YUNGBLUD + WEIRD!
It’s no small feat to wield the power to connect misfits, rebels, and societal rejects from across the globe, but Yungblud has done just that. He has, in the past three years alone, risen to the forefront of this generation’s punk alt-rock scene and created a musical community unlike any other. In November, sunbow had the opportunity to speak to Yungblud – born Dominic Harrison – about how he hopes his upcoming album weird! will strengthen the powerful bond tying together his community of listeners.
Though many musicians have a stage name that personifies who they are as an artist, Dom emphasizes that Yungblud is, instead, a culture “of people who want to come together to belong somewhere.” He continues, “Yungblud isn't me; Yungblud is us. Yungblud is not a fanbase… It's a culture and a counterculture.” He hopes to continue to create a platform for people to express their ideas and promote “humanity, really, and equality for every single person no matter what your color, what your size, what your shape, what your sexuality.”
Yungblud’s first album spurred the creation of this culture and community; it was filled with anger and angst, as, growing up in Doncaster, England – a city he likens to the U.S.’ Detroit – no one truly understood who he was. His search to find others like him across the world was met with astounding emotional connection and response that has since continued to grow exponentially.
Hoping to broaden this reach in his second record, Yungblud will shine the spotlight on the community that has made him who he is today: “the second album is about those people… I want this album to be an album for the weirdest years of our lives, in terms of gender identity, in terms of sexuality, in terms of drugs, in terms of love, in terms of heartbreak, in terms of everything.” He continues that weird! is about “culture and about making people and young people feel like they belong no matter what the fuck they might be going through.”
“This album reflects that it's alright to just have questions, and it's alright to feel scared, and it's alright to feel confused
This album was created – and will be heard – in times of intense change, tragedy, and uncertainty, and the songs that comprise it are certainly not separate from the environment in which they were created:
“It's a direct response to [the distress and struggle in our world today]... A lot of people feel trapped and a lot of people feel pressured to have an answer. This album reflects that it's alright to just have questions, and it's alright to feel scared, and it's alright to feel confused – because every fucking one of us is, – and it's alright to fundamentally be different, and weird, and strange, and abnormal, because why the fuck do you want to be like everyone else?”
Over the past nine months, the pandemic has been an increasingly daunting impediment to musicians’ ability to perform and share their work. Through it, however, Yungblud has found a new way to create and innovate through these new challenges, explaining, “I always operate best when I've got something to kick against, and not being able to play live gave me something to kick against.” Though we aren’t able to bond over our love for music in person as we were in times past, he emphasizes that “just because we can't touch each other doesn't mean we can't feel each other.”
“just because we can't touch each other doesn't mean we can't feel each other.”
As far as the tracks on the album themselves, Yungblud finds sonic inspiration in the work of artists like Marilyn Manson, Lady Gaga, Gerard Way, and David Bowie, and he notes that these musicians are also all known for telling the truth, which is a key aspect of all of his work, both past and present. He emphasizes throughout the conversation that there’s no “formula” to his music; the real secret is to unapologetically tell the truth: “the music comes second; it’s always about the message.”
The truth brings us back to Yungblud as a community and the effects that Dom hopes to have on it; this album focuses on “real stories, so I know that this album is going to resonate… I wish I would have heard these stories at 15, because I would have made a lot less mistakes.” The people in this community that inspire him “are the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story” in both each song and his musical journey as a whole.
“Mars,” Yungblud’s latest single off of weird!, centers around the story of a young trans girl that he met in Maryland at one of his shows:
“She was only seventeen
Had the saddest pair of eyes that you ever seen
Wore them lips in the cold, it was matching green
But she can't be herself when she's somebody else
In the morning, she would take her mother's wedding ring
But school got pretty tough when they see it gleam
So she hid herself under the mezzanine
Re-enacting scenes, yeah”
The authenticity and raw emotions in these lines strike a chord in the hearts of many who have found themselves misunderstood and ostracized as a result of their identity; over just a few days, the evocative music video for “mars” has garnered over a million views and thousands of comments, many of which express gratitude in having found solace in the shared emotions of the Yungblud community.
It’s Yungblud’s hope that the raw honesty and relatable emotion in his songs will not only resonate with but reflect upon its listeners: “Be who you are, and if people don't like it, they're not meant to be in your life.” This truth is a main factor that helped bring the Yungblud community into existence: “It's a two way street with my fanbase. I tell the truth. As soon as I start telling the truth, people start to listen to me, and then they start telling the truth back… To be completely truthful is how you get answers and how you connect with people” This is, hopefully, one way that we will find answers to the many troubling questions that we’re faced with today.
The last song on the album “the freak show,” is in fact a tribute to Yungblud’s fanbase. The song ends with the lyrics, “times will change, and you might break, but I will spend the rest of my life believing in you.” That “you” is the millions of people who have found their voice through Yungblud and his music: “This record is my fan base’s words. These albums are their stories.”
“If you’re supposed to understand it, you will.”
