 16 and learning how to drive a car. I had the CD in the 7 CD stacker. There’s a lot of things like that. I think memory is probably one of the most powerful things that a human can experience.
If you were to visualize the essence of “Pursuit of Anything” what would it look like?
Because the album is this dark green color, I just really imagine, like snowy mountain alps and like pine trees. I just imagine something like, in nature rather than something human. Like, that’s what comes to mind, at least at first. Almost like a Bob Ross painting. I imagine that something calming, something familiar, but maybe you haven’t experienced it yet.
