Latest news with #Bludfest
Perth Now
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Yungblud bonds with The Cure and Smashing Pumpkins over tackling high ticket prices
Yungblud has bonded with The Cure and Smashing Pumpkins over fair ticket prices for fans. The 'I Think I'm Okay' hitmaker - who is set to headline his second annual Bludfest event at the Milton Keynes Bowl on June 21 - is keeping ticket prices for the festival down at £65, and he's opened up on how his friendship with The Cure's Robert Smith and Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan has been inspired by a desire to keep things affordable. He told the Daily Star newspaper's Wired column: "Me and Robert have such a mutual fire in us to be pioneers in making a change on ticket prices. "We've become really close and, whenever we meet up or email, we try to make a difference in any way we can. "Billy Corgan has become a good mate in changing how tickets operate too." Yungblud - whose real name is Dominic Harrison - insisted his concern is his own "community", rather than keeping ticket prices hiked up simply because it's how the industry works now. He added: "I was sick of being told, 'This is just the way things are' and have to accept that if that was how I'd have to live out my dreams. "I have no interest in that. All I care about is my community. I hate the apple-for-teacher mentality that's ingrained in British culture. "I can't be a**** with it." Meanwhile, the 27-year-old star still has lofty goals for Bludfest, as he aims to transform it into a global touring festival taking inspiration from Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest. He's already been speaking to venues in France and other countries, while he'd love 'Boys Don't Cry' singer Robert Smith to join the lineup one year. He said: "It's going worldwide, and it's going to be wild. It's amazing what you can do if you shout a mad idea into the void and a load of people shout back. "If The Cure can play it one day, that would be a dream, just unbelievable."
BBC News
28-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Yungblud 'so excited' to bring Bludfest back to Milton Keynes
A rockstar said he was "so excited" to be bringing his "accessible and affordable" music and arts festival back to a county this a festival founded by singer-songwriter Yungblud in 2024, will take place at the National Bowl, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, on 21 27-year-old said he created the event in response to the rising cost of festival and gig tickets, with 30,000 people attending last year for £50 year tickets range from £65-125, but the Lovesick Lullaby singer told the BBC the event "was a lot bigger". "We have a bigger second stage, a lot more rides, and we've just made things from last year twice as big," he said."It is really good to be coming back for a second year and I feel so lucky – I am so excited." During last year's event some fans reported fainting while waiting for hours in slow-moving queues to get into the Presents, the festival's promoter, apologised to fans who experienced delays and said the wait was down to "heightened security measures"."It was a bit of a nightmare but we got through it, but we needed more gates open and the security got overwhelmed," said Yungblud."This year things are a lot more within my control and there will be a lot more gates open and it is really important for me to take security seriously."It's my festival, it's my name on it, and I really want to be in charge of it." Yungblud said he wanted to create his own festival that was affordable and "would be really representative" of his fan base."It was everything I kind of expected and wanted really, it was so beautiful how much love was in the air and how much people were connecting," he told the BBC."I think people are afraid to go to gigs on their own, but the biggest thing I am proud of is that people form relationships and go adventures together at YungBlud gigs."In the midst of rising concert tickets, the artist wanted to offer a more affordable way to enjoy live year 51% of people in the UK said high prices had stopped them from going to gigs at least once in the last five 16 to 34-year-olds, two-thirds of concert-goers said they had reduced the number of shows they attended. "A lot of artists are not in control of how much people are paying to go to their gigs and I wanted to encourage them to stand up for their fanbase," Yungblud said."I don't mind putting my head above the trench and getting shot at first."It is really liberating and cool to do something that you dream about and we are doing it for the right reasons." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Yungblud on keeping fans safe, and his 'shirt off era'
The Netherlands, March 2025. Yungblud is leaving his hotel in Amsterdam when he's approached by a fan in floods of tears."You saved my life," she sobs."No, you saved your own life," he replies, quietly. "Maybe the music was the soundtrack, but you saved your own life, OK?"Leaning in for a hug, he adds, "Don't be sad, be happy. I love ya."It's a remarkably touching moment, full of compassion and devoid of rock star weeks later, after a video of the encounter goes viral, Yungblud is still moved by the memory."I didn't think people would see that, except me and her," he says, "but it was such a moment for me."The interaction crystallised something he'd felt for a while."I always said that Bowie and My Chemical Romance saved my life, but ultimately you have to find yourself," he says."Like this morning, I put my headphones on and I listened to [The Verve's] Lucky Man, and it made me go, 'Oh, I'm ready to face the day'."But Richard Ashcroft didn't tell me I was ready to face the day. I said that to myself. "That's what I was trying to tell that girl in Amsterdam." Self-assurance is a lesson he learned the hard the surface, Yungblud, aka 27-year-old Dominic Harrison, had it all. Two number one albums, an international fanbase, a Louis Theroux documentary and enough clout to run his own if you looked more closely, there were chinks in the armour. Those number one albums both fell out of the Top 30 after one week, a sign of a strong core fanbase, with limited crossover the first year of his Bludfest in Milton Keynes was criticised after long queues and a lack of water caused fans to pass out and miss the was keenly aware of it all. As he released his self-titled third album in 2022, he hit a low."Yungblud was number one in seven countries, and I wasn't happy because it wasn't the album I wanted to make," he says."It was a good album, but it wasn't exceptional."The problem, he says, was a record label who'd pushed him in a more commercial direction. But in polishing his sound, he lost the angry unpredictability that characterised his best work."It's funny, my-self titled album was actually the one where I was most lost," he observes."I felt like I compromised but, because of that, I was never taking no for an answer again."Nowhere is that clearer than on his comeback single, Hello Heaven, nine minutes and six seconds it achieves Caligulan levels of excess, full of scorching guitar solos, throat-shredding vocal runs, and even an orchestral coda."Do you still remember, or have you forgotten where you're from?" Harrison asks himself, as he re-ignites his song's purposefully unsuited to radio – unlike the follow-up single, Lovesick Lullaby. Released today, it's a free-associating rampage through a messy night out, that ends with epiphany in a drug dealer's Liam Gallagher's sneer with Beach Boys' harmonies, it's uniquely Yungblud. But the singer reveals it was originally written for his last album. "We were actually discouraged from doing it," he says."My advisor at the time, a guy called Nick Groff [vice president of A&R at Interscope, responsible for signing Billie Eilish], was like, 'I don't get it'."Warming to the theme, he continues: "The music industry is crap because it's all about money but, as an artist, I need to make sure that anything I put out is exciting and unlimited. "It can't be like a 50% version of me."To achieve that, he shunned expensive recording studios and made his new album in a converted Tetley brewery in Leeds. Professional songwriters were banished, too, in favour of a close group of collaborators, including guitarist Adam Warrington, and Matt Schwartz, the Israeli-British producer who helmed his 2018 debut."When you make an album in LA or London, everything is great, even if it's mediocre, because people want a hit out of it," he argues."When you make an album with family, all they want is the truth." 'Sexiness and liberation' One of the most honest tracks on the record is Zombie, a lighters-aloft ballad (think Coldplay, sung by Bruce Springsteen) about "feeling you're ugly, and learning to battle that"."I always was insecure about my body, and that got highlighted as I got famous," says the singer, who last year revealed he'd developed an eating disorder due to body dysmorphia."But I realised, the biggest power you can give someone over you is in how you react. So I decided, I'm going to get sober, I'm going to get fit, and I discovered boxing."He ended up working with the South African boxer Chris Heerden - who was recently in the news after Russia jailed his ballerina girlfriend, Ksenia Karelina."I met him before all that," says Harrison, "but he's been extremely inspirational. Boxing's become like therapy for me."If someone says something bad about me, I go to the gym, hit the punch bag for an hour and talk it out."Fans have noticed the change… drooling over photos of his newly chiseled torso, and declaring 2025 his "shirt-off era"."Maybe the shirt-off era is a comeback to all the comments I've had," he laughs."I'm claiming a freedom and a sexiness and a liberation." He's clearly found a degree of serenity, without surrendering the restless energy that propelled him to of that is down to control. In January, he created a new company that brings together his core business of recorded music with touring operations, his fashion brand and his music festival, event kicked off in Milton Keynes last summer but suffered teething troubles, when fans were stuck in long queues. "I will fully take responsibility for that," says the star, who claims he was "backstage screaming" at police and promoters to get the lines moving."The problem was, there were six gates open when there should have been 12," he says, suggesting people underestimated his fans' dedication."When Chase and Status had played [there] a day before, there were 5,000 people when the doors opened, and another 30,000 trickled in during the day."With my fans, there were 20,000 kids at the gate at 10am. So we've learned a lot for this year. There'll be pallets of water outside. It'll be very different." Dedication to his fans is what makes Yungblud Yungblud. He built the community directly from his phone and, whether intended or not, that connection has sustained his career - insulating him from the tyrannies of radio playlists and streaming a personal relationship becomes harder as his fanbase grows but, ever astute, he hired a fan to oversee his social accounts."She's called Jules Budd. She used to come to my gigs in Austin and she'd sell confetti to pay for gas money to the next city."She built an account called Yungblud Army, and she's amazing at letting me understand what are people feeling."If people are outside and security aren't treating them right, I know about it because she's in contact with them. So I brought her in to make the community safer as it gets bigger."With his new album, he wants to make that community even bigger. Harking back to the sounds of Queen and David Bowie, he says it'll "reclaim the good chords" (Asus4 and Em7, in case you're wondering)."The shackles are off," he grins."We made an album to showcase our ambition and the way we want to play. "Can you imagine seeing Yungblud in a stadium? 100% yes. Let's do it."
Telegraph
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The pop star bringing real rock music back from the dead
A couple of years ago, after almost a decade as Yungblud – the angsty, sweary, pink-socked king of Gen Z outcasts everywhere – the musician Dominic Harrison considered retiring his stage name. 'I was like, how the f--- am I gonna do this forever,' he says. 'I'm such a staple of youth.' In want of a clean start, he put on a music festival, Bludfest, in Milton Keynes last summer, intended as 'a goodbye to what people had known up to that point. I thought, 'I need to evolve. I need to cocoon. I need to figure out who I'm gonna be.'' If he had ended it there, the Yungblud project would surely have been deemed a success: Harrison's furious rap-inflected pop-rock had earned him two consecutive UK number-one albums, 7.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, more than three billion global streams, world tours, a business empire reportedly on the way to being worth £75 million, a reputation as a rare modern star with something to say, and an almost worryingly devoted teenage following. Though the Yorkshireman's rise was largely lost on older generations, cannier observers among them recognised him as a major talent: Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters ' frontman, declared Yungblud the future of rock 'n' roll, while in 2022, in what felt like a baton-passing gesture, Mick Jagger invited him backstage at a Rolling Stones gig and gave him a guitar. By the time Bludfest came around last August, Harrison was greeted by a stadium full of 30,000 beaming faces of all ages – and had a swift change of heart about rebranding. 'That day, Yungblud became bigger than the dude in the pink socks,' he says. 'It became a culture, and I'm Dom, within it. It made me really fall in love with the name again.' If the withering hand of time is the issue, he could, I offer, just drop the 'Yung'. Harrison takes this suggestion with unintended earnestness. 'Yeah, Blud... Mister Blud. We'll see.' He might still abandon the name altogether, he adds, with a shrug. 'Maybe it'll be a Ziggy Stardust thing.' Until then, allow him to introduce Yungblud 2.0: older, wiser, cleaner, leaner, and every bit as verbose. We meet in an 11th-floor suite at the Standard hotel in King's Cross. Far below, I can just about make out a queue of black-clad fans forming outside Scala, the venue in which Harrison will launch his new era with a free show this evening. They're eight hours early. Harrison sashays in artfully late and rigorously apologetic. He's only come a couple of miles, from his home in Primrose Hill, but, as an insomniac, mornings have never been his strong point. He is dressed as if for the funeral of a goth pirate: black silk shirt, pinstripe waistcoat and suit trousers, buckled cavalier boots over those signature socks, raven-black hair gelled back but for a single lank strand, eyes full of kohl. Misery could accessorise well with all that, but Harrison is a knot of frenetic, likeable energy – so much so that I'm slightly nervous when a coffee arrives for him. At times, his hyperactivity has been a symptom of anxiety; today he insists it's purely excitement for Idols, his ambitious new double album that sees him splash around in the deep pool of his influences, from David Bowie and Freddie Mercury to West Side Story and Led Zeppelin. It is, he says, 'the most emotionally pure, honest thing I've made' since his 2018 debut 21st Century Liability. 'I wanted to make something without thinking what the fans will think. Previously, I've leant on them as a crutch.' A change of heart came when he 'hit 27' last August, and started to see life beyond membership of the morbid 'club' associated with that age. 'It was a turning point, I wanted to re-evaluate,' he says. 'To tell you the truth, when my last album came out, I really felt like I'd compromised and become a pastiche of myself.' He's referring to the 2022 album Yungblud, in which he delivered, he says, exactly what 'was expected of me. Yungblud had become this thing that was very boxed in. You knew what he sounded like, what he dressed like.' A performer who tends to read his own reviews, he found himself agreeing with even his harshest critics. 'I was like, you're right, I'm not telling the truth, I am overcompensating and I reek of insecurity at times.' The new record is his attempt to put things right. Four years in the making, Idols kicks off with Hello Heaven, Hello, a nine-minute string-laden epic that could easily have been carved into three separate songs, especially in the age of 120-second TikTok ditties. It's a fair indication of the generally wild scope of the album, and an undeniably impressive statement of intent. Its live debut on The Jonathan Ross Show last month also showed that Harrison has one of the most versatile voices in contemporary rock. In a four-minute cut-for-TV version, he managed to sound variously like Liam Gallagher, Eddie Vedder and Axl Rose. 'I've had to start getting singing lessons,' he admits. 'In the past, I've almost been able to cheat my way through it, have a couple of drinks and if my voice is hoarse, that's rock 'n' roll, but this is real singing.' He sought out Mary Hammond, the founding head of musical theatre at the Royal Academy of Music, who's worked with everyone from West End musical stalwarts to Black Sabbath and Florence Welch. 'I think she's done Chris Martin and Bono, too,' says Harrison. 'She made me audition with scales. But she's my best mate now.' The most important thing Hammond taught him was how to look after his voice so he could sing live eight times a week without losing it. 'She was saying I was hitting this Axl Rose s---, 'but look at where his voice is now'. I had to take singing seriously. So I quit drinking and started working out excessively.' There began a period of self-reflection that included breaking up (at least temporarily) with his long-term girlfriend, the American musician and actress Jesse Jo Stark, going sober-ish and taking up boxing. This new regime has given him the focus and physique of a flyweight prize fighter. It's also done wonders for his anxiety and the ADHD that was diagnosed in childhood. 'I was thinking, I've got to fight back against every critic's review that goes around in my head at night, every person that doesn't like me, every person that depends on me so heavily.' He took it all out on a punchbag. I assumed he stopped drinking (bar the odd pint 'with a roast') because he liked alcohol a little too much, but, he says, 'It was all an amalgamation. I wasn't really happy, I was trying to distract myself. It was a spiral. I had a really tough relationship with food and I was drinking a lot, and I had this kind of... addiction to a co-dependent relationship with my fanbase.' Having grown up in his father's guitar shop in Doncaster, Harrison's first love is rock music, a genre he's so far had to repress. 'In the past, it's been, 'Oh, we can't have a guitar solo; no one likes rock.' I love rock, but everyone's been like, 'No! Rap, man, rap!'' With Idols, he fights back. 'On this album, I turned the guitars up,' he says. 'I wanted to be adherent to Zeppelin in the same way the Stones were to Muddy Waters or Oasis ripped off the Kinks.' I tell him that, walking past the growing queue at Scala, I noted that almost everybody in it was female. 'It's funny, I'm very polarising for dudes,' he says. 'But I think a lot of guys are going to like Idols because it's heavy. And that excites me, because I've really embraced my masculinity on this album, which is a weird thing to say in 2025. 'There's a big [anti-men] narrative online, and a lot of bulls---. Look at Andrew Tate; young males experience that and see the world through that lens, but masculinity also needs to showcase rich emotion and love. You've either got to be hard as f---, or you're wet and soppy – and there needs to be a hybrid. With me I'm like, I am masculine. I am aggressive. I like boxing. But also, I'll cry and might put on a skirt. Whatever, it makes me feel more masculine when I wear a kilt.' Growing up, Harrison was a self-professed outsider, and bullied remorselessly. How would he have ended up if he hadn't found an outlet in performance? 'I'd be living online,' he says, 'bottling up anger, putting it into a really dark, toxic place.' As it was, the teenage Harrison sought refuge in music and drama, moving to London at 16 to enrol at ArtsEd, an independent performing arts school – a decision fully supported by his relatively well-to-do parents (dad's shop was a success, mum managed a deli), who covered his £75-a-week rent for a houseshare in the capital. His first housemate was 'a cat lady called Marge'; later came fellow musician Lewis Capaldi, who's still a close friend. Alongside his studies at ArtsEd, he worked briefly as an actor, landing bit parts in Emmerdale and Disney's teen musical series The Lodge. His critics never let him forget any of this. His education is proof he was an industry plant, they insist. He cannot be a punk if he comes from a happy home, they argue. (Anybody who saw Louis Theroux's 2022 BBC documentary about Yungblud will know that while it may have been comfortable, it was far from harmonious, not least due to his father's anger issues.) Then his spunky early music felt so custom-built for Gen Z – its lyrics all mental-health crises, not liking your parents and sexual fluidity – that it was seen as a cynical play to the lucrative freaks-and-geeks market. Last year, Harrison's twin ventures of Bludfest and his fashion brand Beautifully Romanticised Accidentally Traumatized (BRAT for short) were taken as further evidence that he has a keen eye on the bottom line: if he's a punk, he's a commercially savvy one, and that seems to rile people. A sample Reddit thread is titled: 'Is YungBlug [sic] a Major Grifter and a Threat to Young People?' His fans, of course, see only authenticity. Many identify as troubled outcasts like him – and their devotion tends towards the religious. As well as the ADHD and anxiety, Harrison had his first suicidal thought at 13 and has suffered from depression and body dysmorphia. His candidness about his struggles led to a reputation as 'the mental-health guy', a tag that, he says, has become 'so frustrating. Everyone wants an answer: kids come up to me and say I've saved their life and I'm like, 'I don't know you.' Maybe something I said or did gave them some confidence, but I didn't do anything.' He used to think TikTok was 'punk as f---', but is now far more wary of the online world. 'It makes you question everything. I had to really deal with my relationship with it because opinion in real time suffocates art.' How far we've fallen since the golden age of rock. 'Could you imagine day one if [Dave] Gilmour was putting out Dark Side of the Moon online? Everyone would be like, 'What the f--- is this?!' You get discouraged.' So Yungblud 2.0 stays offline as much as possible, and he's far better for it, fighting fit and ready for whatever lies ahead. Bludfest will return to Milton Keynes this summer, then go international. A tour will follow at some point. Before that, he'll release the album he's always wanted to make. 'Bowie, Freddie, Bono – I'm trying to reach for that,' he says, eyes widening. A Cheshire Cat grin spreads across his face. 'Now, people might be like 'Good luck with that...', but I'm gonna try my best.'
