We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson - Teacher Shamed Me For Wearing Nail Varnish! YUNGBLUD from Doncaster to Record Deal

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

YUNGBLUD’s journey from growing up in Doncaster to securing a major record deal with Interscope Records is a story of defying expectations and embracing individuality. In this conversation, the boundary-pushing artist opens up about overcoming childhood struggles, breaking through perceptions, and how his unique style and unapologetic approach led to his big break in the music industry. This rare glimpse into YUNGBLUD's rise to fame reveals the challenges he’s faced and the lessons he’s learned about staying true to himself in a world that’s always trying to define him. We’re Talking YUNGBLUD. (00:00) Intro (00:41) Growing Up in Doncaster: Yungblud’s Early Years (03:29) People’s Perceptions of Yungblud: From Childhood to Adulthood (12:26) Love Better Tour Announcement (13:23) How Yungblud Was Signed to Interscope Records Get Your Tickets to the Love Better Tour: https://bit.ly/lovebetter-YT Glasgow - https://g2ul0.app.link/FMk3N4PhrXb Birmingham - https://g2ul0.app.link/pJIj4XShrXb Manchester - https://g2ul0.app.link/4SQwKDXhrXb Brighton - https://g2ul0.app.link/BO71HSZhrXb London - https://g2ul0.app.link/gm6iB91hrXb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. 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 Osborne. In 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 young blood. So when you think about describing Doncast, how would you describe it, especially growing up?

Rainy, pavement, community, pubs, warm, cold, cold and warm. It was kind of, it was sick, it was, it was rock and roll, you know? It was like, honestly, it's all I've ever really known. is rock music because I was on a shop counter Yeah Yeah smell of a vintage guitar

And guitar strings And pickups and metal And solder in irons and wires And beer That's been on a 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

It's like What that's what associates me with home. You should do a cologne. Yeah, I fully should. It smelled 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 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 took to place. for me because at school, I was having loved or hated. I was like 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. I wanted to do things. I like marveled at the world. I've always been a puppy. You know what I mean?

Sure. And I think in the north, people, some people don't like that. It's quite a British thing. It's very funny when you first go to America ride. You've got a nice car in America. Everyone's like, wow, you've got a nice car. Have you got a nice car?

You 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 you kind of, 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. People either think it's fake or that I am 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 life? 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 and I would always be like Sir why are you doing that? blah blah blah and I remember own clothes day came around

for a specific event and I was so excited I'd be Navar Ruddy on and I've been watching Kirk Cabain like in the shop so it eyeliner on I put my hair down Navareruddy on skin tight jeans and I paint my nails and I remember a teacher in front of the whole class was like

boys don't wear a nail varnish and I was like, where the hell did that come from? And you're like, 11. And I always remember like been either too loud or too excited or too confident or too quiet or too, always too something instead of just been 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. Vaget, came into my life and was just like, you've got so much energy. And you've got this fizzing, you know, this... You call me this pan. He was like, you're a pan, right? And you've got this...

You're bubbling and you're simmering and your lids blowing off. It's like if you learn to harness that, use it. Wow. And use it as a superpower. And when people don't like it, realize that the power is within yourself to give them a response or to give them pain or to give them their point, any sense of validation.

Like, that's when you're going to win. That's brilliant. And I remember that. I remember being like, I remember that hitting me in them forehead. Yeah. And going like, oh. And I found like drama as a subject or music or history

was something that I could, I really, I could delve into because of that subject. I was like, what do I like? And where do I want to put this mad thing what I've got? That I don't know why I've got it. Where can I channel this into?

Did you have an idea professionally at that point, what direction you wanted to go? Where you were... I always knew that I wanted to, like, be on stage in any capacity. Even if that was, like, a teacher or something. Or, like, you know what I mean? Or, like, obviously, like, world rock star was top of the list. Or, like, movie star or some shit. But, like, I don't know, like, speaking or performing in any regard was always kind of what made me happy.

What let you up? Yeah, I just kind of like let me switch it on. I don't know. You know what I'm curious about, though, is that it seems like that particular teacher changed your life. Yeah, 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, you know? But maybe not everyone looked at you. Like 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 were like, what is he wearing or why is he like that? You know, I mean, I was like, it was pretty intense, like, got got got got boots on and eyeliner at like nine. My mum said she took me down into town one day and people are like,

how can you let your son dress like that? You know what 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 what I mean? All those like crazy words. Um, that was very abnormal 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, you've got the, the complex, 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 this 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 will related 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 destroyed. It slowly. 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. Passively. Completely. My best mate, Isaac, like my best mate in the world, like North London Jewish boy, he talks that to me about, talks about this to me all the time. And he's like 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 is so much more damaging to someone's internal organs and kind of internal structure. So then what I need to know is how at young, you're a young man, how do you not allow that to destroy, 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 targeting 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. I've 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, like I felt like I was strong in identity relative to other people my age. Yeah. But I still sway. Let me ask you something. When was the last time you really thought about how you love?

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That's OLLLY.com. 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. I was like, man, this guy has got like rock. He's got hip-hop. Like, he has these elements.

So I could see. So from what I understand, you were not signed here, but by Interscope. Which Interscope, I mean, I'm a hip-hop head. Yeah, I'm a 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 loved 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.

No one even say, well, we're bad. No one cared. Like, you know what I mean? I got a manager, Thomas, he's still my manager now. It 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? 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 100-seat of 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. Because it was a song called King Charles,

which was about Brexit. Do you remember that Netflix show to Get Down? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Bas Lerman 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 and 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 L.A.

and play this night called We Found New Music at the Bardo in Hollywood Thomas 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 L.A. So let's just like Give it a try Let's just I don't know You know what I mean

So go to New York And I take me mate Who's an assistant to deck 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 plant. I'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 Blum's like, yo, Jesus, you got to hear this new act. Youngblood. He'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 site.

chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. The whole building's found out about it. Then news has made its way to West Coast. Warner, Republic, Sony, X, Y, Z are talking about it. We fly my band out. Thomas 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 and clap and, South, there's got live wires on the wall. We stinker down. 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 him. Gigsaw, gig son. And I'm like, go out, go mental, nail the showcase. And then, yeah, we've got a sign to win. It's got 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 wild story. Epic story. And it just goes to show, right? The power of just like belief in self.

Believe in self 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 going to 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 think 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? Like your talent, obviously, you control everything you can. But then other things, you let it go.

You got to let it go. Your boy from Scotland was just like, yeah. Yeah, and that's it, man. It's literally just like some of it is written and some of it is not. And so you've got to write a little bit to get to the bit that has been written. Yes. You know what I mean? a page right the bottom of it's written you got a fill in the first bit yes yes

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