Yungblud On 'IDOLS,' Fan Connection & Making ‘Timeless’ Music: ‘Everything Feels Limitless’

It’s 9:20 AM, and Yungblud is ready to rock and roll. The British singer, songwriter and actor, born Dominic Richard Harrison but releases music under the moniker Yungblud, is vibing ahead of the release of his new album, IDOLS, which is dropping this Friday (20 June).

The first part of a double album, the 12-track collection was recorded in Leeds, near where Yungblud grew up, and has been described as “a project with no limitations.” No date has yet been announced for part two of the album. Throughout the record, he explores themes of hero worship and identity, while showcasing influences such as Oasis, The Verve, My Chemical Romance, David Bowie, and Madonna.

“We turn to others for an identity before turning to ourselves,” the artist said upon announcing IDOLS earlier this year. “Self-belief, self-reclamation, self-evolution and change. As we grow up, we lose our belief in magic and mystery. We begin to rationalise everything; our cage walls build up.”

He continued, “We compare ourselves to 15 different people before we’ve even had our breakfast,” adding that the album is “A love letter to self-reclamation… to rock music… [and] to life; in all its fucking madness.”

Yungblud admits that he’s nervous about releasing IDOLS, but that doesn’t mean that he’s any less excited. “It’s literally the biggest adventure that I have ever gone down, and you can hear it’s an adventure captured in music,” he tells The Music. “It’s been the biggest transition point of my life.”

“You know, I started this when I was so young, and at the end of my last record, I believe that the first iteration of Yungblud had to come to an end, and this is the new one,” he continues. “This album is my attempt at something classic; timeless. We wanted to make something that would be a double album in two parts that you would listen to as a through line and really elongate, or try to elongate, the imagination.”

IDOLS also marked an opportunity for Yungblud to, once again, play against the rules of the music industry (or, as he previously told The Music, he’s here to “scare the shit out of popstars.”) He shrugs off the algorithm, TikTok-ready short songs, and any kind of production or songwriting trends. He’s going grand; he wants to be remembered.

He explains his ambitions: “I think music at the minute lacks depth, and it’s all about dopamine. I wasn’t interested in making songs; I just noticed that at the minute, songs are so big for one second that they fall off the face of the earth, and no one hangs on to anything because it lacks idea, depth, and timeless thought.

“I’m saying it lacks a thought that can last forever; it lasts for six months and then becomes the thing of 2024 or 2023 instead of, ‘Wow, this is fucking timeless shit.’ I really wanted to try my best to make something timeless that would do that. I don’t give a fuck about you playing this every day; put it on once a week for the rest of your life. I mean, that’s what I wanted to try and do.”

Ahead of the release of IDOLS, Yungblud has dropped three singles: Hello Heaven, Hello, Lovesick Lullaby, and Zombie. The former feels like the singer-songwriter wrapped up everything about the Yungblud journey into one song, a soaring, diverse number.

Lovesick Lullaby, meanwhile, is pure Britpop, with bright guitars, sang-rapped verses, and a joyous chorus. Then, Zombie calls back to the melancholy acoustic vibe of Coldplay’s Yellow, while in the lyrics and music video starring actress Florence Pugh, Yungblud pays tribute to NHS nurses.

Zombie finds the personal connecting with a larger picture, a type of songwriting that has “become very much a thing that I do,” Yungblud shares. On IDOLS, he wanted to do something different. His previous albums, 21st Century Liability (2018), Weird! (2020), and his self-titled 2022 album have all been rooted in their times with specific messaging. IDOLS finds Yungblud expanding.

“It’s adventurous shit,” Yungblud laughs, sharing that he didn’t want the album to sound like the past. “If it sounded like the past, it would fail,” he says.

“What I wanted to do was, I wanted to steer away from any time that the drums sounded too now, or a lyric sounded too specific. I really wanted to test myself as a songwriter to create a sense of ambiguity, even though this thing I was writing about was so specific, so it would adhere to Mary’s life, as well as it does to mine. Even though we’re from different places, different cultures, different ideas.”

He continues, “We grew up differently; we saw different things. But we connect on a fundamental level: that we’re fucking human. We feel that the way we work is the same, and I believe that’s what’s wrong with the world right now, is we’re forgetting that we all tick the same.

“We battle from here [points to his head] instead of from here [points to his heart]. When we battle from here [pointing to his heart], you see another fucking human being. You don’t see an idea or a social media post or something that you’ve got to fight against. You see another human being, and I really wanted to go into the fundamentals of what it means to be alive on this album. It’s a big idea, and I can’t wait for you to hear it.”

Yungblud reveals additional themes: “This is about trans rights; this is about gentrification; this is about Brexit; this is about the NRA and the machine. On this album, I really wanted to make it as hedonistic and ambiguous as possible so it would be specific to people’s lives in their own journey… And this song [Zombie] is all about, ‘Will you love me at my worst?’”

He continues, “I wrote down in my notebook, ‘An angel that doesn’t know they have wings.’ I lost my grandmother about ten years ago, and this song… I started writing this song when I lost her to addiction. She died of liver problems. She was an alcoholic, and the nurse was so good, and I said, ‘An angel without wings, an angel without wings, an angel doesn’t know they have wings, an angel doesn’t… nurses!’

“I wanted to depict with authenticity both sides of what a fucking true hero goes through. Everyday heroes we actually take for granted – if you get hurt, you expect to be taken care of. I mean, you don’t realise that this person is giving you literal life back. [This person] has a heartbeat, has a brain, has a family, has struggles, has just had a cup of coffee in the fucking waiting room. You don’t realise that you just were so selfish and were like, ‘Save me.’ And I really needed a great artist to really demonstrate that story, and Florence was it.

“She’s one of the best; I think she’s our best British export in a minute. I think she’s phenomenal. She agreed to do it – I sent her a DM on Instagram, and she did it for free. She did it in one day, and she delivered a performance. It was just mind-blowing. I was so lucky to have her.”

Part one of Yungblud’s double album doesn’t just explore hero worship; it examines how we look at others for validation and put them on a pedestal. He presented these weighty themes to try to find answers to the question, Why do we put others on a pedestal before giving credit to ourselves?

Yungblud says human beings put others on a pedestal to take out anger and to detract from our own individuality or originality. He explains, “It’s the hardest fucking thing in the world to tell the world, ‘This is who I am.’ And I thought, ‘What an interesting subject matter to write about.’ Why do we turn to others before turning to ourselves, to relinquish any kind of emotion? That’s what part one is about.”

He adds, “Part one is really about the reclamation of oneself being lost, and realising that every photograph that you’ve looked at on the wall, you never knew them, so the answers that you got from them were from within yourself. And then part two is about how you implement that into the world.

“It’s almost like IDOLS teaches you to fly, and then part two is, you plummet back down to earth and you realise how you implement things in your life, death, mortality, relationships, the world. You know, it’s a pretty crazy subject matter, to be honest, but I love it, and it’s been beautiful to write it.”

IDOLS is just one example of Yungblud’s commitment to making a lasting impact with his music.

Last year, he founded the festival BLUDFEST, a multi-genre festival held at The National Bowl in the UK city of Milton Keynes. The first edition hosted acts such as Lil Yachty, Soft Play, The Damned, Nessa Barrett, and others. At this year’s event, Aussies Chase Atlantic and Peach PRC will join in the fun alongside Denzel Curry, blackbear, Rachel Chinouriri, and more. Yungblud is the headliner for the second year running, and plans to take the festival worldwide, including Australia.

BLUDFEST is a music festival made for community. The festival arrived as Yungblud promoted his book, You Need To Exist: a book to love and destroy!, an interactive journal he wrote and illustrated featuring never-before-seen art, lyrics, poems, and creative prompts. He’s also the mastermind behind the Twisted Tales of Ritalin Club graphic novel series and the subject of Tom Pallant’s photography book, All My Friends Have Deserted.

His attitude remains rooted in DIY punk culture. Yungblud will continue his efforts to connect with the community by building global physical fan spaces, the first of which will be constructed in London.

“I’m really lucky to remain inspired,” Yungblud comments, praising the “sick community” around him that are “fucking crazy enough to just follow me into the fire wherever I want to go.”

He adds, “I’m really excited at the minute. My next venture is to build physical fan spaces all over the world. I’ve just bought a flagship building in London, and we’re doing that at the minute. But the best thing about that is I get to go in every day, and have such crazy ideas. Because the thing for me is, I think we’ve got such a beautiful, big culture of people that what’s become such an honour is, I get to go to work and be like, ‘Alright, how can I serve them best every day?’

“It’s almost like a playground that I get to do, like, ‘Alright, let’s start a festival. Let’s start a magazine; let’s start a clothing line.’ It’s almost like everything feels limitless at the minute, surrounded by the fundamental message and the umbrella that is Yungblud. I feel really, really honoured that I got given that gift to have a community that I can have fun with and make things and keep them at the forefront of my mind and imagination. It’s sick.”

IDOLS will be released on Friday, 20 June, via Universal Music Australia. You can pre-order/pre-save the album here.

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