“We’re living in an era where people want to be told the truth.”
Authenticity is important to Dom Harrison. The Doncaster native, who goes by the moniker YUNGBLUD, is on the cusp of becoming a bona fide star after a 2019 that saw him release his second EP, the underrated youth, work with some of the biggest names in music and establish himself as one of the UK’s most exciting and controversial talents.
Despite mainstream success, though, Dom is determined to push against the tide and be true to his artistic vision and the community it’s fostered.
“Up until the past few years, you had things like The X-Factor dominating music, and the artists that climate fostered weren’t saying anything true, which is why things got sterile,” Dom says, speaking to Kerrang! from Los Angeles, where he’s been recording new material. “When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the grunge scene and bands like Soundgarden and Nirvana. I look back on that movement and I can see something similar happening now. People have been fed so much shit music, they’ve gotten sick of it.”
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The sterile nature of the music scene as he saw it led Dom to create something truly unique with YUNGBLUD. His music is rooted in rock – the aforementioned grunge scene, and bands including My Chemical Romance and The Clash were important to him growing up – but hip-hop and pop are influences, too. His back catalogue includes everything from the ska-esque ditty that is I Love You, Will You Marry Me to the atmospheric alt-pop of 11 Minutes, a song which was recorded with Halsey and Travis Barker and currently has over 96 million Spotify streams. This broad sound, Dom says, stems from his desire to learn as much as possible about every style of music.
“It’s culture,” he shrugs. “That’s why my music is so varied, and it’s also why I collaborate with so many artists. You’ve got Halsey, who makes pop, Machine Gun Kelly is a rapper, Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons is an indie rock artist and Marshmello is in the EDM world. I want to learn from all these people, but I also want to push guitar music to be prevalent in all those scenes. The guitar means a lot to me.”