"My Teacher Shamed Me For Wearing Nail Varnish!" YUNGBLUD from Doncaster to Record Deal

0:00When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at GoodToKnowFacts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org. Hello and welcome to We're Talking. This week, we're looking back at one of our most popular guests, the one and only Youngblood. Brought up in Doncaster and known for his genre fusing music, you may have seen him in the news for his friendship with the late, great Ozzy Osbourne.

0:48In this episode, Youngblood shares how his upbringing shaped who he is and the incredible story of how he scored a million-dollar record deal. This week, we're talking Youngblood.

1:13so when you think about describing doncast yes how would you describe it especially growing up rainy pavement um community pubs warm cold cold and warm it was kind of it was sick it was it was it was rock and roll you know it was like it honestly it's all I've ever really known is rock music because I was on a shop counter yeah the smell of a vintage guitar and guitar strings and pickups and metal and soldering irons and wires and beer that's been on the carpet for two weeks is like my smell of home. You know what I mean? It's the thing, you know when you get a smell? Yes. It's like damp beer carpet and metal from guitar strings is like what associates me with home.

2:16You should do a cologne. Yeah, I fully should it. It smells like shit but I mean I love it. I'm down, you know. I think it's so funny every time like kind of we buy a vintage guitar or Or I smell guitars because it kind of makes me feel like I'm 10 again. Yes. So what was school like for you during that time? Now, that is where things juxtaposed for me. Because at school, I was either loved or hated. I was very like, he's out of control. He's wild. He's dangerous. He's very opinionated. To be honest, I was exactly the same as I am now. I loved people. I wanted to believe in people. I wanted to meet people.

3:05I wanted to do things. I marveled at the world. I've always been a puppy. You know what I mean? Sure. And I think in the North, some people don't like that. It's quite a British thing. It's very funny when you first go to America, right? If you've got a nice car in America, everyone's like, wow, you've got a nice car. If you've got a nice car, here, look here. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think that's a very British thing. And that's just our culture. And I think when someone is fundamentally fizzing with energy, some people want to dim that. When people look at me, they already form an opinion because I'm so full of energy.

3:47People either think it's fake or that I'm going to be completely out of control and they're not going to like me or I'm going to be a dick. I've always just been like, Marmite, you love it or you don't. In school, being 8, 12, 13, whatever, how did people try to dim your light? I would be really experimental. I was like always too loud or I would make an argument. I was like, I don't know if that's right. I would always be like, Sir, why are you doing that? And I remember Own Clothes Day came around for a specific event. And I was so excited. I had me Nirvana wrote it on, and I'd been watching Kurt Cobain, like, in the shop.

4:35So I had eyeliner on, I put my hair down, Nirvana wrote it on, skin-tight jeans, and I paint my nails. And I remember teaching in front of the whole class, I was like, boys don't wear nail varnish.

4:49And I was like, where the hell did that come from? And you're like, 11. And, I always remember, be like, being either too loud or too excited or too confident or too quiet or always too something instead of just being like the vibe, you know. But then I met a drama teacher who I fell in love with because I think when I was a young kid like that and people try and dim you you want to kick back and you start to rebel and you start to get naughty because you have no outlet and you're kind of trying to look to someone and i started to kind of like go the wrong way okay i remember one teacher came mr vajette came into my life and was just like you've got so much energy and you've got this this fizzing you know this you come with this pan you're you're a pan right and you've got this you're bubbling you're simmering and your lid's blowing off it's like if you learn to harness that use it well and use it as a superpower and when people don't like it realize that the power is within yourself to to give them a response or to give them pain or to give them uh their point any sense of validation like that's when you're gonna win that's brilliant that's and i remember that i remember being like i remember that hitting me in the forehead yeah and and going like oh and i i found like drama as a subject or music or history was something that I could delve into because of that subject.

6:44I was like, what do I like and where do I want to put this mad thing that I've got that I don't know why I've got it? What can I channel this into? Did you have an idea professionally at that point what direction you wanted to go? I always knew that I wanted to be on stage in any capacity. Even if I was a teacher or something, or like you know I mean or like obviously like world rock star was top of the list or like movie star or some shit but like like I don't know like speaking or performing in any regard was was was always kind of what made me happy what lit you up yeah just kind of like let me switch it on I don't know you know what I'm curious about though is that you it seems like that particular teacher changed your life.

7:34Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? So you had teachers who supported you, teachers who didn't. Yes. How did your peers respond to you? You know, how did the other kids respond to you? Because I can imagine that, you know, you're describing what Doncaster was like. Yeah. You probably don't look like... No, yeah, I was a weirdo. The typical. Completely. Right? You were special. Yeah. Right? You were extraordinary. Yeah. You know? But maybe not everyone looked at you. Right. you were extraordinary that's it was such a bubble you know i think doncaster is like i mean it's a lot better now but like when i when i grew up it was like you kind of go into town and people like what is he wearing or why is he like that like you know i mean i was like it was pretty intense like goth boots on and eyeliner at like nine my mum said she took me down into town one day and people how can you let your son dress like that you know i mean i was like very i was like expressing myself and a lot of people would be like i was just like i used to get like puff weirdo all that shit in town you know i mean all those like crazy words um that was very

8:51abnormal to like someone formulating a personality yes you know and i think kind of looking back on it, it was rough being the subject of that. Or even kind of like, you've got the, I call them like the evil. You've got like, someone's like throwing a bomb at you, right? When someone does that. But you've also got the passive things. Like, and I would say this to anyone a little bit older who is kind of, talking to a young person, formulating an identity. Passive digs, because you don't understand someone yet. Hurt, sometimes even more, because that is you showing your hand to me. And as a young person, I'm kind of going to formulate an answer.

9:47This is such an important point, because what I would relate this to, I'll use my lived experience on this, is that I'll relate it to racism. Yeah. And how I'll relate it is that there's a debate around racism where, is it better to have someone who's overtly racist? So to basically say, you're excluded because you're black, for example, or is it better to have someone smile at you and just not serve you? Right? That's passive. And I always say the overt is much better because the passive, what it does is it leaves you questioning yourself. Second guessing. Completely. It's a soul destroyer. And to your point, I'm so glad that you brought this up, is that this is how many people are marginalized.

10:35Passively. Completely. My best mate Isaac, my best mate in the world, North London Jewish boy, he talks about this to me all the time. When someone's passively anti-Semitic to me, the rest of the table allows it to happen. Yes. If someone else around the table speaks out, the rest of the table can be like, you're overreacting, this is the problem with the world, this is the problem with the new generation. It's such a crazy argument to formulate in a crazy conversation to have that, like, passive oppression

11:20is so much more damaging to someone's, like, internal organs and kind of like internal structure. So then what I need to know is how at, you're a young man, how do you not allow that to destroy your soul? The biggest thing I would say, all your power, all your energy, all your individuality is inside you. You choose to give someone that power. and this is something I learned later in life so like I would have loved someone to say this to me younger someone

12:03targeting you will be for a facet of different reasons if you allow them to take your beauty, your power your identity away from you that is the biggest trauma you can do to yourself, like, I think it's the biggest thing I've learned. Because I get called from a pig to a dog every day. If I read the internet, like, that's what I would say to my younger self, and that's what I would say to a young person. It's not easy. It's so hard. It's not. But you're saying that as a 10-year-old, 11-year-old, that that's how you operated. Because at that age, I feel like, even myself, I felt like I was strong in identity relative to other people my age.

12:53Yeah. But I still swayed. Let me ask you something. When was the last time you really thought about how you love? Not who, how. Most of us don't. We're moving fast, doing life, hoping love just shows up and sticks. But that's not how real connection works. That's not how lasting love works. So I've created something different. and it's called Love Better and I'm taking it on tour starting October 26. This is a live experience for anyone who wants to build a deeper, more meaningful connection. We'll unpack the lessons from the couples you've seen me coach. I'll share stories I've never told on camera and you'll walk away with the tools that you can use right away.

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14:27The detective said missing kids usually come home. What happens when they don't? Based on a true story. Police looking for John Gacy. We discovered bodies by the looks of the younger man. the things he did to those kids. He's sick. The system failed these families. Devil in Disguise, John Wayne Gacy. Streaming now, only on Peacock. Do you know how many there are? Up to you to find out. We've got to talk about the music career. Yes. Because this was the part that did blow my mind. Because when I listen to your music now, right, so I've gone through the catalog, and I was like, man, this guy's got, like, rock.

15:08He's got hip-hop. Like, he has these elements, so I could see. So from what I understand, you were not signed here. No. But by Interscope. Interscope Records. Which, Interscope, I mean, I'm a hip-hop head. Yeah, man. So Interscope is top of the food chain. This blew my mind. And I can tell you this story. It's so mad, this story. I love The Clash. Okay. Because, to me, strummer was mixing dub music and punk music. That's why I loved it. And I was like, oh, well, then I can do hip hop and I can do punk music together. And I could blend it like that in a new way. Okay. No one gave a fuck in the UK.

15:51No one even said we were bad. Just no one cared. Like, you know what I mean? I got a manager, Thomas. He's still my manager now. He was epic. He found me like an open mic night. No one cared. No one wanted to sign us. No one wanted to write about us. But we were getting a little bit of heat in the Netherlands. Okay. Weird, right? Like, my manager's Danish, so he had some old mate in Holland who got me on the radio. And that allowed us to sell out, like, a 100-seater venue. Oh, wow, okay. In Amsterdam. But then someone in America, a guy called Grant Owens, heard, was listening to this Dutch radio station because he's, like, this tastemaker in L.A.

16:33because it was a song called King Charles, which was about Brexit. Do you remember that Netflix show, The Get Down? yeah yeah right Baz Luhrmann thing about the birth of hip-hop I was like what I was obsessed with that and it was like this breakbeat was like and I was like whoa and then they started voiceover and over it so I kept rewinding this three second breakbeat I started doing this like weird rap flow about Brexit and then I put a guitar over it and it was like on Dutch radio and this guy was like, this just sounds mental. Right. So this guy goes, I want you to come to LA and play this night called We Found New Music at the Bardo in Hollywood.

17:13Thomas was like, right, I'm going to pay for you to go to New York. Why don't you go and write in New York a little treat and then we'll go do a showcase in LA. So let's just like... Give it a try. Let's just, I don't know. You know what I mean? So I go to New York and I take my mate who's an assistant to Dec. He's Irish called Emmett Power. Right? And he can sell anything to anyone. All right. Right? Like, you want to get into a club? Emmett will get you in. You want to get into a party? Emmett will get you in. So I'm, like, in, like, the Universal Building near Central Park. Me and Emmett formulate a plan.

17:43I'm like, right, you're going to pretend to be my drummer and you're going to ride the elevator all day and you're going to just talk shit about this new act called Youngblood. Right? So he's in an elevator in New York. Universal Building's like, yo, Jesus, you got to hear this new act, Youngblood. It's like blowing up outside the UK. Kids are going crazy in Europe. And then like these young A &Rs going like, oh yeah, cool, man. Typical major label style. Chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. The whole building's found out about it. Then news has made its way to the West Coast. Warner, Republic, Sony, XYZ are talking about it.

18:19We fly my band out. Tom at the showcase goes, right, there's every major record label executive on the front row. Don't fuck it up. and I'm just like, go straight to the toilet, spew my guts out. Do you really? Oh yeah, we're literally like, me, my drummer and my guitar player are living in a two bedroom flat in Clapham South that's got live wires on the wall. We stinkerdam. I'm like, this is the moment and I was just shitting myself. Didn't know if I could hold it together. I'm a guitar player, best friend in the world, Scottish, just goes, fuck them. Gigs on, gigs on. I'm like, go out, go mental nail the showcase and then yeah we got a sign to it and it's called Reckless three days later but it all came from us talking shit in an elevator in New York in New York that is an epic story it's a wild story epic story and it just goes to show right the power of just like belief in self belief in self and and friendship and community you know what I mean never give up because you never know when the smallest situation can turn into a moment that defines you yes yes like never like that's the problem with the world at the minute we never we're never present the love of your life could walk by the person you're gonna start the most revolutionary business in the world could walk by your best friend for the next 50 years the godfather of your child the godmother of your child could walk and pass you by and you are completely unaware of it because you're just thinking about the future or you're thinking about this yeah you also that story too i think is a beautiful example of control everything that you can right you know your friend is talking in the elevator you know what i mean you're like your talent obviously you control everything you can but then other things nah you gotta you let it go you gotta let it go Your boy from Scotland was just like, yo.

20:21Yeah, and that's it, man. It's literally just like some of it is written and some of it is not. And you've got to write a little bit to get to the bit that has been written. Yes. You know what I mean? If you've got a page right, the bottom of it's written. You've got to fill in the first bit. Yes, yes.

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