Yungblud is a guitarist who embodies the spirit of the glory days of rock n’ roll, and that extends beyond the music. His destructive tendencies are impacting his gig rig.
The Yorkshireman and Aerosmith collaborator’s star has been rising ever since blowing people away at Back to the Beginning, even if his MTV VMAs performance saw him catching strays from Dan and Justin Hawkins.
His love of launching electric guitars across the stage, though, has been giving his band and crew some headaches.
“The two heads onstage are now fake because Dom [Harrison, Yungblud’s real name] smashed so many fucking amps,” sighs Adam Warrington, Yungblud's touring guitarist. “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!’
“We used to use the Hughes and Kettner Red Box [cab sim], and what I didn’t realize before was that it doesn’t take the load,” he adds. “Dom was so loud onstage with his amp, and he wouldn’t always turn the volume down, so I would just unplug the speaker from his amp. He probably blew up every amp he ever played through in America, to be honest!”
His main guitars, when he isn’t throwing them like darts, are a Murphy Lab Les Paul, which was quickly bumped up from its status as Yungblud’s second guitar, and a second Les Paul named ‘Casey Jones’. His signature SG Junior also features.
“The Murphy Lab is the main guitar,” Warrington asserts. “I went over to America last year, and we needed another guitar. We dropped Hello, Heaven down half a step 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. The other guitar can go in D.’”
Casey Jones, meanwhile, presumably named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character rather than the 19th-century American railroader, has had a choice upgrade.
“We bought it on Ben’s credit card in the first rehearsals that he ever did with me,” Warrington details. “I stuck a [DiMarzio] Super Distortion in it, because I felt like the PAF-style pickups weren’t getting enough clarity in D standard, but because of the extra gain, the Super Distortions sound great.”
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After working with Aerosmith, Yungblud has gone on to collaborate with the Smashing Pumpkins, and Billy Corgan has labeled him “a visionary.” But don’t expect to ever see him join a band. He has his reasons.
Yungblud’s full interview with Warrington will be published online in due course.
