Pink fringes, rainbow flags, bright blue skies… And a crowd bursting with color. Yet, on the street of London, the most dazzling light comes from the pitch black of a convulsing figure. A clip, a chorus: Don’t Feel Like Feeling Sad Today! (“Don’t want to feel sad today”). On an improvised stage, his angelic Joker smile climbs up to his flowing eyeliner.
The hyperactive 25-year-old British chants a pop joy by wiggling his black and purple mane. As with each performance, Yungblud becomes the host of this punk vitality escaping straight from the 70s. And he transfuses it in a flash to his overexcited audience. As, no doubt, he will inspire festival-goers for the opening of the Rock en Seine festival on August 25.
“Honestly, this is what I live for”. At the start of the clip, the singer sums himself up with his sharp Yorkshire accent. And after nearly five years since his first EP, an almost impossible mission to prove him wrong. Garage rock à la Arctic Monkeys, alternative rock tinged with rap à la Twenty-One Pilots, hip-hop with pop-punk accents à la Post Malone… Yungblud may twirl between musical genres, but his vigor remains contagious and inexhaustible. “I’m not the best guitaristhe confided to Spin in May. […] But what will take your breath away [sur scène]it’s my energy”. Because before being the voice of a liberated generation, Yungblud is first and foremost the melodious cry of a boy misunderstood for too long.
August 5, 1997. Dominic Richard Harrison was born into a middle-class family in a medium-sized town in the industrial north of England. However, quickly, the norm rejects him as much as he rejects it. A sometimes violent father with his mother. A schooling complicated by his ADHD (attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity). And a certain taste for make-up, as well as feminine and emo fashion that has never left him. He tells ES Magazine in February 2020: “When you grew up in Doncaster wearing fishnet stockings and dresses at bus stops, you toughened up”.
At the age of 15, the young Dom’ fled to London in an introspective quest. Sexually (he displays his freedom loud and clear), but also artistically by studying theater at the renowned Arts Educational School. This artistic fiber will give birth to Yungblud. But its roots are anchored much deeper in its DNA. All his childhood, he helped in his father’s guitar shop after school. He discovers Oasis, T-Rex (with whom his grandfather played for a while), The Clash, the Sex Pistols… But, even there, his curiosity prevents him from being captive to a “rock” box and he opens with hip-hop from the Beastie Boys, Run DMC… “Because [pour ces artistes]it’s just a question of screwing up the mess”he summed up at Fanzine in early 2021.
Since then, no partitions in his music, nor in his collaborations. Labels want to send him to pop at The Voice? Too reductive for him. Yungblud immersed himself in rap alongside Machine Gun Kelly, in metal with Bring Me The Horizon, in pop with Imagine Dragons… And he even got into the habit of covering the classics of his idols. Like in March 2021 with David Bowie. Incandescent red suit, slicked back hair, notes of Life on Mars escape from his vocal cords in a touching tribute. “Like Lady Gaga, he taught me that if I didn’t want to belong in the real world, I could create one for myselfhe tells People a few months ago. And I did.”
This world, Dom’ builds it without boxes or barriers. In music, as in feelings or sexuality. “Barriers are for chickens”, he smiles on the show Taratata in December 2019. As a child, he felt like an alien. As an adult, he wants to bring together through his music all the young people (but not only) who have felt this difference. “For my first album [21st Century Liability en 2018]I was like a pot that boiled all my life because people didn’t understand mehe imaged to Virgin Radio in February 2021. Until the lid falls.” Once his anger has been sown, the singer sees his community flourish. As he sings in his pop-punk anthem: “There’s hope for the underrated youth” (“There is hope for the underrated youth”).
Yungblud, literally “new blood”, is therefore written in the plural. “Yungblud is a community of people who live together, and accept themselves as they are”, writes Dominic Harrison in the Question Box at the start of 2021. And above all, a united community against all sexual or racial discrimination. His young fans, or “his family” as he likes to say, even named themselves inspired by the two hearts tattooed on his two middle fingers: the “Black Hearts Club” (the “black hearts club”). And this affection, the rockstar returns them well.
Before putting their traumas to music in his second album Weird! at the end of 2020, Dom’ refuses to lose his second family during the first confinement. His parade: present a crazy show where he alternates frenzied concerts and guest interviews, The Yungblud Show. Studded blazer, oversized glasses, it opens in the first episode in March 2020: “I didn’t want to be separated from you”.
And more than two years singing about love, gender, sexuality… later, his community is still waiting for him to reveal himself more. In his music, as in his life. Their patience will be rewarded with their 3rd self-titled album.“All my albums have been about society and otherhe announced for Spin. This album is my story.” See you on September 2 to rediscover the Dom’ behind Yungblud.
Yunglud is in concert on Thursday August 25 on the main stage of Rock en Seine, at the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud.