Music
The 19-year-old has burst onto the scene with unashamed honesty, a penchant for history and really catchy hooks.
The last few years have quickly ushered in an era where young people are increasingly socially aware, politically engaged and progressively more outspoken, and in the young musician sector, 19-year-old UK Northerner Yungblud (Dominic Harrison) is leading the charge.
The teenager, who only released his debut single, I Love You, Will You Marry Me, this September, is passionate and forthcoming about his beliefs. Harrison is adamant that he doesn’t want everyone to necessarily agree with him, but wants to inspire others to speak out on their own convictions. He speaks in that charming Yorkshire accent made famous by musical influences Arctic Monkeys – clipping ‘t’s, elongating the ‘o’ vowel so words like ‘love’ sound like ‘loov’ and littering the word ‘man’ in every sentence. Everything he’s excited about, like the weather in Sydney where he’s staying at the time of our interview, is “mental”.
“Isn’t it [beautiful] man? I love it mate, it’s just mental. It’s so nice for it to be sunny in November. Mental! I love it out here … it kinda feels almost really familiar but a lot sunnier. I’m staying on Bondi Beach which is awesome so in the morning before all the madness starts, I’ve been going down there for a run down the beach, soaking it all in.”
At school, Harrison describes himself as “a bit naughty”, often egged on by his peers and incensing teachers due to his tell-it-like-it-is nature. He dropped out at 16 and moved to London to “pursue a career as a rock’n’roll star”, the UK equivalent of an Australian small-town musician moving to Sydney or Melbourne to get among the thick of the music world.
“I went to arts school in London for a bit but then kind of figured out that it wasn’t right for me, it was kind of a place where they would tell me what to do and how to express myself, and I didn’t agree with that,” Harrison explains. “I kind of had my blinkers on and knew what I wanted to eventually be, and that didn’t go in tangent with that, so I’ve kind of been in my own world since 16.
“Being a musician is such a confusing thing because you’re in a world that’s… basically everything you create is gonna be based on opinion, so people are either gonna love it or they’re gonna hate it, but you’ve gotta be yourself and never forget to not be yourself. With my music, I just want people to understand it. It’s not contrived, it’s not fake, it’s just me saying what I think, you know?”
Harrison cheekily explains that he discovered the art of rebellion at a young age, stirred by the music of NWA, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar, in addition to “the obvious ones” like Arctic Monkeys, Oasis, The Rolling Stones and Sheffield contemporaries Bring Me The Horizon.
“The thing about those artists is that they said what they thought and tried to move the needle in culture, not just in music, and I think that kind of – very early on – gave me sights to be rebellious and say what I thought. If I thought something was wrong, I’d say it; if I thought somebody was wrong, I’d say it. At school, some of my teachers didn’t like me, but some of my teachers loved me. It was funny. I was a bit of a dickhead!” he admits with a giggle.
“It was good fun. I remember pulling a moonie to my maths teacher once, which was a bad day. It was always like, ‘go on Dom, do it’ and I was like, ‘don’t make me do it,’ and someone would be like, ‘do it, I dare ya’. I loved history and music and art, but maths and science I just didn’t really get it. I was always in the music or drama centre during maths lessons and it was great because my music teacher used to never tell anyone! She would always see me and be like, ‘are you supposed to be in maths?’ and I’d be like, ‘Miss, don’t tell’ and she would always just let me,” he says fondly.
This love of history and art at school led Harrison to discover fashion, holding a particular affinity for the mod aesthetic that burst onto the scene in the ‘60s. He name-checks The Who and Mick Jagger as inspirations. On stage as Yungblud, Harrison is always in chain necklaces, Fred Perry polo shirts or t-shirts tucked into cropped jeans that often show off a slice of his pink socks – they match his pink megaphone and pink tambourine.
“The pink socks come from a movement that happened in northern England called the Northern soul movement. Basically after World War II, American GIs came out and brought a lot of blues and soul records over to England. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, boys and girls here would listen to these records that were B-Sides and dance to them all night. It was kind of the first sign of rave culture. Basically the boys would wear these cropped trousers, it was the first time you’d show your ankles or show your socks. It was also the first time boys danced on their own because beforehand, boys and girls would be doing the waltz and boys would be on one side of the room and girls on the other. It was just a big thing I loved watching – cropped trousers, creepers, Teddy Boys, all that. That’s kind of where I come from, fashion-wise. I think it’s amazing – I’m just trying to bring things back. And absolutely everything you do as an artist is expressive.”
What do his mates back home think of his sojourn to the other corner of the globe, wearing these pink socks? Harrison admits that it hasn’t sunk in for him and it’s a “phenomenal feeling”, and his friends have been incredibly cool about it.
“Mate, it’s so WEIRD! I’ve got really supportive friends and they just can’t believe it. I can’t believe it, it’s just fookin’ mental! It’s amazing, like, we speak when we can, because everything’s been so mental. I’ve literally been running around like a nutcase. It’s so nice to have supportive friends who understand and who don’t kind of go… ‘you’re forgetting about us now because you’re doing this’. It’s amazing when people get it. As a collective, me and my friends have always been very opinionated and talking about politics and stuff like that and to see me show that to the world, we’re all really excited.”
He’s been in Australia at a pivotal time, waking up the morning of our interview to the news of Australia’s ‘yes’ result to the recent postal vote on same-sex marriage. He reiterates that it’s “amazing”, a sign of young people having “such a [strong] idea of the world we want to live and the future we want to be a part of”.
“We’re so clued up on the world we want to live in and we are so vocal right now. I feel we’ve been totally ignored and the older generations are holding things back,” he says, pointing out that most young people were not on board with the UK’s recent Brexit vote and the decision to leave the EU. “Time has got to move forward and what I don’t understand is, how world leaders can put so much money into destroying the planet but as a 19-year-old I can’t go to university for free. As an artist, politics is so relevant to young people right now. We’re so interested in the world and everything and I can’t believe that no one is talking about it in mainstream pop music. I wanna be an artist that doesn’t tip toe on eggshells – I want to say it as it is, and that’s what I’m here to do, you know?”
And say it like it is, he does. I Love You, Will You Marry Me is a twisted Romeo & Juliet love story of sorts, caught between the socio-economic politics of their town, while upcoming single Polygraph Eyes is about sexual harassment. Recent single Tin Pan Boy is a frustrated ditty about property developers demolishing a street in Soho, London with eons of rock’n’roll history.
“To see something with so much historical significance to music, that means so much to me and inspires me, and to see people try to rip the soul out and turn it into 14 coffee shops in a row just makes me angry and I just don’t agree with it.
“I’m just saying what I think. I’m not telling people what to think – I’m just saying this is what I think and you can say what YOU think, and if enough of us say what we think and vote, that’s how we don’t get ignored,” espouses Harrison.
“There’s so much music I’m gonna be releasin’ next year that, for me, needs to have a message. That’s what Yungblud is about. It needs to be something real and something relevant.”
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