Photo credit Mike Finnegan

Suara had that warm Bali haze that wraps around you the moment you step through the trees. The air moved slow and the crowd drifted in loose waves toward the main stage where Youngr was setting up his gear. He worked with the calm focus of someone who lives inside rhythm. Cables, pads, drums, all placed with a kind of muscle memory that comes from years on the road.

This piece comes from a moment in 2024 when one of my writers, Mike Finnegan, caught him right before his set. The festival was still finding its shape and Youngr carried the same spark he brings to every show. Quick jokes, sharp instincts, and that easy Manchester charm that pulls you in.

We bring this interview back in 2026 as part of our look at live producers who shape the new festival era. The scene keeps moving and Youngr keeps moving with it. This conversation shows where he stood in that early Suara chapter and why his approach still hits today.

We ducked into the airconditioned green room tent backstage and let out a shared sigh, taking a moment in the cool air that carried us back to the familiar climates of our homes, far from the warm coasts of Bali. For Dario Darnell, known on stage as Youngr, that home was Manchester, England. For me, it was Galway, Ireland. After a beat, we exchanged a glance of relief and took a seat.

The electronic bootleg master of Manchester was set to take the main stage at Suara Festival in an hour as one of the most anticipated acts of the weekend. He built his name on a vast and eclectic catalogue of genre bending electronic covers of unlikely hits from the 90s and early 00s, yet Dario stands far from the image of a DJ bobbing behind a glowing laptop.

His performances lean into a kind of controlled chaos, a display of multi instrumental skill with sharp jazz instinct and tight timing. He darts across the stage mid track to pull one of the many instruments scattered across the one man setup. Youngr feels driven to push past the old idea of the detached contemporary DJ or, much like his widely loved bootlegs, reshape the role entirely.

As Dario prepared for a high energy lead up performance before Suara Festival’s headliner, Angus and Julia Stone, I watched his crew gather what looked like an entire ensemble’s worth of instruments. By my count there were multiple keyboards, two drum kits, an electric guitar, a djembe, bongos, a synthesizer, several mixing boards, loop pedals and a tambourine, because Manchester has a long standing love for the tambourine.

After some quick talk about Bali’s bright beauty and its traffic, Youngr and I got down to brass tacks.

Mike Finnegan
In your track Boy from Manchester you address the stereotypes and expectations you faced growing up in Manchester: “I don’t like football and I don’t play cricket / I don’t like hip hop and I don’t play reggae / Don’t like Oasis, don’t play Tom Petty…”

Before we go any further, we need full transparency. I, Dario, am a die hard Oasis fan and a proud supporter of the Gallagher brothers. So I have to ask, do you really dislike Oasis? If so, what is the story, morning glory?

Youngr
(laughs) Alright, hang on, hang on. When I was a kid, because I lived in Manchester, everyone expected me to like Oasis. And I think I was a bit of a contrarian. I liked to go against the grain. So part of me was like, “Nooo, I fucking hate Oasis…” And my dad is American, so a lot of my musical influences were American rock, like Incubus, Slipknot, Deftones, Limp Bizkit, that world. So I was always like, “No, English Brit Pop is fucking shit…” But now that I’m older, I appreciate songwriting, and I admit Oasis is amazing. (laughs) They have some incredible songs. And the attitude of the brothers, they are brilliant. It took me about twenty five years to finally come around and see the genius of Oasis.

Mike
You heard it here first, folks. Youngr loves Oasis.

Youngr
(laughs) I was late.

Mike
I really love your track Boy from Manchester. It is brilliant. And I appreciate how it explores the way perspectives shift with personal growth, and how you come to value parts of your youth that you once pushed away. It is a quietly powerful track that resonates with a lot of people, especially those with culturally mixed backgrounds. I grew up in New York and spent much of my life in Galway, Ireland, so I have a mixed accent myself. I appreciate how you acknowledge the accent flack that comes with that experience. It can be relentless.

“There was a boy from Manchester
Who never quite fit in
With his curly hair and light skin
He kinda sounds American
His dad was never home
He was a rolling stone
And his friends called him crazy”

Youngr
It is true. I think the term is Third Culture Individuals, where you can’t pinpoint one place as home. It becomes all the places you’ve lived, all the places you’ve gathered as home.

Mike
You can clearly see a wide range of cultural influences throughout your music, both lyrically in your songwriting and in the diverse catalogue of tracks you’ve covered, bootlegged and remixed. From Papa Roach to the Backstreet Boys, and everything from the 90s to the early 00s in between. You cover early Coldplay, Nirvana, U2, The Temper Trap, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park and more. It is an eclectic mix. What makes a track jump out at you and inspire a remix? What makes you lean in and think, “Yeah, I’ll have a bit of that”?

Youngr
Honestly, it’s the songs I grew up on and love. Every song I’ve done, at some point in my life, I’ve loved it. I remember being a kid, like ten or eleven, hearing Backstreet Boys. That bass line (hums beat to Everybody, sings “Oh my God, we’re back again…”) It felt like being a kid again, going to the Friday night disco and sliding around on my knees. Then it moved on to Papa Roach when I was first learning drums, and Limp Bizkit when I was learning how to be in a rock band. So at some stage these songs touched me and shaped my musical outlook. When I sit down to remix songs, I pick my brain and think, “Which of these songs impacted me, and how can I do my own thing with them?” It comes down to what I love.

Mike
I think the 90s are finally getting the recognition they deserve as a powerful era for music. When we were kids, we looked back and thought, “The 70s, that was it. That was the pinnacle.” Now we look back at the 90s and see how incredible that era was.

Youngr
Yes. We’re getting old, bro. (laughs)

Mike
Never. Let’s talk about another track of yours for a minute.

Youngr
(laughs)

Mike
Out of My System is an empowering piece that explores embracing life again after the end of a relationship.

Youngr
Well guessed.

Mike
Is there a story behind that track?

Youngr
Oh, there’s a massive story. I had just broken up with a long term girlfriend. I was in a band that was touring the world at the time, but it wasn’t my own music. It was a covers band. We were doing gigs everywhere, and I was in that phase of my life where I thought, “Fuck it, I’ll go wild. I’ll say yes to everything, I’ll do everything and live life to its max.”

Because there’s an urgency when you break up with someone. The urgency is to say, “Ah fuck it, let’s go.” And I wanted to pass on something that might inspire others to consider that. Instead of sulking, just be like, “Nah man, let’s go.” That is the energy I wanted to share.

Mike
It is refreshing because you usually hear that perspective from artists like Taylor Swift. So it is nice to hear a male perspective on that feeling and situation.

Youngr
Absolutely.

Mike
So I know you haven’t had much of a chance to explore Bali this time around, but what are your impressions of Suara Festival? What are your thoughts on the setup and the vibe? Have there been any acts that grabbed your attention?

Youngr
It’s incredible, really creative. I love the stages, the arts and crafts, the labyrinth stage, and all the workshops, yoga and breathing sessions. And there are lots of spaces for kids as well, so it feels like a very family orientated festival, which I really like.

I really like having the oldest people and the youngest people at the festival all feeling welcome and excited about the music and everything. Those are the kind of festivals I love playing. So I feel right at home, man.

Mike
So I know you’re about to hit the stage, but knowing that you’re both an artist and a lover of technology, I’d love to get your views on AI coming into the picture. What are your thoughts, visions, hopes, fears?

Youngr
Oh my God. You know what, it wavers. One day I’m like, “Oh my God, we’re all fucked, I’m not going to have a job,” and the next day I’m like, “Wait, no, it’s going to be amazing because AI will help musicians do things that were harder in the past. If someone finds it hard to write lyrics, it can help with that. Or if someone finds it hard to write drum beats, we can do that a bit more easily.”

And then I’m thinking, when I sit down at my workstation and I go, “Ok, I want to write a song that sounds like this…” I can hear it in my head. I think it’s going to be quicker from my head to a finished product using AI than it is the traditional way. But what we’ll miss are the clumsy moments and mistakes you make along the road as a human that end up being the thing that makes the track special, because you didn’t know you were going there.

AI will cut that part out and you’ll get to a finished result before you can experiment with where it could have gone.

You’ll be able to produce more music. Maybe you’ll make ten tracks a day and one of them is good. You know what I mean?

So every technology is a double edged sword. There are a million amazing things, but at the same time there are a million bad things. And I think it’s going to happen anyway. There’s no stopping it. So I think we should find a way to embrace it and use it in a good way.

Mike
Do you have any strategies in place yet on how to tackle these imminent changes to the industry?

Youngr
No, no. The old school musician in me is scared, because I’m like, “Fuck, it’s my whole livelihood.” But the other part of me who’s hustling to keep his head above water is going, “Keep with it. Keep with it and embrace it.”

Mike
Do you have any upcoming projects? Anything in the works that your fans can expect?

Youngr
Yeah, I’ve got loads of new music. I was working on new music literally in the taxi here, and I’ll be back at it in the taxi to Bali Airport. We should be dropping a new song in September, and I’ve got a new track called Changes out now with a singer called Greta Svabo, which is great. She’s a long term friend and I haven’t made music with her for years, but it’s a really special track. And there’s going to be a lot of new music from September on.