Ahead of last night’s red carpet premiere of YUNGBLUD. ARE YOU READY, BOY?, Dominic Harrison tells us about filming at Berlin’s legendary Hansa Studios, the importance of presenting his unedited self, and the magic of rock…
A few short months ago, YUNGBLUD told us that his Idols album and accompanying era would have absolutely “no half-measures”. Since then, he’s very much lived up to his word, scoring another Number One, putting on the dazzling second edition of Bludfest, playing some incredible festival shows, opening the Beautifully Romanticised Accidentally Traumatized store in London, and even announcing his very own movie.
Speaking of the latter, this new Paul Dugdale-directed documentary – which is entitled YUNGBLUD. ARE YOU READY, BOY? – will land in cinemas on August 20 and 24, and it sees Dominic Harrison and his band performing Idols at Berlin’s Hansa Studios in a unique, beautiful way. Ahead of its Leicester Square premiere last night (August 12), we caught up with the endlessly-busy Dom to find out more…
So, you’ve got your own movie premiere in Leicester Square, with a red carpet and everything…
“Man, honestly, it’s fucking wild. It’s such a bizarre thing to try to get my head around, you know? Especially as everything is pretty mad at the moment anyway. I’ve woken up in London, we were in Germany, playing gigs, now we’re here, then more stuff tomorrow. I barely even know what day it is. And now there’s a fucking film premiere in Leicester Square. My mum and my fucking aunties are all there. I just keep thinking about it going, ‘What the fuck?!’ It’s pretty mad.”
It’s an interesting film. Not many artists do a documentary about things as they’re still happening anymore – normally it’s looking back.
“Yeah, I know, right? I really wanted to do that. And it’s interesting with this film, I’ve seen it once, right, and I let it out because I didn’t want a reality TV version that hits beats and is very edited, and you go, ‘This is the sad bit, here’s the happy bit.’ I wanted true realness.”
How did you come to work with Paul Dugdale?
“I really wanted him to do it, because it really needed to be rooted in truth. I didn’t want to have much to do with it. I said, ‘I have an idea. I want to record a live album at Hansa Studios in Berlin. I want you to roll everything, and I want you to choose what you use.’ I did not want any part of it because it needed to be an elongated idea rooted in truth. When people see 15 seconds of me on the internet, everything’s so edited and formulaic that you don’t really get to know anyone at all. A big influence was the Get Back documentary with The Beatles. I watched that and thought, ‘Fucking hell, I never knew John Lennon at all.’ I thought I did, but to see them pick the nose or whatever, that’s real, you don’t get that in the edits.
“We really wanted to elongate the scenes, because you see those glimmers of insecurity, and I wanted to do it straight out of the gate, now, while everything’s still new, because if we’ve been touring the album a year, it’s in our blood and we know it too well. This was full of insecurity, full of mistakes, full of this youthful energy, attempting the most monumental music we’ve ever made, in a room that’s been christened by legends. We were like, ‘Let’s just try out, roll it and see what the fuck happens.’”
It’s quite the thing to be that hands-off and unguarded and to let someone else capture you their way. How did you feel when you saw it?
“(Laughs) I fucking hate it, honestly! I don’t know what I’m doing. I've watched it once, and I’ll watch it tonight, and then I’ll never watch it again. But it’s honest and it’s pure, and it’s genuine, in a world of fucking sugar where everything is so edited. I wanted it to be different. Is this the YUNGBLUD documentary people thought I’d make? Fuck no – it’s a black and white, 35mm Berlin art house film! That’s what it had to be. I don’t think we’re ready for a fucking documentary, we’ve not done enough. And I didn’t want it to be this ‘woe is me’ story that tries to grab attention. We wanted it to be really pure. It could have been a million different films, but in this universe, on this timeline, this was the film, you know?”
There’s a definite vibe to it. Even just the idea of recording at Hansa in Berlin puts it in the context of David Bowie working there. It creates an atmosphere around the whole thing…
“Yeah, man. That studio is a place of fundamental truth for art. Depeche Mode. Bowie, U2, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed – they all had moments in their career where they were struggling and they had to find out who they were. And that was this album for me. I was like, ‘Fucking hell. I’ve been doing this since I was 19. I didn’t expect for it to get this big. And everyone’s got an opinion on me. Who the fuck am? I don’t know.’ So, I made this album to figure out who I am. And then thought, ‘Let’s record a live version of this album to give it a different flavour.’
“I didn’t want to do in the UK, because we recorded Idols in the UK. I didn’t want to do it onstage either, so Hansa seemed like a really cool place to go. It’s funny, Bowie recorded Heroes there, so Bono from U2 wanted to go there and stand in the same spot as Bowie. And then I wanted to go stand in the same spot as Bono. It’s a whole journey. And even the bits where I can’t hit a note or whatever, I could still feel something there, and we caught that because it was the truth about what was happening right then. We have such a pressure on artists to be inhuman, but I believe when you show your human side is when people genuinely connect. You’re there going, ‘I’m just trying to do my best and trying to touch the fucking sky.’ That’s all rock music is: ‘Can we try and touch the fucking sun?’
“You’ve got to try to put yourself in a position where you can channel something magic, and hope for the best. That’s what this is all about.”
YUNGBLUD. ARE YOU READY, BOY? hits cinemas on August 20 and 24.
Get your limited-edition Kerrang! x YUNGBLUD zine.
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