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 ego. Two 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 way. On the surface, Yungblud, aka 27-year-old Dominic Harrison, had it all. Two number one albums, an international fanbase,a Louis Theroux documentaryand enough clout to run his own festival. But 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 appeal. And the first year of his Bludfest in Milton Keynes was criticised afterlong queues and a lack of watercaused fans to pass out and miss the concert. Harrison 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, Hello. Over 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 ambition. The 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 apartment. Combining 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." 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'ddeveloped an eating disorderdue 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 afterRussia 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 fame. Part of that is down to control. In January,he created a new companythat brings together his core business of recorded music with touring operations, his fashion brand and his music festival, Bludfest. The 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 placement. Maintaining 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."