While appearing on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, when the host said that “rock is dead”, Yungblud pushed back hard, insisting the genre is thriving in ways that older generations fail to recognize.
After the shock jock said “I’ve been feeling lately like rock is dead, you know? And it makes me sad because I love rock and roll music,” the musician (born Dominic Richard Harrison) disagreed, explaining: “Rock music is so brilliant, and it gets its flowers in hindsight because it’s such a sacred genre.”
Addressing the disconnect between nostalgia and reality, Yungblud added “Every dad says, ‘I don’t like that band. It sounds like a band that they knew as a kid.’ You know what I mean? Every dad says to his kid, ‘I don’t like that. That sounds like what I knew.’ It always happens.”
Rejecting the long-running notion that one artist must single-handedly “save” the genre, the 27-year-old star went on to say “People always put so much pressure on one person bringing it back. ‘Who’s going to save rock and roll?’ And that’s a load of bulls***.”
Suggesting that the current landscape is far more exciting and diverse than the likes of Stern and KISS frontman Gene Simmons have suggested, the UK artist listed several rock acts leading the way in their sub-genres:
“It’s spherical at the minute.” “In hardcore you’ve got Knocked Loose and Turnstile, in punk you’ve got Amyl and the Sniffers and Lambrini Girls, in indie you’ve got Fontaines [D.C.] and Geese and Wunderhorse.”
Pointing to his new album, Idols, as proof that ambitious, theatrical rock still has a place, Yungblud said he set out to “bring a sense of theatre and showmanship and adventure and nine-minute songs back in a 2025 way.” adding:
“And it was a f****** risk, man.” “When we went in to play the first single, which was nine minutes, to the labels, I went f****** green. But I think we were in a place where we have a community, we have a culture, we have a fanbase that will go with us. It was mad to do but to see the amount of people that have got behind it and loved it has been f***** up.”
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Author: Al Dente
Photo: Raph_PH