Why Machine Gun Kelly compared Yungblud and himself to Elton John and Jimi Hendrix
Machine Gun Kelly is an undoubtedly successful musician, with lots of fans, awards and record sales to his name, but to place him in the same category as the likes of Elton John or Jimi Hendrix seems, to be frank, like a bit of a stretch.
But, having said that, those comparisons have been made. Not by critics or by other artists, though. To the contrary, MGK took it upon himself to drop his name alongside those of these two greats.
During an interview with NME back in October 2020, MGK reflected on his working relationship with Yungblud, with whom he had recently made the song ‘I Think I’m Okay’. He felt like they played off each other well, but, to illustrate his point, he arguably oversold things by bringing up Elton and Hendrix.
MGK was speaking about Yungblud’s “immense love for rock ’n’ roll”, which he believed matched his own energies as an artist, and it led the pair to “gravitate towards each other”.
But their partnership had its limits, especially in light of the times. This was during the pandemic, so they were unable to physically be in the same space. They weren’t even in the same country, with MGK being in the US and Yungblud being in his home country of the UK.
It was the transatlantic nature of their connection that led MGK to draw the unlikely connection between himself and Yungblud to Elton John and Jimi Hendrix. Describing the partnership as “a dope, across-the-pond thing”, he felt like he held things down in the US, while Yungblud handled things over in the UK.
“Together we can make some sort of union of rock stars,” he went on, “We’re like Elton John and Jimi Hendrix back in the day”.
Even this point, taken on its own terms, is a bit flimsy, as it’s not like Elton and Hendrix were part of some great musical partnership in which the American Hendrix “held down” the US market while Elton did the same in Britain. They were both stars of the same generation, but that’s about it, really.
MGK often seemed keen during this period to portray himself as a real ‘rock star’, playing into the tropes that often come with that label. His fourth album, Hotel Diablo, on which ‘I Think I’m Okay’ featured, pivoted into a more rocky sensibility, so comparing himself to older rock stars served the image he sought to project at the time.