YUNGBLUD

The singer and rebel with a cause makes some noise about gender, sexuality and politics

"IN MEDIEVAL TIMES, EVERY FUCKER WORE A DRESS. NOW IT'S WOMEN IN DRESSES AND MEN IN TROUSERS"

Pedestrians embarking on their coffee run on a snoozy Sunday morning on Seven Sisters Road, in North London, could be forgiven for thinking that they hadn’t fully woken up when confronted with the strange sight of a young man strutting about in the middle of the street — wearing nothing but an unbuttoned leopardprint coat and a pair of underpants. Sheer- panelled pants at that. Possible explanations that may have conceivably been considered are that the mystery chap is a high- as- a- kite hipster making his way home from a Pat Butcherthemed club night out. Or a musical fan living his best jellicle life by recreating his favourite moments from that Cats movie trailer. Perhaps even a lone protester taking a stand for folk who have a legitimate fear of walking on pavements. But no, this wild- haired, traffic- stopping tyke is singer Yungblud — aka Dominic Harrison — doing what he does best: turning heads, demanding attention and disrupting the norm. “I fucking loved that,” he declares loudly in his South Yorkshire accent, throwing himself down into a waiting chair, back at the studio, mouth cracking into a wide Tasmanian Devil- style grin. Channelling the anarchic spirit of The Sex Pistols, the swagger ( and heavy pout) of Mick Jagger and the smoky eye of Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong, the 22 year old from Doncaster lights a fire under today’s Gen Z youth, LGBTQ included, attracting more than 10 million Spotify listeners a month with his call- to- action anthems targeting everything from prescription drugs — he was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid — to America’s ( pretty much non- existent) gun- control laws. Like all the best rebels, Dom pushes, leap- frogs or bulldozes boundaries altogether. This extends to his screw- gender- stereotypes fashion sense, making him a perfect cover star for our latest Style issue. He loves wearing dresses and look s damn good in them. Then there ’ s his wide- open attitude t owards sexuality. Currently dating American pop star Halsey, who identifies as bisexual, he hints at ha ving experimented with boys in the past and believ es in going with the flo w when it comes t o the fluidity of sex and relationships.

Dom, who released his incendiary debut album 21st Century Liability last year, also has a potty mouth on him. If I’d placed a swear jar on the table at the

beginning of the interview, I’m confident I would have cleared my hefty overdraft 10 minutes into our chat. Oh well, next time.

Perched at a makeshift table for two in the studio’s junkyard- style garden, hands clasped, fingernails speckled with black varnish, Dom says he has been an outsider, going against the grain, ever since he can remember.

Growing up in a “very industrial part of the country,” he never saw himself in his surroundings and found solace in a musical diet of My Chemical Romance, Lady Gaga and Marilyn Manson, artists who proclaimed it was OK to be different.

“They made me feel as if it was all right to be who I am. I would see Gerard Way in his eye- liner, Gaga in her fucking glitter- ball dress, and Manson in whatever- the- fuck Manson was wearing. It was like, that’s what my brain tells me to do but the things around me don’t.”

Not one to race to catch up with the rest of the herd, Dom defied the conventions of what boys and girls “should” wear from an early age. “I was obsessed with Kurt Cobain and saw this picture of him in a floral dress,” he recalls. “I was in junior school, so about 10 years old, and our school disco was coming up.

“I said to my mum: ‘ I want to paint my nails and straighten my hair’.

I’ll never forget the smell of the hair protector — your [ Attitude’s] groomer Sven put it on earlier and it took me right back there. Anyway, I went into school and they just couldn’t fathom what was going on.

“When I talk [ in my songs] about older generations suppressing me, it

"ONE MINUTE I'M ANITA FROM WEST SIDE STORY, THEN SUDDENLY LIAM GALLAGHER"

wasn’t my mum and dad, it was ‘ leaders,’ people such as teachers or MPs, people who expect you to conform within the lines of their authority because if they don’t have their authority, then what have they got?”

Championing individuality and freedom of expression, Dom’s wardrobe is a huge one- finger- salute to the limits of conformity and what society expects, nay demands, of us. “That’s why I fucking wear a dress on stage. We’ve been brought up with such boundaries: woman wears dress, man sees woman’s curves, you can make baby. Western civilisation put women in dresses and men in trousers. Before that, in medieval times, every fucker wore a dress.”

Dom adds: “I wake up one day and want to look girly as fuck, and I’ll wake up the next and walk out of the house in a Fred Perry polo shirt looking like I’ll beat the shit of out you.

“I’ll be Anita from West Side Story then suddenly transform into Liam Gallagher,” he chuckles, before briefly bursting into song. “I like to be in America… you fookin’ want some?”

Dom applies that same rip- up- the- rulebook mantra to the subject of sexuality. He has been going out with Halsey, 24, a huge advocate for the bi community, since the beginning of the year, but accepts the spectrum is more a gloriously messy pulp than something that can be split into neat little sections like segments of a satsuma.

“I was having a conversation with my girlfriend the other night. Everyone knows she is totally bisexual, out and out fucking bisexual, and is a massive voice for that community, and we were having such an interesting chat — this is what we fucking do, sit up until four in the morning talking about politics in our fucking underwear while tiedying clothes. That’s our relationship,” he smiles.

“She brought up such an interesting point about how it doesn’t matter. When people try to get their ‘ heads around it’ [ bisexuality], there’s nothing really to get your head around because we’re just fucking attracted to people. If I fell in love with a trans person, it’s just the way it is. It’s on a deeper level. It doesn’t matter what you’ve got. It’s not about having a dick or a pussy.”

Dom reveals that his sister recently came out as bi. “She was stressing about telling my parents and she rang me because obviously I’m like, ‘ Be what you want to be. If you believe you’re an ostrich, cool’. My mum was totally fine with it but with her generation there is still that thing of, ‘ Well, I wouldn’t have fucking chosen that for you, but that’s just what you are’.

“That’s a battle I have with my mum. She loves my sister for who she is, it’s just there is this ideology that was placed on [ her] like a fucking helmet.”

As for putting a label on his own sexuality, Dom stresses that while he adores Halsey — maybe we should all give late- night tie- dying a go — none of us know what the future holds when it comes to love.

“If I was to fucking … ” he pauses. “I am more straight. I’m very happy in my relationship with my girlfriend.

“I’m pretty in love to be honest. She’s a total babe. But if I hadn’t met her and I walked down the street and met a fucking bloke tomorrow, or a trans person, you never know. It’s about connection. I’m very fluid about it.”

Regularly waving the rainbow flag at his gigs, Dom is a vocal ally but didn’t realise he had such a massive LGBTQ following until the end of last year. “Everything blew up in December. I started seeing the flags, this array of colours, and it became more and more apparent.

“I’ve always been an activist for it. Just be yourself, no matter what you are. It’s not me doing it for ‘ likes’ or to be trendy.”

Bombarded with private social media messages, he tries to spend half an hour to an hour each day replying. “But I don’t have all the answers because I’m just as fucking confused as you are,” he says.

Nonetheless, he singles out a particularly poignant encounter with a male fan after a performance of his track Polygraph Eyes, which delves into the issue of sexual consent and rape culture.

“I look out into the crowd every night [ after singing the song] and there are so many girls crying, but I had such an interesting experience the other day in Arizona where a boy came up and spoke to me after the show,” he continues. “He told me

"I CAME TO LONDON TO TRY SEX WITH A GUY, TO FULFIL MY FANTASIES"

he was bisexual and that he had been sexually assaulted. The internal battle that’s now going on in his head is: ‘ if I sleep with a man, I feel triggered by the experience’. To have this boy come up and open his soul like that… it just made me go, ‘ This is why I do this’.”

I suggest to Dom that LGBTQ youngsters in particular can relate to him because he is such an open book about his own struggles with identity, as well as with anxiety and depression.

“I moved to London and contemplated suicide for six months,” he reflects.

“I was 16 and went to art school to get away from the north, which was very suppressive. I had the best friends in the world there, but if I wore skinny jeans and a crop top I was called a ‘ poof’. I thought, ‘ Nah, I’m not into this’.

“I came to London to be liberated, to be able to paint my nails, to fucking try sex with a guy, to try everything, to fulfil my fantasies and figure out who I am. Ultimately, it was a massive journey to being comfortable in myself.

“But in that journey, I got more confused. Art school was almost, pardon the pun, paint- by- numbers ‘ this is how you should create’. Creation was liberation for me, but when creation became science and maths, I was like, ‘ What the fuck am I going to do?’

“The only thing that had no boundaries was having boundaries placed upon it, and I got smaller and smaller. I hated it. So, I left school and ended up in the West End in Bugsy Malone.

“I wanted to be a musician, so I was a little unfulfilled, but I was having fun and I had an outlet.”

In terms of his mental health at the moment, Dom accepts that there is no such thing as a quick fix and he deals with his demons on a daily basis, the difference being that he now knows how to combat them.

“I have to get talked off the ledge 10 times a day, but I know who I am now,” he assures me. “There is always the dark part in everyone’s brain.

“You wake up in the morning, you’ve got a knot in your stomach and you don’t know why. But you just have to tell yourself that it’s fine, breathe, go for a walk, make love to your girlfriend or boyfriend, anything that will make it better.”

I mention that I went through a period of self- harming when I was younger. “I was very close to it. A member of my family did it — there’s a scar on my hand from trying to stop her hurting herself,” Dom says, showing it to me.

“It wasn’t that for me. It was about getting blazed and fucked up. Then I’d sit in my room and cry my fucking eyes out.”

Highlighting the importance of having some sort of coping mechanism, he urges anybody who is struggling to put pen to paper and write down what they’re feeling.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re not a poet. If I can’t sleep, I just write what I’m thinking, even if it’s ‘ I feel like shit’ 150 times. Bang. It gets out.”

The night before the photoshoot, Dom raised the proverbial roof on a boat filled with his fans on the River Thames, a performance that climaxed with a bright purple projection of the words, ‘ There’s hope for the underrated youth’ ( inspired by his latest single, Hope for the Underrated Youth) on the Houses of Parliament.

“The kids were screaming, ‘ I’m a 21st- century liability,’ and ‘ Fuck Boris’. They had the flags going, ‘ We will be heard’. Then we did the projection, totally illegally, but we pulled it off,” he says proudly.

“At the end of the night, everybody left and I cried. It was such a build- up of emotion. I’d put on my Instagram, ‘ Meet me here’, and they turned up. Not for me, but for us. Not for Dom, for Yungblud, but for the things we believe in, for this fucking idea that we get up every day in a world that’s going to shit, and yet we have this optimism and fire inside us to make it a better and more equal place.”

Sniffy elders might dismiss young people as being preoccupied with Instagram “likes” or the goings- on in Love Island and what they’ll have their smashed avocado served with, but Dom insists that the next

generation is a force to be reckoned with. “We have access to so much information and we use it. If you asked a young person five years ago, ‘ Are you into politics?’ they’d have said:, ‘ Fuck no, fuck that, I’m just going to play my PS4, listen to The Wombats and smoke some weed’,” he argues. “Now, it’s a different thing, it’s cool to know shit. It’s not because we’re hipsters and like oatmilk lattes. It’s because we genuinely give a fuck. We’re trying to make a difference.”

He adds: “It was the young people 10 years ago who were fighting for gay marriage to be accepted, and it was the young people from the Sixties and Seventies trying to bring an end to war in Vietnam.

“They [ the powers that be] will underrate us because they’re intimidated by us. We can genuinely look them in the eye and go, ‘ You’re wrong’.

“I can go on my phone and figure anything out if I really want to. I can challenge anybody. I could have a debate on live TV with fucking Boris Johnson.”

Ah, Mr Johnson. It was only a matter time before our latest prime minister reared his scruffy head, especially in the wake of news that he has stuffed his

Tory cabinet with a rat’s nest of right wingers, from home secretary Priti Patel, a former advocate for the return of the death penalty, to new education secretary Gavin Williamson, a man who has voted against LGBTQ rights on multiple occasions. “Boris led the Brexit campaign, started campaigning to get higher and higher and fuck he’s prime minister,” Dom begins. “I’m upset. It’s very unnerving that a homophobic, Islamophobic racist guy is leading our country.

“The clown is the main event at the circus. People look at it, but they don’t think about it because it makes us laugh, so, of course, Boris’s rise was always going to happen.

“There are now world leaders, Johnson and Trump, fighting for old habits and ideologies.”

Dom’s publicist pops into view — the singer has to be at a recording studio — but he politely waves her away to tackle the thorny topic of the man in the White House.

“There are genuinely children in cages,” he shouts, before sharing a story of a run- in he had with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE) officer, given the job of rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants in the United States.

“I was speaking to this kid and the parent seemed really cool. She looked liberal, you know, short hair and nose piercing. Then she walked up to my manager and said, ‘ I’m an ICE agent, the raid starts tonight and I can’t wait to get [ these people] out of our country,” Dom exclaims, with a stare of disbelief. “My first instinct was, ‘ Get the fuck out of my crowd’, but then I thought that if I walked on stage, do that and that child hears me, if I make that kid feel unwelcome because of their parent’s actions, I’m completely juxtaposing what I believe in.”

The world may be heading in a dark direction, but Dom holds firm in the belief that young people are the torch bearers to steer us back on the right path.

“This is not the time for us to be disheartened. This is a time for us to unite more than ever,” he maintains. “Never underestimate the power of youth.”

Yungblud’s single Hope for the Underrated Youth is out now

"THERE ARE WORLD LEADERS FIGHTING FOR OLD HABITS AND IDEOLOGIES BUT NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF YOUTH"