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Blud, sweat and tears: Yungblud set to make ‘great leap forward’
Interscope-signed UK rising star is leading rock revival with “popular music that has punk attitude”, says manager Tommas Arnby
BY ANDRE PAINE Yungblud’s manager Tommas Arnby has told Music Week that the rising rock artist is set to be the “biggest British breakthrough in years”. As part of a three-year global strategy in 2017, Doncaster-born Yungblud (real name Dominic Harrison) was licensed to Geffen/Interscope by Locomotion Entertainment.
“We needed to partner with someone who wanted to empower our vision,” said Arnby, Locomotion CEO and founder. “When you look at how much repertoire the Americans are breaking, they are slightly ahead of us – and a lot of British talent that’s breaking through has been signed up elsewhere.”
Yungblud has followed Lewis Capaldi (Germany), Ella Mai (US) and Harry Styles (US) in signing outside their home market. His collaboration with Halsey on 11 Minutes (feat. Travis Barker) was last month certified gold in the US. UK sales are 117,951, according to the Official Charts Company.
Machine Gun Kelly featured on I Think I’m Okay (90,250 sales – OCC), while Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds recently guested on Original Me (16,643). New single Tongue Tied features Marshmello and Blackbear. Arnby predicted that would be a “great leap forward” that will push monthly Spotify listeners from eight million to around 10m. “That will help us get to where we wanted to be this year in terms of streaming,” he told Music Week. “It gives you a platform to align yourself with another artist and their fanbase. “I know that my artist is worth around 5,000 tickets in most markets, but we’ve done it without really having a hit record. So I think we’re now ready to have one.”
As well as a strong social media presence, live is a cornerstone of the campaign. Yungblud is represented by CAA agent David Ball Yungblud played an O2 Academy Brixton show last week as part of a sold-out tour. He has booked a residency at the O2 Forum in London next year.
“The live side of the business was how we started it and he’s obviously a really engaging performer,” said Arnby. “Brixton was a huge milestone for us, we have an amazing summer lined up with festivals and I think we’ll start heading into arenas at the end of 2020.” Describing the campaign of cross-genre collaborations as “building culture”, Arnby said that Yungblud is leading a modern rock revival. “He could be the biggest British
breakthrough in years, we’re super ambitious,” he said. “It’s popular music that has a punk attitude with guitars – rock is absolutely going to be relevant again.”
06 | Music Week 25.11.19
“We have an amazing summer lined up and we’ll start heading into arenas”
Tommas Arnby Locomotion
Doncaster rover: Yungblud
Social care: Yungblud’s Instagram ‘driving growth’ Artist has “constant direct dialogue” with fanbase, says Polydor’s Stephen Hallowes
Polydor head of marketing Stephen Hallowes has told Music Week that social media activity is a “huge” part of Yungblud’s campaign. The artist’s Instagram account has increased from around 200,000 followers early this year to 1,662,046. “He’s got a constant direct dialogue with his fans every single day on social media,” said Hallowes. “Hand-in-hand with a constant
Blud brothters: (L-R) Jack Saunders and Yungblud
appearance by the artist alongside Radio 1’s Jack Saunders on a charity edition of Channel 4’s Gogglebox last month. It coincided with the release of The Underrated Youth EP, which peaked at No.6 and has sales of 12,484, according to the Official Charts Company. “The awareness, overall consumption, social media and the general audience for Yungblud is growing all the time,” said Hallowes. “But we wanted to
stream of music releases, that has been at the heart of driving the growth of it over the last 12 to 18 months.” A videographer provides regular footage for socials. “The engagement on Instagram is a very important factor in our continued success in building him,” said manager Tommas Arnby. “A Yungblud show is a series of Instagram Stories. Thirty minutes [after the gig] there will be clips from the live performance, it’s keeping his engagement top notch.” Polydor’s UK campaign received a boost with an
deliver a Top 10 album on the EP to make that statement and really put him on the map to wider media.” As well as Radio 1 playlist support for tracks from the EP, Yungblud has made a rare streaming impact for a rock act. “He’s been incredibly tactical and clever with collaborations this year to build his streaming audience and all the partners are very engaged with him now,” said Hallowes. “He’s introducing a younger audience to that genre of music, which is exciting.”
musicweek.com
PHOTO: Jonathan Weiner
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