20 Juin Interview – Yungblud : « I feel lucky »

Sound of Brit caught up with Yungblud ahead of the release of his upcoming album, Idols. Intimate and audacious, this new album is very raw and a real introspection on his identity.

SOB : How would you define this album?

YUNGBLUD : I really think I would define this album as a mirror. That’s how I would say it. For myself, for you, for everyone who hears it, I think I really had a choice to make. And it was a massive turning point for me, this record. I needed to do something different, from what I had done. The first iteration of YUNGBLUD had come to an end. The way we knew it since I was 18. It was starting to become a character. And it was starting to become a part that I would play, instead of being truly authentic. Yeah, a new sense of, a new search for meaning. And the reason why I say it was a mirror is that this album forces you to feel something that will make you question who you are. I’m really bored at the minute of surface-level emotion. I’m bored of getting hit by dopamine on my phone every day. And, actually, realising that the world is kind of teaching us to distract ourselves instead of feeling anything at all. But really, really simplifying everyone. And we’re not simple. We’re really complex as people. And that’s why there are really long songs on it. And that’s why I wanted to make a piece of art that would be a start-to-finish journey. It needed to be an elongated process. And I wanted to create an album of depth, instead of dopamine.

SOB : This album is about you. Let’s talk about the cover, because I think it’s a perfect example of that. The cover is a picture of you, almost naked, in black and white.

YUNGBLUD : Yeah, I mean, I was naked. That was it. It’s three things. The music is full of so much colour, and it’s five-dimensional so I wanted the album cover to almost be statement-less, because you get to colour in the album through the music. I didn’t want to be front and centre, because I wanted to show that I’d been wounded. I didn’t want it to be about my face, because YUNGBLUD became such a polarising figure, for love and hate. And I couldn’t take it anymore. But the reason why there’s the lion [tattoo, ndlr.] there, and the « don’t forget to live on my arm » , is because I found courage through this album. And I found a sense of strength again, in a new position. And, the reason why I call it Idols, and on the cover, I’m turning away from that sentiment, is because we always give too much credit to other people for our own sense of individuality. You look at a photograph on the wall, or your poster in your room, you want to be the poster. In my case, there are some people who became the poster. But you realise that, that poster never had any answers.

SOB : The answer is you. It’s all inside you.

YUNGBLUD  : 100%. I never knew, I never met David Bowie, I never met Freddie Mercury. Everything I got from that poster, or learned from that music, came from within me, and came from within you, and you. There’s a famous John Lennon video when a fan comes to his house and he thinks the music’s about him. And John was like, « I’ve never met you, I don’t know you » . What’s beautiful about music and art in general, is we see something, or we hear it, and we relate to it, and it is about us if we want it to be. Because the idea, the lesson that you regurgitate in your mind, is your idea. I’m inspired by a moment of magic, or hope, that you hear on a CD player, or on the radio, or on TV. Or TikTok, I don’t fucking know.

SOB : Why did you choose to make a double album? Was the idea to have two opposite sides, a light one and a dark one ? Or did you have too many songs ready for the album and decided to make a double album?

YUNGBLUD : Well, I’ve got many reasons. Firstly, it didn’t want to end, the album just kept going. And then we ended up with 30 songs.

SOB : 30 songs in four years, right?

YUNGBLUD : Yeah. Fuck me, I was like, wow. Within this idea, under the umbrella of Idols. But then the story unveiled itself. And part one is the light and the reclamation of yourself. And you learn to fly. And part two is the fundamental realisation that we’re not going to be here forever. So, what matters the most now I know who I am? Who is in my life that I love? What is in my life that I love? What have I got to leave behind? So, part two is a bit darker, and a bit more cynical. But it’s like you build up these ideas in part one, and then you implement them into your life in part two. It’s cool. It’s a real journey. And that’s the vibe I want, to make it a longer journey. I don’t want people to, listen to an album, and then forget about it. I wanted it to be 18 months.

SOB : Like a global project.

YUNGBLUD : Yeah, a story that’s unveiled.

SOB : That’s really cool, not a lot of people are doing this.

YUNGBLUD : I just feel like I’m lucky because I have the community and the fan base to do it. If you’re a pop star, you’ve got to be in the charts or you’re fucked. I feel so lucky that we have a culture and we have an idea and we have an identity and we have a movement.

SOB : Which songs are your favourites on the album?

YUNGBLUD : Ghost and Change. Yeah, it just feels like flying, that song. It’s got magic in it. But this album is so…. This is really Dom. If you know me, if you watch me in an interview, and you watch when I get emotional, when I talk about life, it’s my opinions on life. Not politics, not anger, not boundaries. It’s my opinion on humanity, this album. It’s my opinion on why are we here. And it’s got so much emotion in it. It’s just exploding with colour.

SOB : This album is very personnal, people might love it or hate it, but it’s you. What does this new image of YUNGBLUD mean to you? Do you feel like you have reached a turning point in your life, in your career? Do you feel like you managed to sort out some things that have been haunting you? How do you feel now that this album is about to come out?

YUNGBLUD : Yeah, I feel like everyone’s asking me, do you feel stressed? I’m like, no, I feel really calm. The one thing I’ve learned is I really made this album for myself. And you can feel the journey of feeling isolated and lonely and frightened at the start of it. Hello? Are you out there? Do you care? Do you know me? Do you love me? Do you hate me? To Supermoon. And I figure it out in real-time, in music, captured within music. So, for the listener, you are hearing a real snapshot of self-reclamation and self-discovery at a new point in my life.

SOB : How do you write an album like this one? Was it the same process as before?

YUNGBLUD : No, for this album I needed time. Since the beginning, it was album/tour, album/tour, album/tour. And I had nothing to pull from. I needed to sit in my emotions and sit in my questions and allow my subconscious to do most of the work. And when your subconscious does most of the work, you can’t rush it. Because you don’t get given, epiphanies every day. You don’t get given. When you have to sit in a room like, right, let’s write a song by five o’clock, it’s going to end up being, it might be catchy, but it’s not going to be deep. You have to take the time. Think about it. Or it can come out in ten minutes, but it’s been a three-week process of living for a bit of emotion to fall out of the sky.

SOB : Do you write by yourself?

YUNGBLUD: I took my family, Adam Warrington, my guitar player, Mattie Schwartz, the first producer of my album, to the middle of nowhere. We had no concept of time. We had no deadline. And we just said, what are we going to make? And let’s see what pours out of us. And that’s what this album is. That’s why, like, songs take different turns. Fire starts somewhere, and ends up somewhere else. “Ghost” starts somewhere, and ends up somewhere else. “Greatest Parade”, we go everywhere. It’s fun.

SOB : You’re always showing a great interest in people, especially for your community. What motivates you to keep finding solutions for concerts, for example, to make sure they’re accessible for everyone? Which must not always be easy…

YUNGBLUD : Because I want to. And I don’t take no for an answer. And I’m lucky to have a community that is this big. So, I will serve them, and I will serve you, and I will make sure that the people who love this and make this thing so strong never feel fucked over. And I want to prove that if you want to change it, you can. If you want to change the world, you can. Don’t be afraid of that ambition. Anyone can change the world. You change the world by changing some person’s mind.

SOB : Where does that strength come from? Were you also like that as a child or teenager?

YUNGBLUD : Yeah, I felt like this whole thing started with Brexit. « Me and my friends were so pissed off that we were segregated. Separate from the world, separate from identity, separate from culture, separate from the thing when we didn’t want it. And YUNGBLUD began because I was like, I’m going to write songs about what me and my friends are talking about. And, we were at the beginning of a wave of sexual revolution, race evolution, ideas, where our generation had the internet to communicate and a wave of artists like Lil Nas X, Mac Miller, Billie Eilish, Lil Peep came along. We were singing about things other than like, « I love you, baby » . We were singing about politics. We were singing about… Breakdowns, sexual equality, race equality, fucking everything. What was at the forefront of a generation’s mind, because when you had to be boxed in, you had to fall into line to be what you are. But nowadays and the way my friends were, we just didn’t see that. We were like, we’re all mates. That’s just, what’s wrong with that? And when they try and mathematise that or rationalise it, it doesn’t make sense to us. So that’s what I started writing songs about. And that’s how this thing became so big. And it was wild.

SOB : Did you think about changing your name since this is a new project?

YUNGBLUD: I thought about it. People ask me if I could be YUNGBLUD forever. And I never thought about that. I didn’t expect this shit to get so big. I just loved what I was doing and I spoke with everything that I got. And when you’re in the public eye, you become insecure about things you didn’t even know about. Most of the things I’ve been insecure about in the past four years I’ve read on the internet about myself. I was like, fuck, is that what people think about me? People ask me, how can you be YUNGBLUD forever? In my mind, since the beginning, I was going to be YUNGBLUD forever. But I started to fall out of love with my name. Until Bludfest. Because YUNGBLUD became so much bigger than me. It became you, it became mothers, it became babies, it became grandmothers and grandfathers. And there were 35,000 people in a field that were YUNGBLUD and Dom can exist beneath YUNGBLUD. Because YUNGBLUD isn’t a young 18-year-old from the north in pink socks singing about politics. But Dom can exist under YUNGBLUD and this name became an idea. It became the umbrella of protection. So yeah, I think I could be YUNGBLUD forever. But not in the way you know it, always. Not in the way it was first presented to the world.

SOB : Talking about BLUDFEST, I heard a rumour about a Bludfest in France. Is that true ? 

YUNGBLUD : I’m trying to bring Bludfest to Paris. And I’m trying to bring Bludfest to Prague. I want to bring Bludfest to Paris, Prague, Latin America and Malta next year. That’s my goal.

SOB :  With French artists?

YUNGBLUD : French artists. I’m talking to a really big band to come and play with me. Which, if we can pull it off, it will definitely happen. It’s just going to be Paris, Bludfest Paris.

SOB : Thank you so much for your time !

YUNGBLUD : Thank you for having me. And there’s so much coming. A movie coming. That’s all I can say.