YUNGBLUD: “The way rock survives, thrives, prospers and gets bigger is if we all stick together”

Fookin’ hell, it’s actually happening. Bludfest, the inaugural one-day music festival created by YUNGBLUD, has taken over the enormous Milton Keynes Bowl. The venue that has hosted the likes of Bon Jovi, David Bowie, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Muse and Green Day is once again the home of the historical.

“Rock is different. It’s got a new energy to it, whether people like it or not,” the man behind it all, YUNGBLUD, tells Kerrang! backstage. “The way it survives, thrives, prospers and gets bigger is if we all stick together.”

Dressed in all black and with smudged kohl pencil decorating his eyes, the 27-year-old is no different away from the stage than he is on it. His Doncaster accent drips from every vowel, and he takes as he finds. Buzzing about the private guest area, where Coachella-like brown tenting and bunting hang above couches and tables, we watch as Dom dishes out hugs and handshakes, urging everyone to “get out there” and “have the best fookin’ time”.

“There’s been a lot of division in rock music. It feels spherical again,” he tells us in between the madness. We stand before a wall of tour posters featuring today’s acts NOAHFINNCE, Nessa Barrett and fittingly, himself. “It’s coming at all angles: hardcore, punk, metal, fuckin’ pop-rock, pop-punk. It’s fuckin’ sick!”

Dom has been quite the ringleader of this new generation. Since the arrival of his debut album, 2018’s 21st Century Liability, the ever-burgeoning Black Heart Club fandom has been mirroring back all that he projects in his music – that it’s okay to not conform, to be as bold as you like in your own expression of gender, to be good to people.

As part of his mission, Dom created Bludfest to make the festival experience available to those who would not normally be able to afford it. Ticket prices started at just £49.50, a bargain compared to other, more established fests. And yet, he’s still paid all artists involved fairly.

“When you just turn up and play a gig, you don’t realise what money goes where,” he explains. “If I own my own thing, I can see things literally spread out. I’ll make money in other places, but it was a very big point for me to only break-even on the music and pay the artists what they should be paid.

“I don’t want to ask someone, ‘This is a good cause, will you come and do it for a little bit less?’” he continues. “I was like, ‘What’s your fee?’” I wanted to show it can be done this way. I really don’t mind putting my head above the trench and getting shot at first.”

Being the first-ever Bludfest, there are naturally some teething problems. Long queues to actually get inside The Bowl lead some people to miss out on bands placed earlier on the bill – which is also not ideal on such a hot day. Bludfest acknowledges this, and put out a statement on social media with safety advice for those waiting. To his credit, YUNGBLUD himself also addresses the issues as they’re happening.

Once inside and settled, though, it’s superb. Jazmin Bean kicks things off on the Main Stage, floating out with the hair-raising synth of Favourite Toy sweetening the air. We catch them afterwards, still chipper and carrying an aura of serious accomplishment.

“It was good!” Jazmin says of their set. “It’s always hard to tell with festivals, everyone’s a bit more relaxed in their cadence. Everyone was still coming in, but I think it went well.”

Jazmin and Dom met through their shared producer, Matt Schwartz. “We kind of connected through him and got to know a bit more about each other’s music,” they recall. “I’m really grateful for him inviting me. It’s really cool.”

Today, Jazmin recognises the important sentiment behind this fest. “It’s a nice vibe. I’m excited to meet new artists. I’m kind of a hermit, so it’s always nice to have a reason to get out and meet new people. I’m an introverted-extrovert, and it takes me a lot to get myself out there.”

A moment later, NOAHFINNCE wanders past. Wearing some high-fashion, heart-shaped sunnies, he’s in a jubilant mood as he joins Kerrang! on a picnic table. Due to close out Stage 2, he’s chomping at the bit to perform. He flashes us his wholesome grin.

“I feel like everybody at this festival is gonna be so down for everything because it’s such an exciting day.”

Noah believes there’s a real sense of mutual respect in the ground right now, noting the amount of tour posters dotted around The Bowl.

“It reminds me that this is a really nice community here and we’re all about helping each other out,” he says. “Dom’s done such a great job of bringing people together who maybe didn’t feel like they had a space. Not just in the things that he says, but the fact it’s £49 for a festival ticket, which nowadays is insane! It’s just pure joy, isn’t it?”

He’s not wrong. Music festivals are transformative spaces, they feel like parallel universes of sorts. Once in them, whatever is outside of those gates doesn’t feel as big. They’re a breeding ground of memories and new mates.

Today, this magic is happening across the Make A Friend tent, or over at The Fair, where you can play a game of Whack-A-Tory. There’s also selfie spots planted around the ground, with inflatable red rubber ducks and a Bludfest ‘Hollywood’ sign atop of The Bowl’s slope.

Leaning against a metal container featuring YUNGBLUD’s Weird! album logo is SOFT PLAY’s Isaac Holman.

“I used to get way too messy at festivals,” he remembers, recalling how he’d often wind up sitting at the campsite having taken it too far when he was younger. Along with guitarist Laurie Vincent, the duo are (of course) shirtless.

“It’s a hot day for the goths,” says Laurie. Isaac chuckles in agreement.

They’ve got time to spare before their set this evening, but they don’t feel any nerves, only copious amounts of anticipation. It was a pivotal BBC Introducing slot at 2013’s Reading & Leeds that first launched them on the festival circuit as performers.

“To actually get on that stage, I don’t think you can underestimate that feeling and how much it means,” says Laurie. “I definitely think there’ll be people [here] that would never have come to our shows, necessarily. Even getting to play in front of The Damned and Lil Yachty, it’s such an effective line-up. I think it’s brought in a lot of people that wouldn’t usually be together.”

The blisters are setting in by the time the searing riff from SOFT PLAY’s Punk’s Dead begins, and finally some shade overhangs the Main Stage. As the Tunbridge Wells terrors crank things up with The Hunter, Stage 2 is closed off at capacity while a huge crowd gather ahead of NOAHFINNCE’s set. When he comes onstage it’s rammed, and just as mega as the man himself had hoped.

Right, time for a bluddy bev. In the recreation of YUNGBLUD’s favourite Camden watering hole The Hawley Arms as Lil Yatchy booms across Milton Keynes, K! gets chatting to fans Kayley and Elise. The pals, who sport opposing bright pink and blue hair, have been having a chill time at Bludfest today.

“Honestly, we’ve just been enjoying the vibe,” says Kayley. “We don’t really know any of the other artists.”

And here you have proof that YUNGBLUD’s idea’s working: if festivals are cheaper, more people may attend, and in turn discover a whole load of new artists, then go home and stream their music, maybe even buy their merch.

“The fact that this was [under] £50 to come to and there is another day festival I go to that is over £120, I’d choose this any day,” adds Kayley. “Even if I don’t know who’s playing.”

The duo are really impressed with YUNGBLUD’s efforts here. “The way he’s gone about making everything that made him, like The Hawley Arms, how he’s designed it for everyone else to enjoy, I think it’s wicked,” says Elise.

What would you want from a future Bludfest, should one go ahead?

“Big names, like MGK. People that he’s collabed with before,” suggests Elise. “I think he’ll get there.”

Dom thinks he will, too. “My plan is to take it to Paris and Prague and Australia,” he tells us. “I’d love for it to be a two-day event. I’d love to have Bring Me The Horizon and The Cure. I’d love to see incredible young artists like Lola Young rise up the ranks and headline it.”

The day cools into night, and people of all ages are gleefully running down the sloped perimeter, waiting for YUNGBLUD to do his thing. As Eminem’s Without Me plays out its ‘Now this looks like a job for me, so everybody just follow me’ line, it feels like a foreshadowing.

When Dom swaggers out in a mesh top and long skirt, he works the stage with attack. He demands that Milton Keynes “get the fuck up” for superdeadfriends, while pyro sends flashes of warmth across The Bowl.

The presence of a live orchestra and hard-hitter breakdown. makes eyes sting and overflow, including Dom’s. His euphoric state grows into one of wonderstruck, and the big screens show glimmering tiger stripes of tears.

You may not like YUNGBLUD. Perhaps you don’t really get what he’s about, his music just isn’t for you. That’s cool. But maybe you can set aside YUNGBLUD from Doncaster’s Dom. The guy who grew up in a guitar shop who’s just put the festival experience back into the ownerships of fans.

The next rock star might even be out here somewhere today. Maybe, because of their day at Bludfest, their future feels a little more open now.

“I’ve always seen YUNGBLUD as a world,” Dom says. “It’s always been about a culture coming together. So how do we really put a flag in the ground and make the industry, the world, our friends, take us fucking seriously as a community?

“With this I think we did.”

Get your exclusive BLUDFEST x K! football shirt. This article originally appeared in the autumn 2024 issue of the magazine.

Read this next:

• NOAHFINNCE: “There’s always going to be people that can’t see me as anything more than an influencer, but they’re not worth worrying about”
• Jazmin Bean: “I don’t think this is a healed album, or a wounded one. It’s a healing album”
• SOFT PLAY: “We need to do this together… the magic of our band is both of us”