Yungblud is as English as chips with mushy peas, but right now he's locked down thousands of miles from home.
Flying from Australia to Los Angeles as his world tour continued, he opted to spend a few weeks in the City of Angels working on his new album.
And then coronavirus struck. Prevented from travelling, he tried to make something positive out of the situation, focussing on his music, and connecting with fans.
Earlier this week the latest instalment of his YouTube broadcast The Yungblud Show went viral, trending at home and abroad on Twitter.
Outspoken and unrepentant, Yungblud's loyal army of fans hang on his every word – except he's not a leader, as such, he's one of them.
Taking time out to chat to Clash over Zoom, Yungblud opened up about homesickness, new single 'Weird!', and the universal aspects that connect his global fans.
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You are in Los Angles now, is that right?
Yeah, we are.
What is the atmosphere like in that city?
I think, to be honest, it's kinda weird. It's full of a lot of healthy people, innit, so I think they take it really seriously.
Really? There's a lot of yoga and exercise going on every day?
As I say, the sun's shining, we were out here finishing the record. We thought we might as well stay here in the sunshine if we're gonna be locked down, you know?
You travelled out from Australia, where you played some shows… remember them? The shows and gigs that used to happen in the old world!
Yeah, I remember shows, yeah. Fucking hell. Crazy. But I dunno man, we're kinda busier than we've ever been really, because we've had the Yungblud show with the song coming out next week. So we're just trying to kinda think out of the box right now and connect as much as possible to our fan base.
You've always been really web-focused and web-positive in the way you've approached things.
I felt like I didn't belong to the world as it was, so I wanted to kind of create a space which could be my own world with people who thought the same as me. Our bond is that strong, that noise counteracts all the negative bullshit, you know what I mean? We don't really hear it because we're shouting so loud, you know? It's fun.
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A lot of the kids who are watching it don’t have anywhere to go now, but they do still have this community in a virtual place.
Exactly! That's it, man. That's the whole thing about Yungblud, is to make people feel like they can be who they are no matter where they are, no matter what situation they're in.
You know, if they feel isolated in their own family they can get on the internet and speak to fifteen to twenty other people who feel exactly the same as them 'cause they belong here. I wanted to create summat where it's not just like, "Oh, Yungblud! I like his songs" – nah, man, Yungblud is a way of fucking life for us! It's a mutual ideology.
Yungblud ain't even me – Yungblud's a name. I'm Dom, and I fucking connect to Yungblud because of this reason. Fucking Shelby in fucking… Glasgow connects to Yungblud for one reason; fucking… Ollie in Sydney connects to Yungblud for this reason, you know what I mean?
What do you think connects all these people?
It's a mutual ideology to be wanted and to be loved, and to be accepted. No matter who they are, no matter who they wanna be, no matter how they wanna identify. The knowledge that no matter if the world kicks them out of the house, you can always stay on our sofa. You know what I'm saying? I think we're the first generation to kind of accept you can be fifteen different people at once.
Yeah. That is a really good point.
Human beings since the fucking dawn of time has been twenty people, at once. But we're the first generation to accept it. I am who I am, I'm not in a box!
People at labels say stuff like "where do you fucking belong, in this world? where can I put you?" – I'm not a fucking cornflake. I don't belong in a box, I'm a human being!
Have you been feeling the anger and positivity in the Yungblud shows and these online broadcasts?
Absolutely. That's the point of it: to be the punk rock Jimmy Fallon. Everyone around it is a bit naughty. You know, all the guests are a little bit naughty. Do you know what they're gonna fucking say next? That's what I want: I want this real resonance.
I don't want to fucking do ‘Imagine’ from my mansion in Beverly Hills and get fucking slated for it because it's not real. I wanna do a thing that's off the fucking wall, in your face, no holds barred, real resonating – because that's what's gonna connect to my people. That's what's gonna make me have fun, instead of being like: "Hello, the world is really sad right now". It's like, well, yeah, it fucking is!
It needs to be more like, "Everything's fucked right now! And it's fucking our fault because we've neglected humanity, we've neglected the environment, the world's giving us a slap in the fucking face, but let's stick together until everything's okay!"
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So what do you want to see come out of this in a positive way? When the lockdown ends and people go back to their normal lives, what can we do to push this ahead a little bit?
I think we've got to love a lot more. Humanity has got to come back to humans. Everyone's been battling each other from different countries for things about money and greed. That's what leads into the environment getting fucked, as well. I think we just have to love each other.
We have to be unified a lot more, and I think to be honest, it always happened in moments of culture. The world goes to shit, and then there's a moment of unity. I think this is what needs to happen. Human beings need to unified again.
You used that phrase ‘the Yungblud ideology’ – so how does ‘Weird’ sit within that?
It's a new era, you know what I mean? My ideology, at first… I was so fucking angry all the time, because people didn't accept me. I was brought up in a very loveless society. People were snarling at me and didn't get me or understand me. It was oppressing me in a fucking box, like wrapping me in cellophane to be their action figure.
That was the first ideology, that I'm not going to belong there, but then I found this fanbase and this family and am so surrounded by love now. But… so much shit happened. Everything was weird. "Weird, weird, weird" kept going through my brain. I nearly lost my mum in a car accident; I was in a relationship and my heart broke. We got fucking really big really quickly.
Suddenly you wake up one day, you go for a run, and there's a fucking guy following you around with a fucking camera. That was the next catalyst for the next record – it's a coming-of-age record. Not a record to grow up – coming of age just to mean, I'm going to grow up now and become an adult, because I'm a teeny-bopper. It means you can come of age at fucking seventy-four. You can come of age at ninety-two. You can realise who you are at any time of your life.
You know, this album I want to connect like an episode of Skins, in a record. The series of Skins in an album: about life, about sexual liberation, about confusion in terms of gender, about heartbreak, about positivity, about religion, about fucking… deformity. About so many things, about ideologies in people that you have to go through, you have to trawl through the mud to come of age and to figure out who you are. But at the end of the day, it's just a weird time in your life. When you're in the public eye in that sense, trending on Twitter is a real double-edged sword.
Has this made things more intense in your life, alongside making you feel slightly more accepted?
Absolutely, of course it has. But like I say, no matter how intense it gets, I feel like I belong somewhere, so I feel geared up for it. No matter how many fucking bullets I face, I've got an army behind me to patch me back together and to spur me on, and to tell me to keep running – as I do to them. The difference is… my fanbase, I'm one of them, I am in the middle of you. I am not Yungblud and you; or me and them.
I'm not going to sit here with champagne on a fucking pedestal. That's exactly what I hate. If I ever turn out to be that way, fucking shoot me. You know? I'm here because it's not about how many records I sell, it's about how many people I reach out to. It's so interesting, because it's such a weird juxtaposition.
You feel like a hypocrite because you build a fan base based on not wanting to be part of this Top 40 machine, and Top 40 thing you see, yet… you're sort of trending on Twitter, and you go, "Oh fuck." There's that many of us defying a system… are we becoming part of a system? It's a weird inception thing, you know? But it's about staying true to yourself, I think.
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You talk about the record that you're working on being "coming-of-age". Does that mean it's a break with the past, or do you think you're still building on what you've done?
I'm building on what I've done. It's always like that. It's building your fucking castle, that's what being a human is: building your foundations and building up from there to figure it out. You know what I mean? It sounds dark as fuck, but you don't really figure it out until the lights go out… but that's the journey, and that's what we're here for. We're here for a fucking journey. The record's going to be an incredible journey, as well.
If you had to pick out a single thing you've learned so far with these sessions, what do you think it is?
It's been the hardest thing in my life, really, to kind of open up that can of worms. I’ve had so much fun. I've never laughed more. I made it with literally five people who are my best friends. I just kind of learned, again, like, no matter how weird things may get, it'll be alright in the end – if you want it to be alright in the end.
You are very English, and very British, but there is something universal that people are tapping into. What do you think it is?
I think it's our kind of attitude and our bite. I ain't gonna sugar-coat anything because of the society I grew up around. In the north of England you speak your fucking mind or you get drowned out. I think where I was from, you speak your fucking mind or you don't get heard. I think that bite and my kind of reluctance to conform to whatever anyone else wants me to do, I think that's what's kind of attractive.
I'm very English – you can hear me before you can see me. I think people either love that or they hate it, and that's what's kind of making a big splash, you know?
What reaction do you think ‘Weird’ will get?
It's very, kind of, it's very major… it's a lot more optimistic than usual. But I'm excited. I always get nervous – of course I get nervous. It's like putting out of a fucking kid to the world, innit? But I'm buzzing for people to hear it.
I think that optimism and heart-warming sense of liberation is needed in society right now, you know?
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'Weird' is out now.
Photography: Tom Pallant
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