How Yungblud Stays Productive In Quarantine: Cooking Yorkshire Roasts, Homemade Tattoos

How Yungblud Stays Productive In Quarantine: Cooking Yorkshire Roasts, Homemade Tattoos




In this age of self-isolation and quarantine, it's never been more key to check in on each other and to connect. This goes for artists, also, who have been social distancing alongside us: livestreaming concerts and hangouts, creating their own talk shows, and... Well, that's what we want them to tell us, with Remote Access.


Last month, the neon-haired, pop-punk revivalist Yungblud released a blissfully metallic anti-anxiety anthem, “Weird,” plus a homemade video shot from the roof of a Los Angeles Airbnb, where the singer is now social distancing with a couple of bandmates and his manager. Featuring lyrics detailing hard-won battles with mental health (“I can't think, I can't lie / I feel anxious all of the time / If I smiled I could be lyin'”) defeat collectively (“Come hold my hand / Hold it tight”), the song came primed for its quarantine debut; nevertheless, Yungblud explains, it was written long before the coronavirus pandemic reached its peak.


“I was in what I thought was the weirdest time of my life ever imaginable,” he says, referring to a moment once his meteoric rise, dotted by collaborations with Halsey and Machine Gun Kelly and capped by a sold-out show at London’s O2 Academy Brixton, collided with personalized heartbreak and surfacing depression. “But then all this happened and I was like, whoa, I may not have been more wrong if I tried.”


Despite feeling as if he’s been “put in a chicken coop” in quarantine, and missing his U.K. House (he has been calling his mom and sister most often), Yungblud is staying efficient. He’s completed a new album, which he told Kerrang! will be “naïve and full of contradictions” and is “building the world” around it prior to release. He’s also staying positive, and spreading that positivity to fans around the world, particularly with the weekly YouTube Originals show Stay Residence With: Yungblud, in which his stay-at-home crew document their most candid moments together: dancing around the apartment in their underwear, cooking (Yorkshire pudding is a preference, and checking in on fans. The artist does not shy away from vulnerability, either, starting up about the sadness he felt immediately after being forced to miss a close family member member’s funeral; the fourth and final episode of the weekly series premiered on Monday (May 18).


It’s all segment of the Yungblud experiment, which is far less about Dominic Harrison, the 22-year-old kid from Doncaster, and more about allocating people a sense of belonging to those that need it — anyone who’s ever felt alone and isolated. “Anybody out there who feels bizarre, and unstable, and like they don't know what's going on, I feel the same as you. And we're with each other in that feeling.” MTV News calls up Yungblud to check in.


MTV News: You're quarantined with your bandmates and your manager in Los Angeles, and you also are working on an album. What has networking with been like while in this time?


Yungblud: To be truthful, I'm just in a residence with my best mates. As soon as we mention, "Oh, it's my boss, or my photographer, or my guitar player," those are just official terms. We're just all best mates. And I think we're just having as much fun as we possibly can. Because I feel quite lonely, and to connect to people, and to connect to my fan base, and to put out content going, "Is anybody else feeling the way I am?" And getting a response saying, "Yes, I am," comforts each person. And that's what we do it for.


MTV News: How has isolation affected your music and your creative process?


Yungblud: It's just about out-of-the-box thinking now. We've literally been put in a chicken coop by the higher powers that be, and I don't desire to be a chicken now. I'd like to be a human being. And I'd like to connect to people and make people feel like, yes, it is weird. It is eccentric. Although as long as we stick with each other, we're all going to be OK. So we're just attempting to have as much fun as possible and just supply laughs. We've got a YouTube Originals show, where it's me, no insecurities, just me in my underpants, running around the kitchen, being an idiot. I'm sort of happy to show that side of me, because it's just what I do at home.


MTV News: Who have you been calling or texting the most lately?


Yungblud: I'm calling my family member a lot. I'm calling my mom a lot. I think I'm telling the people I love that I love them a lot more, which is a good thing. And I've Been calling my fan base, I've Been Skyping so several people all of the time. Because if anybody is aware Yungblud and what it's about, it ain't about me. I'm not just Yungblud. Yungblud's an idea and an ideology that Dom connects to, and Frankie in Jersey connects to, and Joey in Australia connects to.


It's an idea that you will never be lonely, and you also will never feel isolated, and you'll never feel like an outsider here, although you may be an outsider in the "real world." It's a location to exist to be solely who you are, no matter what you are, color you are, race you are, sexuality you are, nevertheless you identify. You're just you, and we celebrate that. And I think now, for people to feel calm, we’ve got to mention connected. So, I just call my fan base and just check in. I'm like, "How's it going? What's up?"


MTV News: Yeah, there really is a wonderful moment in your YouTube show, Stay House With: Yungblud where you call fans, and each person just gets so excited. 


Yungblud: Dude, it's upset everywhere across the world. I just needed to check in with them, and I habitually do that. I do it each month although, as instead of doing 10 this month, I did 50. The only reason I got into this whole thing was to feel like I belong somewhere, so I call them to remind myself that I belong somewhere. And as soon as you can't be on stage, once you can't meet them, while you can't smell them, while you can't touch them, you’ve got to connect with him online.


MTV News: There was also a scene where you had discussed to your mom about getting a stick-and-poke tattoo.


Yungblud: Oh, she's mental, man. They just never get it, do they? She's like, "That's what occurs in prison." I'm like, "Mom, no it doesn't. It's chill. Each person does it.” She's funny. My mom does not hold back anything she thinks. My mom's worse than me. While she opens her mouth, you don't know what she's going to say.


MTV News: Did you just be giving yourself a tattoo?


Yungblud: No, I can't get a hold of any ink. Soon as I can get some ink, I will.


MTV News: do you think what you'll give yourself?


Yungblud: I habitually wanted to get “verisimilitude” — it's my main go to word — tattooed on my skin. Verisimilitude, ah! It's like the appearance of being true and real. Someone read me that out of a book once. I was like, “That's a sick word.”


MTV News: I’ve never heard it before!


Yungblud: It's like, you close your eyes, ASMR. Verisimilitude. Verisimilitude.


MTV News: You released “Weird” while in the coronavirus pandemic, however you actually had written it beforehand. That song makes so much sense for this particular moment, however what sort of space were in any time as soon as you wrote it?


Yungblud: I was in what I thought was the weirdest time of my life ever imaginable. I felt like I was attempting to catch smoke all of the time. I was going through a period in my life where I was taking another step in a journey to coming of age. Everything was weird to me. The world felt weird. Weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird — it was going through my brain.


And in that moment of vertigo, I figured out that I needed to accept the components of myself I didn't like, celebrate the components of myself I do like, and realize there's just a load of stuff out of my control. Whenever you learn that, so you have a moment like that, and learn that the things you've been going through for the past 18 months have just been a weird time of your life, you figure out that everything's going to be alright. Because there really are going to be several more weird times. Everyone's attempting to grab onto something that's familiar, because nothing is familiar now. And I just wanted to supply people with a possibility to escape, and to come with each other and dance around your kitchen like an idiot.


MTV News: What else have you been doing to stay creative while in isolation?


Yungblud: I have been cooking, I will have you know. I loved cooking any time While I was a nipper, however I've Been touring, so I never really cook. So, it was sort of good to get back inside that. My guitar player's so much better than me; he's literally like Gordon Ramsay. I think I'm going to open a restaurant; I keep saying this. We'll call it “Food for the Slightly Sad Although Annoyingly Energetic.” Come pick up your pasta.


MTV News: What is it that you've been cooking?


Yungblud: Adam made a curry last night with homemade naan bread. I made beef udon. A good old Yorkshire Sunday dinner, a roast, which is what we have in the U.K. On Sunday. You get a big joint of meat, put it in the stove, let that cook, vegetables, Yorkshire puddings. For American people, a Yorkshire pudding is like a savory pancake that you put gravy on; it's to perish for. I miss residence, I miss Sunday dinners, I miss cups of tea, and I miss fish and chips with loads of salt and vinegar on it. In the event you miss the U.K., You’ve got to bring the U.K. To you.


MTV News: What else can we expect to be able to see from Yungblud coming out of quarantine?


Yungblud: There's so much coming. The album's done, man. I’ve just got to calculate how to build the world of this record in this situation. To build the world of an album, it's hard enough as soon as you've got all of equipment, and all of the paint brushes to paint the picture. Nevertheless now, I'm stuck in between four walls attempting to build it. I have been working on my second comic book, so keep your eyes peeled on that as well. I can't be not busy or I go mental.









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