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[title]‘Can I be real for a minute? I’m more exhausted with the criticism than I’ve ever been,’ says Dominic Harrison, better known as Yungblud. ‘People think I’m lying all the time, or they just hate me. Being hated is so exhausting when all you want to do is spread love.’ He’s looking directly at me, his green eyes accentuated by Robert Smith-esque smudged eyeliner and gelled-up static hair that seems clownish for a moment of such sincerity.
After a moment’s pause, he smiles like a child who’s been caught doing something naughty. ‘But then again, I’ve always wanted to be divisive. Division is my enemy, but without it, I’d be bored.’
Yungblud is a man of dualities. Loved and hated. Punk and pop. Real and fake. Most people make up their mind about him before listening to his music or what he has to say – and it’s all too easy to judge a book by its cover, or a pop-punk jester by their Instagram. But today I’m experiencing something alarmingly close to what may well be authenticity from the 26-year-old rockstar.
By lunchtime, we’ve already got noise complaints from our stiffly buttoned-up neighbours in the Colindale office block we’ve hijacked for Time Out’s cover shoot. Dressed like a deranged Patrick Bateman-meets-John Lydon, he’s threading his tie into a paper shredder, riding a child’s bike on a boardroom table and photocopying his arse – unsurprisingly, not for the first time. Between takes, he’s drawn to the camera monitor, meticulously flicking through the photos we’ve taken and chuckling to himself, ‘I’m a mad fucker, me’.
Having spent the afternoon with the man, I think I can confirm that yes, Dom, you are indeed a mad fucker. An entertaining one at that.
Making a modern rockstar
After wrapping up, we get a moment to sit down and talk in the boardroom. It’s here that the cartoonish schtick falls away, the character is dropped, and Yungblud becomes Dom. He’s not pulling faces or blasting Ozzy Osbourne from a speaker – I’m getting what feels like an unfiltered version of the man behind the bravado.
‘The biggest problem for me is that people think I’m fake,’ he says, ‘I try and try and try and try and try [to do good]. Then every six weeks or so, I have a breakdown, and my girlfriend or my mum picks me up and tells me I can’t stop. I look at amazing artists and wish I didn’t care like they don’t care. I wish I was like Liam or Noel Gallagher, but I’m just not. I’ve got too much fucking squishiness in me. All I’m trying to do is serve my community with good intentions, build something new and try to change the bullshit system.’
One aspect of ‘the bullshit system’ he’s up for changing is that of live music festivals, especially those with inaccessible ticket prices and all-male line-ups. Back in March, Dom announced the launch of Bludfest, a one-day event at Milton Keynes Bowl on August 11. Tickets will cost just under £50, and for that, fans will be able to see him, along with a handpicked army of genre-blending artists like Lil Yachty, Soft Play, Nessa Barrett, Lola Young and Jazmin Bean. Meanwhile, his personal heroes, OG London punk outfit The Damned, will play a dedicated ‘icons’ slot.
The press release describes Bludfest as ‘physical world’ for both himself (he’s headlining), his fanbase and ‘anyone else who wants to come along.’ It even includes a ‘Make a Friend’ option for those attending alone, with a dedicated Discord channel and onsite tent for meet-ups in real life.
Yungblud announced his big shindig in Camden, where he performed live in an amphitheatre in the market filled with adoring Gen Z fans who most likely bunked off school to see him. It’s an apposite choice: the exact place Dom would have hung around when he first came to London, aged 15.
My creative ability, my sexuality, my imagination and my ambition weren’t being matched where I was from
Having grown up in Doncaster, the singer moved down to the capital as a fame-seeking teenager, where he lived in various houseshares, squats and sofa-surfing situations. During that time, he was studying at the Arts Education School and working as an actor in shows like ‘Emmerdale’ and Disney’s ‘The Lodge’. In 2017, he released ‘King Charles’, the lead single off his debut self-titled EP. ‘London was everything to me,’ Dom reflects. ‘I just knew that I was lost [in Doncaster]. My creative ability, my sexuality, my imagination, my drive, and my ambition weren’t being matched where I was from. So, I came here and it fulfilled everything. It was like I saw colours for the first time. It was just a big liberation for me.’
At the epicentre of it all was Camden. These days, it’s a part of London that might well be viewed as a bit of a run-down, faux rock ‘n’ roll tourist trap – but to a wayward music-obsessed teenager it was like discovering a long-lost city of gold. ‘I fucking fell in love with Camden, it’s just got this energy,’ he says. ‘It was just a place of music, food, and culture, it blurred the lines of everything.’
He adds: ‘I just love rock music, I love the lifestyle, I’m obsessed with it. I grew up with it, my dad and my grandad owned a guitar shop, so I was brought up on the counter. And it means I'm obsessed with British rock ‘n’ roll. That was Camden personified.’
Tackling the haters
In the days following the launch of Bludfest, a now-deleted video circulated on TikTok, titled: ‘This is my issue with Yungblud’. In it, the host points out that Bludfest is promoted by AEG (one of the world’s largest live music presenters) and criticises the festival’s pricing as well as the authenticity of the whole ‘fuck the corporate system’ messaging of the announcement.
Unexpectedly, Dom issued a response debunking his accusations of Bludfest being an overpriced cash-grab (for context, general admission to Bludfest is £55.75, a day ticket for Reading is £125, Wireless is £94.60), while explaining his desire to ‘change things from the inside’. ‘Someone’s taken time out of their day to undermine me,’ he says, when I asked why he felt the need to acknowledge the video. ‘The hard thing about the internet is it spreads misinformation and becomes the talking point, even if it it takes you five months to work on something exciting with all your mates. I felt inclined to educate someone.’
As an advocate for talking openly about mental health, you can’t help but wonder what Dom does to look after himself in these moments. ‘I just keep working,’ he says. ‘I’m addicted to making people feel seen and to knowing they’re important. I can see it on their faces when I look down at them at gigs. When I’m playing, it’s like I’m watching the show too. I watch people fall in love, I watch them help each other up, and I watch dads there with their kids and the kids are going mental – but they’ve got a connection through Yungblud. I just fucking love it.’
The voice of a generation
Yungblud is a popular artist within young, queer, Gen Z communities – as documented by his Louis Theroux special – and you’ll often see TikToks of him encouraging teens to come up on stage in public coming-outs. Despite that, he’s never been fully outright about his own sexuality (although he said he was ‘fluid’ in a 2019 Billboard interview). So why does his music seem to resonate so well with this group? ‘I was talking to Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols about this,’ he says, when I ask.
Our revolution is a lot more about love – it’s about putting the middle finger up in the name of equality
‘He was like, “Your revolution is different to ours. In the seventies, it was a rebellion against the old ways of going out, getting a job, speaking when spoken to, wearing nice clothes to work, tipping your hat to the monarchy, blah, blah, blah”. Their rebellion was like, fuck that, I just want to be an artist and create. Ours is a lot more about love. It’s about putting the middle finger up in the name of equality for race, for gender, for sexuality, for a new idea. That’s what my music is about. That’s why young queer kids identify with it, because it’s all about love, and wanting to be loved, and wanting to spread love no matter what cloud of oppression they’re breaking out of.’
Dom believes that kids in certain communities aren’t taken seriously enough by their parents or by society: Bludfest is the result of him wanting to create a safer, dedicated space for them to express themselves. ‘I just want to build a place that just says, fuck you to everyone, this is our world,’ he says, definitively.
London living
Reflecting on what’s brought him to this point – where he has the freedom to organise an entire festival named after himself – Dom recalls a few pinch-me moments. ‘Wembley was cool,’ he says. Modest, considering he sold out the 12,500-capacity venue. ‘But I think walking out to Milton Keynes Bowl will be the big one.’
To unwind after playing a sold-out arena, Dom heads to his beloved Camden, by way of one of the city’s best restaurants. His itinerary is as follows: ‘Get a pint of Guinness and dinner at The Devonshire [in Soho], get on a tube to Camden and see what bands are on at the Electric Ballroom or The Underworld, maybe go to the World’s End for one, get a pint at the Dublin Castle then onto the Hawley Arms for a lock-in where hell will break loose. Then, at five in the morning, go up to the top of Primrose Hill, light a cigarette (he winks) and then watch the sun come up.’
From the sound of it, he has London all worked out. But does he have any advice for his 15-year-old self, arriving in the capital 11 years ago? ‘Be present a little bit more,’ he says. ‘Because I was always onto the next thing. Make sure you look at the fucking pint ring on every bar you’re at. Make sure you smile at someone every time you get a cup of coffee from Nero. Make sure you feel the wind on your face when you ride on the Central Line. Make sure you fucking run at some pigeons in Leicester Square. The way you beat loneliness here is being like, what the fuck? I’m in London!’
From the early years in his father’s guitar shop, where he heard rock music for the first time, to sofa surfing around the capital, Dom has arrived at Yungblud – a character that transcends his music. Yungblud isn’t really about the tunes (I know that will provoke a snarky smile from his detractors). Dom’s raison d’etre is to create a community for oddballs and outcasts to connect through songs and a shared outlook on life. The culmination of this is Bludfest, which Dom sees as being a global thing. He wants to transcend physical borders and take it to the U.S. and Australia next, in true Ozzfest fashion.
Moving on up
Under all of the noise, I sense that Dom is in the midst of what seems like a transitional period. He’s currently working on his fourth album, following 2018’s ‘21st Century Liability’, 2020’s ‘Weird!’ and 2022’s ‘Yungblud’, saying things like ‘Bludfest is the end’, ‘there’s a plan’ and ‘it’s going to be pretty shocking’. Is there some sort of grand finale in the works to usher in the next album – marking the end of Yungblud as we know him?
Maybe I have a lack of sense of self or understanding of who I am
Dom refers to album four as a ‘rock opera’ – or a concept album, designed to be listened to from start to finish. The first song lasts nine minutes, he explains, and the opening ‘act’ of the album is 35-minutes-long, a series of tracks which can be played as a single non-stop piece. ‘I just feel like I’m transitioning from anger and aggression and darkness into this light,’ he says. ‘It [the new music] is very much in the style of The Verve or U2, or Bowie or Madonna. We’re playing even bigger places. So you have to go big with the sound.’
Dom confesses a ‘fundamental fear of being forgotten’, which is understandable when you’re making music in the age of throwaway TikTok trends. But that doesn’t mean he’s superficial. If anything, today he’s proven he’s not some insincere punk caricature – which is what I’d expected when I came into the office – he’s actually a pretty decent bloke, with good intentions. He’s also refreshingly genuine about where his head is at. Perhaps it’s because he’s reaching 27 and ‘thinking about death a lot’; perhaps it’s because he knows this creative chapter is coming to an end.
Still, it seems that Dom’s desire to reinvent himself doesn’t necessarily come from his artistic heroes like the Bowies and the John Lydons. It’s from somewhere far deeper. ‘Maybe I have a lack of sense of self or understanding of who I am,’ he says. ‘Some days I know exactly who I am, some days I don’t. It’s all a paradox. I’ve always just loved to paint a million pictures and just go on a million adventures, and rock out there and scream there and sing softly there. People are not always going to like everything I do. But maybe that’s who I’m supposed to be.’
Photographer: Jess Hand @jesshandphotography
Design Director: Bryan Mayes @bryanmayesdotcom
Senior Designer: Jamie Inglis @818fpv
Photo Editor: Laura Gallant @lauramgallant
Writer: Georgia Evans @bygeorgiaevans
Stylist: Morgan Hall @morrrgss
Styling Assistant: Alana Newton @alananewton_
Hair: Charles Stanley @cmstanley13
Make-Up: Charlie Murray @charliemurray
In look one Yungblud wears @arketofficial shirt, tie from @atikalondon, @meh.eyewear sunglasses, @gant trousers and creepers from @tukshoes_uk. In look two and three he wears a @rowingblazers suit.