YUNGBLUD says the Nirvana-esque fleabag is about "being fucking gutted about people judging me and trying to tear me down".
Just as you’re thinking it’s been a while since there was any new music from YUNGBLUD – BAM! – Doncaster’s champion of Weird! goes and releases a new song.
The track, fleabag, deals with YUNGBLUD – real name Dom Harrison – processing the expectations of others that can be heaped upon a person, and how it can block them from being who they really are.
"I wrote fleabag in a really dark time of my life, when a lot of people around me had an expectation about what I should be,” he explains. “To tell you the truth, it’s about being fucking gutted about people judging me and trying to tear me down. I felt so alienated, I felt so alone.”
Read this: The 20 greatest Nirvana songs – ranked
“When everybody else has an expectation of what you should be or have their own version of your truth it messes with your brain because you start to think, ‘Maybe they’re right, maybe they do know what’s best for me, maybe I should change who I am,’” he continues. “But ultimately I believe to my core, it’s the foundation I built my whole ideology around, that self-expression and the right to be unconditionally yourself is the best thing you can be.
“Nobody should determine how you express yourself except you. You are brilliant, you are beautiful, you are individual just by breathing. This song is a kick back; a kick back against the world, a kick back against my friends, against my family and some of my fanbase. I am who I am, all I want to do is spread love and lead with my heart. I’ve always told people to be themselves, sometimes I have to remember that message myself."
Check out fleabag below:
Last week, Oli Sykes joined Dom onstage at London’s O2 Kentish Town Forum for the first-ever live performance of Obey, the track on which he collaborated with Bring Me The Horizon.
Fingers crossed for more of the same when YUNGBLUD plays Reading & Leeds next weekend…
