Willow and Yungblud are in the studio together
The pair teased a collaboration on 'The Yungblud podcast' in July
By Joe Goggins
Yungblud and Willow appear to be working on music together.
The idea of a collaboration between the Doncaster pop-rocker and the US singer was first mooted back in July, when Willow was a guest on Radio 1’s ‘The Yungblud Podcast’. “I think I’m going to be in London pretty soon, so I’ll hit you,” she said. “I would absolutely love that,” he replied, “and if not, we’ll get some fish and chips.”
Their trip to the chip shop would appear to be on hold for now, with the pair pictured in the studio on Willow’s Instagram story. They had previously been seen together last week on Yungblud’s story, backstage at Willow’s headline show at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. In addition to a shot of the duo together, Willow’s story showed Yungblud sitting beside a mixing console, guitar in hand.
They’re unlikely to struggle to find common musical ground, with Willow’s latest album, July’s ‘Lately I Feel Everything’, steering her towards pop-punk, but demonstrating a genre-blending approach not unlike Yungblud’s own, with nods to emo and nu metal worked into the 26-minute record. The most recent Yungblud album, 2020’s ‘Weird!’, explored similar territory.
They already appear to be on the same wavelength; during that conversation back in July, they discussed their mental health and the struggle to overcome fear. “For so long, I had a lot of fear,” said Willow. “I felt extremely unsafe in my music career in the past and that feeling of insecurity or unsafety [sic], like I didn’t feel protected, which went really deep.”
From a showbiz family as the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow recalled the difficulties she encountered launching her pop career at a young age. “I kinda had to come back from the music industry and now I’m kinda going back in,” she explained. “It’s interesting because all of those memories and emotions have just been resurfacing.”
“I was doing The Jimmy Fallon performance,” she continued, “and I had a flashback of being like 10 or nine and having an anxiety attack on set and basically feeling like everyone around me was like, ‘You’re just a brat, why aren’t you grateful?’ They didn’t see it as an anxiety attack. They saw it as a tantrum, and now I look back, and know it was an anxiety attack.”
Earlier this week, Avril Lavigne revealed that Willow will feature on her as-yet-untitled new album, due early next year. Meanwhile, Yungblud is gearing up to release a short film based on his song ‘Mars’ in the spring of 2022.