In two decades of music journalism, I have seen surprisingly few rockstar butts. Today, though, standing in the middle of the shining floor of the empty Utilita Arena in Birmingham, UK – gazing at a 40-foot screen temporarily filled with Dominic Harrison’s mooning orbs – I can, somewhat involuntarily, add Yungblud’s ass to that short list.
I’m actually here to speak to Harrison’s guitarist, MD, co-writer and long-time partner in crime, Adam Warrington. I’ve been invited to the soundcheck and asked not to film it, which is not a problem, really, because Yungblud’s milky white rear-end – produced for the entertainment of his band, his FOH guy and me – is going to live rent-free in my head for some time.
Fortunately, the moment is punctuated by Warrington rolling out a gigantic Gibson Slash signature double-neck – which, even at a big gig, is akin to spotting a unicorn in the wild. Then come the pyro tests – great billowing towers of industrial-scale flame, firing with rhythmic precision – barbecuing my face at a 20-yard distance. Lord knows what it’s like playing a few feet from one.
Outside, it’s a carnival atmosphere. Attempting to circumnavigate the 20,000-cap arena 10 minutes earlier, I’d been furtively handed an AAA pass and smuggled through the back gate past a group of fans, who’d yelled, “Are you anything to do with Yungblud?”
“Never heard of him!” replies Yungblud’s tour manager, with convincing probity.
Everywhere you turn, fans are pouring into the city. I know this because they are almost uniformly adorned in Yungblud merch. The pubs are full. The benches. The steps. The pavements. There’s a mob for selfies at the Black Sabbath bridge.
Notably, it’s Harrison’s first date in the city since his appearance at Back to the Beginning, when he performed Changes, and the city has not forgotten. “That was such a crazy day,” Warrington tells Guitar World, and he’s not exaggerating.
While most of the BTTB line-up got some time in the home of metal, savouring the atmosphere, posting pics on the ’gram, Yungblud was subbed in as a last-minute addition to Belgium’s Rock Werchter festival (reportedly because someone in Kings of Leon broke an ankle).
“Then Sam Fender pulled out, and he was headlining,” explains Warrington. “So we went from not playing this festival to headlining [on the same day as Back to the Beginning]! Dom was, like, ‘Cool!’ He did Back to the Beginning, which was obviously a crazy thing – but didn't really get to soak it in, because the minute he came off stage, he jumped in a jet and flew over to Belgium.”
Meanwhile, Warrington, as MD, had been left in Europe, frantically trying to summon a show worthy of the Belgian festival’s 88,000-person main stage audience (about twice that of Back to the Beginning) at a few hours’ notice.
“I phoned brass players and string players and we got the show together,” recalls the guitarist. “Dom flew in and we played a crazy show that we felt was the pinnacle of the day. Then a couple of weeks went by, and the Back to the Beginning thing was just getting bigger and bigger.
“It's been a wild year since that gig happened. It was like task one of that day, but you never really know what's gonna take off. Back to the Beginning projected his career into a whole other stratosphere.”
Yungblud’s hair-raising cover of Changes has since become a staple of the Idols set. “We’ve been paying homage, because that was such a special moment before Ozzy passed,” Warrington says, underscoring: “But he's definitely not trying to be the next Ozzy.”
But it also slots neatly into a collection of material, largely co-written by Warrington, that lovingly splices influences from all over the guitar music map – yes, from Sabbath, but also U2, right through to The Cure, Queen, Bowie and Britpop.
Yungblud (and his gyrating, 40-foot ass) inevitably draws the spotlight, but today is a chance to speak to the man who’s been alongside him every step of the way, “the Sid Vicious to my Johnny Rotten,” as Harrison puts it.
Warrington outplays that comparison. He’s one of a vanishing breed: a guitarist playing arena rock shows, complete with solos, double-necks and real, live amps.
You came up playing with Lewis Capaldi in Scotland. What did you take from that period of your life?
When Lewis released his first song, I’d started with Yungblud. Lewis was like, ‘Are you going to play for me or Dom?’
Me and Lewis met in French class in high school – and we hated each other! For the first year we just didn’t really get on. Then we discovered we were both super into music and liked a lot of the same movies, like Walk Hard. We bonded over School of Rock, we bonded over Tenacious D and then we formed a band, but it didn't last very long.
I was like, “So what am I doing?” He went, “Oh, you’re lead guitar. You're the best.” That was the first time anyone had said that to me. I think from then, I was like, “I'm the lead guitarist.” And I still am!
What were your first gigs with Lewis Capaldi like?
My dad used to be a wedding singer and played a lot of pubs. So we’d go along with him and his mate. Then Lewis and I started booking a couple gigs like that, always just the two of us in the pub.
I’d get there and he'd be like: “I've learned a new Ed Sheeran song. I want to play it tonight.” And I’d be like, “I don't know it!” He’d go, “Just jam along!” And that’s literally how I learned to play guitar... I’d have a couple pints on stage and just figure it out.
Someone asked me the other day, “Have you ever been really drunk on stage?” I was like, “Yeah. All the time! It's how I learned to play – being on stage in a non-sober state.”
In 2016, when Lewis released his first song, I’d moved to London, met Dom and started with Yungblud. It was a crossroads at that point – Lewis was like, “What are you going to do? Are you going to play for me or play for Dom?”
Was that a difficult conversation?
No, it was totally chilled. I think his dad was like, “Fuck you!" [laughs] But his band and crew are all his best friends. I think he was a bit gutted that I ‘d taken the journey so far with him and then decided not to go on. But it felt too easy for me – like it was always a given that I was going to play guitar for him.
When I moved to London I thought, “I fancy a bit more of a challenge. I’ll try and make it another way.” I felt like I was riding on his coattails a little bit.
Was it complete luck that you met Dom, aka Yungblud?
I met Lewis’ old manager, Scott, to go to a gig, and before we went we bumped into two people that worked at Dom's management. They were like, “We’re looking for a guitarist.” And Scott was like, “Adam will do it!” We went to the gig and Dom was there, and the guy who’d end up being our drummer [Mikey Rennie] was playing drums on stage.
Dom's talked about the instant connection you had at that moment. But what happened next? When did you first play together?
When we showed Idols to the label, they were like, “Who’s gonna listen to this?” It was our worst fear – ‘This is why we have to conform!’
He said, “Come up to my dad’s guitar shop,” which was Hank’s [on Denmark Street]. He was like, “Just pick any guitar off the wall.” I can't even remember what I picked up. We just jammed a bunch of songs he'd written that ended up being on the first EP – King Charles and Tin Pan Boy.
I was living in a flat that didn’t have any heating. It was just a bedroom, with a bunch of random people in other rooms, and no one ever spoke. It was super-weird. Dom came over and was like, “What the fuck is this place!?” So I basically moved in to his flat, and we just played loads of shows.
What are your memories of those early Yungblud shows?
It just felt normal to me straight away, being back onstage with a band. It was really nice – but we only had four songs. We used to say it was like going into a room, throwing a grenade then walking out. By the time we’d finished they'd be like, “Wait, what?”
The first proper tour, it was only three of us, around all the Propaganda night club venues. There’d be a DJ playing, and they'd be like, ”Ladies and gentlemen, Yungblud!” We'd walk on stage and people would be like, “Who the fuck is this?”
I remember in Birmingham, funnily enough – at the O2 Academy, where Sabbath played their final [full] gigs – we got up on stage, and the second we played the first note, everyone turned around and walked to the bar!
It’s cool that we went from that to selling out the Utilita Arena [in the same city]. It's been a crazy journey, seeing it from the start to where we are now. But then the whole Back To The Beginning thing really turned it up. It’s been mental since then.
Tell me how Idols came together. I heard it was in the Tetley's beer factory?
It was the brewmaster’s house. It's an old building in Leeds that our friend Bob owns; he had a recording studio there, the Black Lodge. Dom had a revelation over New Year's 2021 after watching Love and Mercy, The Beach Boys movie. He was like, “I want to go do that – I want to go have fun!”
He called me and was like, “Do you want to come and write the album?”Before that, it was like, “What do people want from me?” But we went, “Who fucking cares? Let’s just write music that we want to listen to.”
I preferred my Casey Jones Les Paul over the ’59. But I was also scared to touch the ’59 because it’s worth 300 grand!
We did it over four years – it was mad because we liked all the songs, but when we [first] showed them to the label, they were like, “Who the fuck is gonna listen to this?” It was our worst fear – “Oh my God, this is why we have to conform!”
So Dom released the third album, and I don't think he necessarily loved it; I certainly didn't. There’s some good songs but he was just like, “I wanted to release Idols.” So we came back, and in the final year we wrote Hello Heaven and Change and a bunch of the other songs.
What did that time look like?
We basically just lived in the studio for a year, and Dom’s dad was bringing along nice guitars every week. I played a ’59 Les Paul on some of the songs. There was an old Beatles-era Casino. There was a ’54 Strat that was kicking about. I actually preferred my Casey Jones Les Paul over the ’59. But I was also scared to touch the ’59 because it’s worth 300 grand!
All the 12-string on the album was an old Burns, but it was so badly intonated that when it came to playing live, I needed something more, I needed the Hog!
What about the tones on the album?
The two heads onstage are fake. Dom threw so many guitars and broke so many Bluesbreakers and Plexi heads that we're just like, “Nah!”
Marshall will hate me for saying this, but 90 percent of all the dirty guitar on the album was a Tiny Terror through a Marshall 4x12, because that's all we had in the studio. There were a couple vintage Plexis and there was a Dumble at one point.
There’s a lot of mythology around Dumbles as well.
I don't think that we got on with it, to be honest! Matty [Schwartz, producer] was an avid user of digital amp models, and I fought with him so much… probably for the first year, he’d be like, “We’ll just use the plugin.” I was like, “We’re not using the fucking plugin!” I fought him that much that he ended up loving this Tiny Terror, just through an SM57.
You’re using tube amps onstage too. That’s quite unusual for a large touring outfit now. Has that always been the case?
Yeah – when the digital era started coming in, everyone was like, “Convenience! Consistency!” I was like, “But that’s not fucking rock and roll!” When Adam’s guitar tech Ben joined, he came from that world. I was like, “I’d rather be inconsistent, and it sound different every night.”
So now we're running four amps at once [a Hiwatt Custom 20, a Hylight, a Marshall Plexi 59 handwired and a Marshall Jubilee]. I think we’ve got it dialled.
What are your main live guitars now?
The Murphy Lab is the main guitar. In America last year we needed another guitar to change. We’d dropped a song down half a step – Hello, Heaven, because it's such a hard song on Dom’s vocals. I went to Gibson and the artist rep gave me that for the tour. I think I played it for one song, and I went, “That's my main guitar. Put that in standard. The other guitar can go in D.”
Casey Jones [another Les Paul] was my main guitar for a while. We bought it on Ben's credit card in the first rehearsal he ever did with me. I stuck a DiMarzio Super Distortion in it, because I felt with the PAF-style pickups, I wasn't getting enough clarity in D standard. Because of the extra gain the Super Distortions sound great.
I imagine some stuff gets damaged on a Yungblud tour. What have been the big breaks?
The Casey Jones had the neck break when I bought it. I remember being in Paris on the first show of the European tour – the first show of that guitar's life – looking under a blue light in soundcheck and seeing the neck, and being like, “Those motherfuckers!”
The two heads are now fake because Dom smashed so many fucking amps onstage. He's gotten so much better over the years as he's matured a bit, but he threw so many guitars at my amps and broke so many Bluesbreakers and Plexi heads that we're just like, “Nah!”
I got really obsessed with Zakk’s playing last year. It’s not the pinch – it’s the aggressive picking
Then, actually – this is bad – but we used to use the Hughes and Kettner Red Box cab sim, and what I didn't realize was that it doesn't take the load. Dom was so loud onstage with his amp, and he wouldn't turn the volume down, so I’d unplug the speaker from his one. He probably blew up every amp he ever played through in America!
Who are the guitarists you’d still love to meet?
Jimmy Page. Tony Iommi would be a huge one, and probably Zakk Wylde. Last year when everyone was like, “Dom’s gonna be the next Ozzy!” I was like, “Well... if Dom’s going to be the next Ozzy, I’m going to be the next fucking Zakk Wylde!” [laughs]
I got really obsessed with Zakk’s playing last year. It’s not the pinch – it’s the aggressive picking. He picks every note; that Al Di Meola kind of thing. My left hand does all the work, usually, and I'm trying to get my right hand to keep up.
Yungblud has inspired a lot of people to play. What’s the most important advice you’d pass on to people picking up the guitar?
Learn things by ear. It’s literally the only reason I’m doing this job right now, because I can’t read music. I can read tab, but it’s just awful, Learn it by ear. You really figure it out then.
Keep trying to find ways and players that keep you interested in it. When I was younger it was always about, “Who's the best guitarist?” But who cares? Be as original as you can and use your inspirations to sound the way you want to sound – that’s all you really need.
I’m way happier since I accepted that I’m not the best guitarist in the world. I’m like, “Who cares? I’m playing arenas. It’s fucking awesome!”
- Check out Yungblud’s upcoming tour dates.
