FAULT Magazine Photoshoot and Interview With Yungblud

Yungblud X FAULT Magazine

We first met Yungblud in London in early 2018, back then he was still a blossoming artist who while new in his career already displayed signs that he could truly go the distance. While only 21 months have passed since then, Yungblud has gone from strength to strength, building not just a fanbase but an army of like minding individuals bound by their shared beliefs and brothers in arm in a war against the machine. With the release of his new EP entitled ‘the underrated youth‘, we caught up with Yungblud to take a track by track deep dive into his artistry – enjoy.

‘braindead’ has been stuck in my head all day – what’s the backstory behind the song and could you describe your headspace when making it?

It was the last song we wrote on the EP and I wanted it to be a fucking explosion. I want the EP to be a show and with Braindead it’s very much the opening number that blows your head off. In this world, you’re surrounded by unjustified hate and hateful ideologies, and the song is a message the people above me, saying that I’d rather be brain dead than conform to your hateful ways. People will put you down in this world because of their insecurities and inability to see the wonder of your individuality. I don’t want my listeners to be put off from their individuality, I want them to embrace their differences.

Moving onto ‘parents’, it speaks about so many depressing situations but it’s not a sad song – was the intention always to push positivity with the song or did it just come about naturally?

I always want to project positivity because that’s what my fanbase does. Yungblud is about promoting hope and unity instead of dividing people. It’s about bringing people up instead of pushing them down, it’s about battling hate with messages of unity and positivity and beating the hate away with a bouquet of flowers – that’s what Yungblud is all about. That song I was massively influenced by Eminem and it just needed to be positive and upbeat and make people laugh. That song isn’t about telling your parents to fuck off, it’s a tribute to individualism and a statement saying you’re the only one who knows what’s best for yourself.

Early on in the song some of the lyrics are pretty brutal and I wonder where you’re getting your inspiration from – are they true stories that are your fans have sent in or that you’ve seen online?

I just had a lot of stuff I had to get out and I just envisioned this picture of my dad with a gun to my head and me kicking the shit out of him and locking him in the shed and fucking my best mate because it’s about rebellion but ultimately it’s love

Moving on to ‘original me’, because you can’t be pigeon-holed into a genre, it means that you can do collaborations with so many different artists and with Dan Reynolds, it works so well but it’s no less unexpected. How did the collaboration come about?

I was in New Orleans fighting with anxiety at the time and I received an email from Dan Reynold saying I think we should get on a song together. I saw him at Leedsfest like 5 years ago and thought “I want to be just like him” because he’s the real deal. He’s a man with an incredible family who stands for incredible things and is a massive advocate for equality in terms of the LGBTQ+ community and the world. We have very similar messages and we got into the studio and we just jumped around and created the song. There’s real magic in the song and I’m proud of how it turned out. It feels really good.

I wanted to discuss some of the lyrics on ‘hope for the underrated youth’, you sing “you keep pulling me down” and I wondered one who you’re talking to and also who are you talking for – Is it for your fans or you personally?

‘hope for the underrated youth’ is the title track and this EP is about us. If you look at the EP cover it looks militant and like we’re an army because we are. My biggest fan account is called ‘Yungblud Army’ and when I saw that, it made me go “damn we really are an army”. The EP tells a story about how Yungblud became less about me and more about us. It’s more than me it’s more than them, it’s everything around us. The world keeps telling us to fall in line and that we should conform to their ideology but I find strength in people like my fans that push for equality every day. This is about hope for the underrated youth and telling people that the future is bright because we’re the people that are going to be in it.

The other day you put your poem onto Instagram and because Yungblud is a community, I wondered if being an amalgamation of the feelings of so many makes it easier to be so open about your feelings because you know so many others are feeling it too.

That’s exactly it. Also, I have to say, I have just shit my pants and do you want to know why? Because John Frusciante from the Chilly Peppers sent me a DM and said “the EP went sick dude and I can’t wait to scope it out”, absolutely crazy!

I can see why so many are excited. As you’ve been on the journey for a while now have you felt your creative process changed?

It’s so much bigger now before it was me programming everything and smoking too much weed in a basement in Soho but now I’ve had to talk to my boys and bring them into the studio and spent time on a record and let it form. That’s why I think everything sounds a lot thicker and has more bollocks to it.

That’s right, your lyricism is another level on this EP.  On ‘waiting on the weekend’, as you opened the EP with an explosion this final track you end quite peacefully and quite honestly and it’s a side we’ve not seen of you too much.

The story of this song is amazing. When I used to work in a guitar shop the manager at the shop was called Shane and he was really inspiring to me in terms of music. Shane had this outlook on music which was so incredible and it made me question my work constantly and I loved it. We wrote Waiting On The Weekend together in the top floor of the shop I thought to myself about it being a side of me I haven’t shown yet so I’m going to put it on the last song of my EP.  We recorded it completely live in his studio, I played the guitar on it and Adam a guitarist played this pump organ 1600, I wanted it to sound like ‘Only One Who Knows’ by the Arctic Monkeys.

It talks about my heart getting broken but still feeling like I have to put my heart on the line. There is fear that someone is going to break it, but also I’m saying not to worry because if you put your heart on a plate and someone decides to stab sure it’s going to hurt you, but that’s their problem, not yours. Never stop putting your heart on a plate and never stop being yourself.

What’s been the hardest hurdle you’ve had to get over and also the best lessons you’ve learnt about yourself throughout your career?

The hardest hurdle is when I started no one wanted to touch me, everyone thought I was this bratty kid, talking about nothing. I was never interested in the music industry games, I’m not interested in awards, they are amazing when they come about but I only care about the number of people I walk out to on stage. The most magical thing to me isn’t the gold disks or creating a smash hit, it’s about the mutual feeling I have with my fanbase. We say the same thing to each other, and it’s “you saved my fucking life”.

What is your FAULT?

I overthink and I question myself far too much but I’m always going to do it because that’s part of my nature. It’s so funny, I say to people to embrace yourself and be happy for your faults but I found it hard myself sometimes. I think that’s why we connect so much because it’s Yunngblud man, it’s a generation I am full of contradictions, humans are full of contradictions but I see that as fun because the journey of life is to get from A to Z and not to be at Z the moment you open your eyes.