This past September, Yungblud teamed up with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, and Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt, to honor the late Ozzy Osbourne at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Following their tribute, The Darkness’ Dan Hawkins labelled the performance “another nail in the coffin of rock n roll,” calling it “nauseating” and “sh*t.” Adding to his brother’s comments, The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins further criticized the tribute in an episode of his YouTube show, taking aim specifically at Yungblud.
“I feel like what irks musicians of a certain age is the fact that Yungblud seems to have positioned himself as a natural heir to the Ozzy legacy, having nothing to do with the really important stuff,” he said in part, going on to call him a “poser.”
In the months that followed, Justin and Yungblud exchanged remarks through the media, with Justin continuing to critique the musician on his YouTube show and Yungblud responding in interviews.
Now, Justin has again taken aim at Yungblud, stating that he remains unconvinced the singer is the future of rock ’n’ roll.
“If the future of rock comes from musical theatre and Disney, if this is Ozzy’s heir, we’re in trouble,” Justin told Classic Rock in a new interview.
Before becoming the musician fans know him as today, Yungblud (whose real name is Dominic Harrison) starred in the Disney Channel show “The Lodge” from 2016 to 2017, portraying a young musician named Oz.
While Justin insists he nor his brother Dan intended to start a “spat” with Yungblud, he went on to accuse him of using auto-tune during his VMAs performance.
“We said [called it a] ‘bit shit’ [because of the] auto-tune that was being run in real time,” he said in his interview with Classic Rock. “If the future of rock needs auto-tune to carry a song, then we are in trouble.”
Although Justin may not see Yungblud as “Ozzy’s heir,” the singer has close ties to the Osbourne family and had become good friends with Ozzy in the years leading up to his death.
Aside from his VMAs tribute to the late legendary musician, Yungblud received rave reviews for his cover of “Changes” at Ozzy and Black Sabbath’s farewell concert, “Back to the Beginning.” He has since performed the song nightly on tour since Ozzy’s passing.
The Osbournes have also come to Yungblud’s defense as he faces criticisms from people like Justin, with Jack Osbourne recently addressing the issue on his podcast.
“But these people […] don’t know the f*cking story of it. And I was just like ‘f*ck you, dude,’” Jack said. “‘Dom [Yungblud’s real name] meant something to my dad. My Dad meant something to Dom.’”
The Smashing Pumpkins and Yungblud have collaborated on a new rendition of Yungblud’s hit song “Zombie,” taken from his latest album, “IDOLS.”
This reimagined version of “Zombie,” released on Friday (Jan. 2nd), sees Billy Corgan and Yungblud sharing vocal duties over Smashing Pumpkins’ signature guitar sounds.
“Yungblud’s star shines bright, so it’s been great fun to lend our zig-zag voice to his ‘Zombie’ which he’s said was inspired by one of our own”, Corgan said of their collaboration. “Hence the encouragement that we make this rendition as personal as possible and I’m proud to say we’ve done that; if only to honor him in return.”
Yungblud added: “’Siamese Dream’ was an album that was there for me more than I could ever explain when I was growing so to be making music with the band that created it is really quite hard to comprehend. Billy has always been such a massive inspiration to me but more recently a huge mentor of mine. His outlook on the importance of truth in art is something that I’ve always held close to my heart.
“‘Zombie’ is the most important song of ‘IDOLS’ to me. It’s deeply personal and it was heavily influenced by The Smashing Pumpkins’ ability to mix emotion, cinema and heavy guitars. I sent Billy an email, asking if he would re-imagine this song with me and when he agreed to it, it was a dream come true. To watch one of my idols work on something that I had written was one of the greatest honors of my life. I love that this new version of ‘Zombie’ is heavier, it has Billy Corgan’s iconic guitar sound, it has more urgency and it rips my heart out. I’m so proud of it.”
