CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA - OCTOBER 16: Singer/guitarist Yungblud performs at The Underground on ... [+] October 16, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Jeff Hahne/Getty Images)

Dominic Harrison, known to music fans as YUNGBLUD, is a real artist. You talk to him and you feel that fire that is making him a rising star on the music scene. He began attracting attention when his song "Falling Skies" was featured on the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why.

Then this year he hit American airwaves with "11 Minutes," with Halsey and Travis Barker, YUNGBLUD has sold out shows around the U.S. I met up with him in L.A. recently, the day after a sold-out show in San Francisco and the day before a sold-out gig in L.A.

A thoroughly enjoyable and compelling conversation, we spoke about finding his own voice as an artist, writing about politics, getting positive feedback from Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance and those artists, from Foo Fighters to Green Day, he wants to be like in 20 years.

Steve Baltin: Where did you come in from?

YUNGBLUD:We played in San Francisco. F**king mental. Regency ballroom. Couldn't believe it to be honest. Everywhere is just f**king going crazy. Right now. I don't understand I'm just trying to get a gauge on it.

.Baltin: What was your turning point moment?

YUNGBLUD: Interesting, I can see it right now, really clear. I grew up in a very industrial part of England, in the North of England, and where I was from, it was very backwards in the way people would think to put it plainly. And I always was massively in awe. It's like Marilyn Manson or Lady Gaga and David Bowie. I'd want to like cross dress or put makeup on and my mum would love it. My mum would be like, "Oh you look cute." But my granddad would be like, "What the f**k have you got on? Take that off." So all my life, I felt where I was from would never accept me for who I was. So I had a vision that I would move down to London, the city, and it will be able to be myself and be liberated and feel amazing. And I did at 16 I was like, "F**k this I'm out. I'm going to go to the city and going to where lipstick and get up to all sorts of naughty s**t. I thought by moving to London, I would be able to be myself and slot into or onslaught myself out of any box or any possible thing. And the thing was it was completely f**king opposite. The first taste I had in the music industry was, they were telling me that I couldn't write songs about politics. They were telling me, I couldn't dress like I did. I won't paint my nails because it was too disruptive. I said to myself, "F**k this, I'm not going to listen to these people because they have no idea." I completely figured out exactly who I was and always thought I was going to be.

Baltin: Do you feel like now because you did follow your own voice, does the success feel much more gratifying?

YUNGBLUD:Dude, it's crazy.That's what I always say. Just do what you think is right because if it ain't real, it's not going to resonate. Or if it's not real, you're going to exhaust yourself and it's going to run out eventually and you'll get big but you won't be remembered.

Baltin: Who are those artists that you look at and think like, okay that's who I want to be in 20 years?

YUNGBLUD:Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Billy Joel, Arctic Monkeys, Marilyn Manson, Eminem, Lady Gaga, David Bowie, John Lennon, loads of people. My Chemical Romance is like, I always wanted to build something, I didn't fit a mold so I wanted to build my own and I want to connect to people and I want to build a culture. I never want people to go, "I love this song, who sings it?" I want it to be, "I love this artist."

Baltin: I was reading the BBC thing that came where you talked about the fact that after playing at Leeds you were crying because, I talked with so many artists about this too, those moments that where they feel something is happening and so many artists have said to me, it's that moment when fans are singing their words back to them.

YUNGBLUD:Completely, man. It's like Leeds and Reading was such a crazy experience to me because I grew up there. I mean I saw myself in the crowd in a bucket hat and glasses. To me having a gold disc is great, a platinum disc is great, but what is most important to me is having this mutual feeling in my community. That I look at one of them and go, you saved my life and I saved those back. Yeah. That's what I said about YUNGBLUD isn't me. YUNGBLUD is us and if it ever becomes me in them instead of us then I **cked it.

Baltin: When you're writing a song, a lot of times writing is subconscious anyway.So you don't even know what you are thinking about.

YUNGBLUD:You don't know what you're thinking about sometimes until months afterwards, and you go that's what was going from my brain at that time. And it's crazy. And you know what man, it's completely unfathomable. I stand on the stage and they're so passionate and I would ask myself, "Why me?" The answer is what we mean to each other, cause I need them as much as they need me.

Baltin: But what do you think about being a fan back in the day, I'm sure it was the exact same feeling for you. What was that show for you where you had that same feeling?

YUNGBLUD: Arctic Monkeys. He [Alex Turner] knew what I was thinking and he'd never even met me. And it blew my mind. I was like, everything I was going through, he knew it. Gerard Way knew every single thing I was going through.

Baltin: Have you met either of them since?

YUNGBLUD:No. but I just hope they like me. I spoke about it a lot in the press and apparently I think Gerard, unless they're bullshi**ing me, they reached out to my label and said that he was moved by what I said and I was like, "Whoa, it's crazy." Cause I just loved that guy. He again, as I said, made stamping culture. Ain't a singer, he's an activist. And that's what I want to be. I think it's like when you get on stage, man. It's so weird, you can have the shi**iest day. Your girlfriend can break up with you. Your mom can call and say she got sick. You trip up and break your ankle. But when he got on stage, everything disappears. It's like "F**k the girl, f**k the mom, f**k the leg, f**k everything cause me and you." And then you got off stage and you go back to the sad again. It's kind of crazy. And I said that to him last night. Now my war is going on in my personal life and in their personal lives. For that hour and half, hour and forty the crowd is good. We have a magical connection.

Baltin: I saw this coming. So after our election in 2016 right from December 2016 through middle of 2018, every person that I talked with, every single one, whether it was, you, Dave Gahan, whether it was Metallica, we talked about writing and recording under the influence of this administration. And the reason I bring that up is because one thing that I noticed is people want people to speak out now. So it's interesting that you say about wanting to be an activist. Are you finding that when you engage with the fans that it's the fact that you talk about real issues?

YUNGBLUD:It's so funny when we talk about a turning point, man. I always felt like I always listened to other people, don't listen to anybody else. You want to feel reassured. Listen, I asked people all the time, that's just my own insecurity and people have their own insecurities. You'll gut is always right. You know, I think and I want to talk about this stuff. I wanted to talk about this stuff all my life and people said I couldn't and as soon as I started to and as soon started actually being real, that's when people start to listen.

Baltin: Was there a song for you where you first were finding that voice?

YUNGBLUD:"King Charles" of the first record, it came out, the song was written and recorded in four hours. As I talk about, I wrote all this poetry, I designed the pink socks. I knew exactly what we're going to look like, exactly what we're going to say, wrote the name out and it just happened. Iit just happened and it was so quick. I didn't have to think about it and I've been so prolific ever since.

Baltin: Where do you think it came from then?

YUNGBLUD:It came from Brexit. It came from, that was the first time I had a vote. The first time I could make my voice count in a numerical factor that would actually matter. And then, it was ripped away from me by part of an older generation that didn't understand or aren't even going to be here when the consequences of Brexit are going to be in action. And I felt wronged. I felt hurt and I felt, "F**k it, I'm going to write about it and I'm going to put it out." I did it. And people started to listen. I think that's it. I think YUNGBLUD is a call out, saying it is alright to be yourself, no matter who that may be. It's alright to change. It's alright to grow. It's all right to be not the same person you were six months ago.

Baltin: When you look back then, are there moments that you can look back and see how you changed from six months ago?

YUNGBLUD: Flat out. I've got the EP is out and the new EP is out. And if you listened to that compared to the first EP that came up it's worlds apart. It's a good different experiences. I'll just say it starts angry but then ends emotionally. That's kind of my cycles as an artist from the beginning, Then EP, it's my journey from the beginning. It's called The Underrated Youth EP and the experience I've had since everything else has been so much more emotional. I've met so much more people, I have heard so many more stories. "Hope For The Underrated Youth" was a song for my fan base. It's about us. It's about me looking at the world and excepting that it tells me to fall in line, it tells us to conform. It tells us which f**king air to breathe some days. But the one common denominator I find in the people I've met and the young people, the people of all ages I've met in my career is the constant optimism, the constant fire, the constant drive to fight for equality and to unite and not divide anymore. And that's why it's called, "Hope For The Underrated Youth" because the future's bright because we are simply in it. Well then it goes to a song like "Original Me," with Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons and that talks about me, being originally myself and going every day, "You tell people to be yourself. Don't forget to be yourself, Don't forget to check in sometimes, Dom. Don't forget to be yourself, Dom."

See more here:
YUNGBLUD On The Constant Fire And Optimism In Todays Youth - Forbes