Singles Spotlight: Vacations – “Last Call”

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I’m excited to talk about another Australian-based band crafting great music: Vacations.  The quartet, formed in 2015 in Newcastle, New South Wales, is made up of lead songwriter and vocalist Campbell Burns, bassist Jake Johnson, guitarist Nate Delizzoti, and drummer Joseph Van Lier. The band describes their sound as woozy guitar pop, which is a blend of indie pop with elements of lo-fi and jangle pop, and blew up in 2022 when their song “Young” was used as part of a TikTok trend that had people using the song to soundtrack scenes from the series Skins, which featured the character Cassie. The song originally came off their self-released Vibes EP in 2016. The band also self-released the Days EP (2015). A couple of years later, Vacations released their debut full-length album, Changes (2018), Forever in Bloom (2020), and No Place Like Home (2024).

They adopted the tagline “Australia’s greatest boy band” for a while. Still do on certain socials. In a March 2024 Esquire Australia piece that is well worth the read, Burns notes, “Like a lot of things I do in life, I did it because I thought it was funny. We’re four white dudes playing indie music and half the band has moustaches. Like, every band does that. But if you call it a ‘boy band’, then it’s like, ‘okay, well, this is slightly interesting’.”

In 2023, bandleader Burns needed to get out of Australia and explore, and so he moved many, many miles away from Newcastle to Los Angeles, California. The press release for the upcoming album Pursuit of Anything which is out Friday, October 2nd via Nettwerk paints a clear picture of what the band has been up to the past few years noting, “Pursuit of Anything arrives after extensive touring that followed No Place Like Home—a rigorous and wide-reaching schedule that included performances at Kilby Block Party and London Calling, as well as their own MATES festival (headlined by Vacations and featuring bands from Australia, the UK, and the U.S. curated by Vacations) in Los Angeles and late-night performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. ‘It got to a point where we needed to take a step back and look at our own lives,’ bandleader Campbell Burns reflects.

Indeed, as Vacations enjoyed a much-needed respite, life kept moving: Burns moved to L.A. briefly before eventually settling down in Brooklyn, bassist Jake Johnson and drummer Joseph Van Lier both got married (the latter also welcomed his first child), and guitarist Nate Delizzotti relocated to Melbourne. Amidst all this personal motion, Pursuit of Anything began to take shape, as Burns began writing the album in L.A. The band joined him for multiple sessions while in L.A. before Burns moved to NYC where he continued writing and recording in his apartment. The band reconvened for more sessions at Golden Retriever in Sydney to continue recording its ten songs. Burns then finished the album in NYC at Thump Studios and his apartment, along with multiple session musicians who were enlisted to help shape the record’s sound.”

Exploring the creation of the album and its sound and songs in more depth, the press release notes, “Lyrically, Pursuit of Anything hones in on the growing pains of getting older, as well as how the ties that bind only grow stronger as a result of those opposing forces. ‘We’re all going through a transitional period, and our lives are kind of starting to diverge in many different ways,’ Burns says. ‘When Vacations started, I was adamant about it being a solo project. Over time, it became a band, and we’ve become so close. These people are my best friends—I’ve seen them go through so much, and we all help each other.’

That close camaraderie led to Pursuit of Anything becoming more of a full-band than ever before: ‘In the studio, it’s all of us working towards the same goal and trying to get the best out of each other. There’s a lot of love and respect that goes into everything, and it doesn’t ever feel like work.’ Adding to the creative pot was engineer Beatriz Artola, who Burns refers to as ‘The kind of person that you can trust to make changes, which goes a long way. It was like working with a mentor. I have so much respect for her, and she gave me a lot of self-confidence in my own production skills as well.’

And Pursuit of Anything brims with easygoing self-confidence throughout, as Vacations make it sound easy to craft such impossibly pristine guitar pop. Ironically, the sparkling ‘Holy Grail’ was directly inspired by a Zoom call with the band’s manager in which the quartet found themselves at a career crossroads: ‘We were caught in this catch-22 of needing to get into the studio so that we had a reason to keep going on the road. It’s about this idea that something that can bring you so much joy and fulfillment in life can also cause so much stress. But when you do figure it out, it’s one of the most gratifying experiences you can have.'”

While you listen to the album, I think you’ll agree they did figure it out. The album sounds complete to me.

Exploring the song we’re spotlighting today on SWT within our fantastic Singles Spotlight series (watch them all after you’re done with this one), via the song’s press release, “Burns describes Pursuit of Anything’s larger thematic sweep as ‘the coming-of-age that is going into your 30s while thinking about your younger self.’ Fittingly, today’s spiky and spritely ‘Last Call,’ emerged out of his love for ‘short and snappy pop songs.’ He continues, ‘I always find it a fun challenge to write one, and I figured this album needed its own moment. ‘Last Call’ is based around the idea of feeling like you’re running out of time to achieve certain milestones. Maybe it’ll be okay, maybe it won’t, maybe your version of success is something else entirely, and that’s okay too.”

“‘Last Call uses the titular closing time at a watering hole to represent the very real fear of time slipping away from your very fingers. ‘Am I not going to catch up?’ Burns rhetorically asks while talking about the song’s broader thematic bent. ‘Am I just stuck wasting away doing things that are more trivial?'”

The song “Last Call” is a jaunt, hurtling forward at good speed. Many listeners will be left wanting more, but don’t forget to stop and smell a rose while you’re there, listening and appreciating the melody and the beat. There’s a bit of whimsy, some jingle, some jangle, and a good groove. Some gorgeous funk. Pay attention to the lyrics and vocals too. You only have time to smell one rose while listening. If you don’t heed the advice, you will get left behind as the song notes. This song serves as a tantalizing introduction for new fans of the band Vacations, and it’s why we are here on this very page today. Enjoy!

Cue some closing-down-the-bar puns and end-of-night occurrences for this one. Whet your appetite in the brief but rollicking and catchy song “Last Call” via Vacations’ YouTube Channel:

(All credits and rights to Vacations)

Take a look at the cover art for Pursuit of Anything:

The track list for Pursuit of Anything:

1. Congratulations
2. Yesterday
3. Holy Grail
4. Ready or Not
5. Last Call
6. Fooling You
7. Punchline
8. So Suddenly
9. I See Myself In You
10. Lucky Forever

Alex M Theel

Co-Founder, Reviewer, Content Creator, Business side, Editor at Scummy Water Tower Productions | Web

Scummy Water Tower Productions co-founder, reviewer, business manager, and editor. Thank you for visiting this site, scummywatertower.com, and YouTube for Water Tower Sessions and SWT Interviews. And all of our socials.
Questions, feedback, or more? Contact me: alex@scummywatertower.com