With a desire to be the most honest version of himself possible, YUNGBLUD's self-titled era has arrived.
Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Tom Pallant.
YUNGBLUD says he isn't a punk. He isn't a rock star, either. Hell, at one point, he claims he isn't even a musician.
What he is, is the subject of his self-titled third record. Rather than a definitive statement, though, YUNGBLUD's most personal record leaves things deliberately open-ended.
2018's debut album '21st Century Liability' was a scrappy, snotty record that saw YUNGBLUD desperate for belonging. Follow-up 'Weird!' was a celebration of the community that found him. Released on the back of crossover collaborations with Halsey and Machine Gun Kelly, YUNGBLUD became bigger than Dom Harrison ever expected.
It might sound like a cop-out, but YUNGBLUD has always stood for self-expression. "Whoever you want to be, that's what YUNGBLUD is," Dom explains. "That's what this album truly means."
Despite another uplifting message of rebellious freedom, 'YUNGBLUD' isn't more of the same. While previous records have tried to be everything all at once, there's a focus to this third album.
That urgency came from Dom's insecurity around YUNGBLUD's increasing success. If he didn't question his lyrics, he couldn't lose the honesty. "People would try and put me into so many boxes. When you're younger, you listen to it. You play into the idea of what people think about you."
A little older, a little wiser and with time on his hands, 'YUNGBLUD' let Dom "bathe in the emotion, sit in the pain and feel the negativity of the world."
And there was a lot of negativity around.
"The internet is a rough place to exist as an artist. Fuck that. Actually, it's a rough place to live as a person"
— YUNGBLUD
He was accused of queer baiting and being an industry plant. "Everyone had an idea about it," Dom says. "And I saw what people on the internet were saying about me. At first, it hurt me, but then I had a word with myself - come on, mate, this is what you're here to do. You're here to be the one to take the punches and get back up again. That's what YUNGBLUD is."
"I've always said I'm a vehicle for people's expression, so if people don't like that, it's hypocritical of me to moan. As long as you're expressing yourself," he says with a grin.
It wasn't quite as breezy as that, though. "There's a lot of death in this record," says Dom. "I have always thought about, what if I wasn't here? What would it be like? When the internet turned on me for a bit, death almost felt like the best career move for me, because people would look past the caricature of YUNGBLUD and actually look into my life and maybe give me a chance."
Dom realised that "the arguments against me were as moronic as they were when I was 15. I just roll my eyes at it all now."
"I didn't want this to be a rock star album, saying 'woe is me', though. This record is me as a human being, talking about what people say about me in the street, just as much as they did in school. I wanted to humanise it. I don't want to be a rock star because then you're unobtainable. If you're a fucking rock star, how can you relate to anyone?" he asks.
Home from a run of European festivals and gearing up for a tour of Australia, today Dom is "the best I have been in a long while because I feel so connected to my audience, and I feel so confident in my art. I'm at a place where I've written a couple of cool songs, and I might add them to the album," even though it's out in a little over a month.
Dom questioned being so outspoken, but realised that's who he's meant to be. "I'm not going to be Ariana, Lizzo or Harry – I love them, and I think they're great, but pop music says something and nothing all at the same time. I'm here to say it as it is, even if I get burned for it."
"If you talk about politics, there's going to be division," he explains. "I'm going to fight for equality, fight for love and fight for the individual - I never said I'd do it politely, though. I never promised that. I'm not going to sit here with a cup of tea and ask people to accept others, then thank them for listening anyway." A little later, Dom says he's not "some bratty punk kid you can't talk to. I look like I might bite your head off, but I'll probably make you a cup of tea and give you a cuddle," before explaining 'YUNGBLUD' is "the closest thing to a conversation with me."
"My generation is a generation of contradictions, but contradictions are almost an outdated concept because we have access to so much," he offers.
Despite his earlier denial, Dom admits that some days he does want to be "a fucking rock star". "Rock and roll music is my religion. But I don't want to be the sort of rock star that's come before – wrapped up in pretension. I want to be me. And I want other people to be themselves too."
"I'm going to fight for equality, fight for love and fight for the individual"
— YUNGBLUD
It's a lesson learnt from Bowie and John Lydon, "before he was a fucking idiot". Dom then namedrops Mick Jagger, saying the pair spoke about what a rock star was. "It's not textbook," he explains. "It's an energy. I understand people calling me a punk, or a rock star, but it doesn't do it justice. It's all about feeling. It's all about telling the rulebook to fuck itself."
Later, he mentions a conversation he had with Ozzy Osbourne about pushing back against hate. "As long as you mean it with love," was the consensus. "It's all about love. If you want to call me anything, call me a hippy."
Instead of another record where Dom tries to shatter each and every box he's put in, 'YUNGBLUD' is "a step forward". It's a tough line to walk, especially when you've got a reputation for shock and rebellion, but he's created something "that feels obvious. I made a record me and my mates would want to listen to, that we'd love," rather than worrying about challenging expectations.
You'd call it a coming-of-age record if it wasn't so exciting. For 'YUNGBLUD', Dom was inspired by legendary artists like Linda Ronstadt, The Cure and Madonna, as well as more contemporary acts like Twenty One Pilots. The record started with 'Funeral' and the belief that "if you list all your insecurities off, you take the power back because no one can say anything about you you've not said about yourself." The songs that followed all had a "keep on, keeping on" mentality. "I want people to put this album on and have courage," says Dom.
Easy to do when you're speaking to the safety of your fanbase, but a much harder job when you know there's an audience of people looking to deliberately twist words or misinterpret lyrics.
Elsewhere, the delicate 'Sweet Heroine' was written about Dom's girlfriend Jessie, "who really pulled me out of a dark place," while he describes the arena punk of 'The Boy In The Black Dress' as being "almost like the movie about my life. It's about the first time I was punched, the first time I was insulted by a teacher, the first time I had casual sex and where I'm at now."
Dom really leaned on Lou Reed, Bowie, Robert Smith, Brian Molko and Lady Gaga with 'YUNGBLUD'. "You can feel it in the lyrics," he says. "There are a lot of lyrics I'm really fucking proud of. It feels more poetic, less straight up," he explains. While '21st Century Liability' was "like being down the pub, telling homophobes to fuck off before giving them a slap," 'YUNGBLUD' is bigger with its ambitions. "It's a kickback against the world."
What 'YUNGBLUD' isn't, though, is a pop-punk record, which is surprising considering YUNGBLUD helped kickstart the entire revival by teaming up with Machine Gun Kelly and Travis Barker on 2019's 'I Think I'm Okay'.
There was never a moment where Dom wanted to make a pop-punk record following Machine Gun Kelly's success because "it wouldn't be real. It would be a marketing exercise."
