Sammy Hagar has tipped Yungblud as “the next superstar on this planet”.
The former Van Halen frontman, 78, was blown away by the 28-year-old rocker’s performance of Black Sabbath’s Changes during the late Ozzy Osbourne’s final concert with his bandmates, Back to the Beginning, this summer.
Asked during a round of NME’s Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?! quiz whose music he has been enjoying of late, he replied: “Yungblud is the next superstar on this planet. I saw him at Ozzy Osbourne’s Back to the Beginning singing Changes and I became a huge fan overnight. He was on earlier than me and killed it. When he came offstage, I joked: ‘Hey dude, you can’t do that to an old guy like me! Have some respect!’ [Laughs]”
Hagar’s praise for the Fleabag singer comes after Yungblud was left furious after The Darkness frontman Justin blasted his MTV VMAs tribute to Ozzy, saying: “Yungblud seems to have positioned himself as a natural heir to the Ozzy legacy, having nothing to do with the really important stuff.”
However, he later insisted it was nothing personal against the musician – whose real name is Dominic Harrison – and he was merely giving his opinion on a performance.
In a new video on his Justin Hawkins Rides Again YouTube channel titled Yungblud And The Cost of Having An Opinion, Justin said: “There’s nothing ‘feudy about it, especially when it comes to my reactions to the VMAs performance. None of that was intended to incite a feud. I think that Yungblud is a very well-connected and, as such, dangerous artist. He’s an individual who is not the sort of bear you’d go round poking.
“But I think that when there’s real-time pitch correction happening [referring to his criticism of Harrison’s use of autotune] and stuff like that, and the other observations I made about the overall delivery of it… you’re talking about somebody that came from musical theatre via Disney and is now being lauded as the future of rock. And if they have real-time pitch correction and that kind of background, I think it’s OK to be a bit skeptical about it.
“I know that’s not a very popular opinion but from the reaction community if you can’t say something negative about something that leaves you only one opinion available to you and that’s not how life works. Everybody’s allowed to say whatever they want.
“I’m not slagging him off because… I don’t even think I’m slagging it off actually. I think I’m making a point that if the future of rock requires real-time pitch correction in a live environment rock is pretty f*****, isn’t it?”
Yungblud previously slammed “bitter and jealous” rock star critics of his Osbourne tribute at the MTV VMAs, after he took to the stage with Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt and Aerosmith duo Steven Tyler and Joe Perry to pay tribute to the heavy metal hero, who died aged 76 in July.
The I Think I’m Okay hitmaker said on Jack Osbourne’s Trying Not To Die podcast: “I think the strangest thing about that was all I was trying to do was my best for your old man, because he gave me such a gift.
“When people try and intellectualise a sense of spirit and six musicians on a stage going ‘f****** love you man’, it’s just bitter and jealous.
“They are doing the things they say we are doing – they’re trying to insert themselves into a conversation to obtain some kind of relevancy, on the back of us honouring one of the greatest rock stars that ever lived – and then they talk about authenticity and stuff like that.”
Jack himself insisted, “these people didn’t f****** know” how involved he was in Ozzy’s life.
He added: “They don’t know the f****** story of it, the things we know, and I was kind of like, ‘F*** you dude’.
“Dom meant something to my dad, my dad meant something to Dom. I texted you the night of the gig and I said, ‘F****** crush it.’ ”