When I hopped on a video call with Dominic Richard Harrison, better known as Yungblud, ahead of his concert in Mumbai this weekend, there was no point in preamble. The English punk-rock musician and songwriter greeted me with a big smile, already in mid-tempo, laughing and announcing in an instantly recognizable Yorkshire accent. The heat is immediate. It was a punk-rocker if I ever knew one.
This weekend’s performance at Lollapalooza India, alongside artistes like Linkin Park, Playboi Carti, Kehlani and others, will be their first time in the country. The word “first” is filled with anticipation throughout our conversation. “First time, man, first time I’m coming to India, leave alone performing in India, I can’t wait.” He talks about the Indian crowd with great enthusiasm. “I’ve seen footage of the shows and you guys are crazy… [I’ll] Bring a little rock and roll to India, it’s going to be fun.
Yungblud | Photo Credit: Instagram/@yungblud
However, time will be mercilessly compressed. Three days in the country, a solo performance, then a gig at the Grammys. He laughs at the idea of relaxation. “When I’m there for three days at a show, I don’t really sleep… From morning till night, I’ll be exploring.” The pace feels familiar as Harrison has built his career at a faster pace than the places he enters.
That forward momentum has brought their music to an increasingly wide audience. Early releases burned with neo-punk urgency, with songs that were designed to appeal to small rooms and teenage nerves. With his latest album, statuesReleased last year, its scale has increased dramatically, including longer forms and a dramatic sweep that seemed deliberately large. When I ask what has been non-negotiable in his songwriting during that evolution, he comes down to the obvious intent. “I really wanted to make an album that was very human on a human basis,” he says.
The gamble was clear to him when he made it. “It was a wild thing to do these long songs and these orchestrations and orchestrations,” he admits, aware of how much it went against contemporary expectations. He talks about form and emotion, about music that “transcends language and culture.”
Yet the response surprised him. He talks about audiences across continents naturally connecting with it. Calling from Australia, he sounds a little numb from the cumulative impact of the past year. “What a crazy year,” he says, repeating it a few times as if still pinching himself.
Yungblud | Photo Credit: Instagram/@yungblud
statues It was also shaped by the figures that once looked down from the walls of his room, moving in his imagination. He describes the album as beginning with a desire to become those pictures on the wall – Black Sabbath’s late singer Ozzy Osbourne, Queen’s Freddie Mercury, the incomparable David Bowie and other Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, before realizing that the guidance he sought was always internal.
This feeling deepened after Ozzy’s death early last year, which came as Harrison had begun to know him personally, even mentoring him under him. “You put out this album, and then you start getting to know these people,” he says. “And then I lost her [Ozzy]” The clash between myth and intimacy shocked him. “I’m really trying to figure out how this happened.”
The ‘Prince of Darkness”s early recognition of himself in Harrison intensified the public comparisons Harrison has faced since childhood. “I knew him as a superhero,” he says, describing Ozzy as Batman long before he understood Black Sabbath’s music. In his view what bound them was a shared sense of the flair, excess, honesty and emotional transparency rather than style that sits at the core of rock music as he understands it. “We come from a similar place of madness and madness as well as heart and love,” he says.
The pressure that followed Osbourne’s final concert took a toll on her. Public expectations grew manifold, but Harrison instinctively returned to his master’s voice. “I still turn to Ozzy the same way I have since I was that big,” he says. His response to the noise was very simple. “I just have to do what I set out to do in the beginning and not get discouraged.”
Seeing legacy rock stars up close increased his understanding of what needed preservation. When asked what he wanted to carry forward from that old ethos, he smiled and said, “Theatre.”
Rock, he says, “got really serious for 10 years,” so serious that it lost the joy that once made it feel dangerous and alive. He explains how that feeling does not come easily in the present moment. “It doesn’t necessarily fit with the iPhone generation because it’s mischievous, cheeky, breaks rules, and people don’t like you breaking rules these days.” This means the threat has to be reimagined rather than recycled. “You have to do it from a place of love and modernity,” he says, drawing a firm line under nostalgia. “It’s not the ’80s anymore.”
What he still pursues is the same sense of fearlessness and theater that attracted him to rock in the first place, even if he’s aware of how differently he got there. “I grew up in a different world than a lot of older rock stars, which is why this relationship works,” he says. “We like theater, we like rock shows, we like the lifestyle,” he says, laughing at the bluntness of it. “But it’s from two different perspectives. I think that’s why we find each other interesting.”
Identity also remains fluid by design. Harrison has long resisted fixed labels, publicly embracing ambiguity around sexuality, image and sound. When I ask if being undefined scares her more than ever being misunderstood, her answer turns inward. “It only scares me if I don’t know who I am. Having an unfinished chapter is the most exciting thing in life. If people don’t like what they’re reading, I don’t give up,” he says. He recalls advice from both Ozzy and Steven Tyler: “Never compromise”.
Curiosity keeps drawing him to new cultural places. Their recent track “Abyss”, written as the opening theme of the anime kaiju number 8Marks a deep connection with pop culture. “kaiju That was the opening of a door,” he says, describing the joy of reading manga from right to left and absorbing the form on its own terms.
The same openness also shapes their expectations towards India. He traced a lineage of Indian sounds through the Beatles to psychedelic rock, expressing his eagerness to learn directly from the musicians here. His excitement increases at the thought of sitar, strings and half scales. “I can’t wait to get to this country and soak it in,” he says, already imagining how these textures might emerge in future work.
When asked what she hopes Indian audiences will immediately identify with, she said, “Energy. Passion. Love.” He speaks with certainty, as if the connection has already been made. “We’re going to fall in love,” he says. “I can feel it…open the pits, boys.”
I’m sent off with an “Alright, man! Rock and roll star” blessing, which feels generous under the circumstances. I will try my best to earn it this weekend.
Yungblud will be performing at the upcoming Lollapalooza India 2026, produced and promoted by BookMyShow Live, which will take place on January 24 and 25, 2026 at Mahalaxmi Racecourse, Mumbai.