- 2022-09-24
-
MUSIC
-
-
Donate to support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine ➔ 5 Seconds of Summer Releases New Album “5SOS5”: Streaming
Australian pop rock band 5 Seconds of Summer, consisting of Luke Hemmings (lead vocals/rhythm guitar), Michael Clifford (lead guitar), Calum Hood (bass) and Ashton Irwin (drums), released their fifth studio album “5SOS5” on September 23, 2022 via BMG Rights Management.
It is their firs album in two years since the 2020 album “Calm”.
The album comprises 19-track, including preceding singles “Complete Mess”, “Take My Hand”, “Me Myself & I”, “Blender" and “Older”.
After the pandemic shut the world's borders, the band recorded the album at Joshua Tree in Southern California for 10 days in November 2020. Guitarist Michael Clifford produced the sessions at Rancho V recording studio.
Luke Hemmings told Apple Music about the album, “The album is definitely very introespective. I think, like a lot of people in the last couple years, the only way to look was inward — For us, anyway. Lyrically looking into everything that's ever happened to us has been a big sort of topic, and not doing this everyday and being on the road was kind of a different experience for us. For me, the whole album is the most introespective and the most lyrically beautiful [one that we've made so far]. There's just so much heart in it.”- SJYO0p8CpQc
- SJYO0p8CpQc
The band told 1075 The River about the album title, “When our fourth album, CALM, came out, our fans were already kind of referring to the next album as 5SOS5 anyway, and that sort of got to this point where we were, like, “It's gonna be called 5SOS5 no matter what we call it.” So, this for us is sort of our self-titled album re-released, it's kind of how we've been thinking about it.”
5 Seconds of Summer explained track-by-track for the album via Spotify.
“COMPLETE MESS”
“This is one of the first songs we wrote for [5SOS5], and was also the first song we released. Ashton asked, “What does everyone feel like writing?” and this is what came out. We recorded at Rancho V in Joshua Tree, fueled by cold brews and good vibes. This song was the first time in the writing process that the band really felt we got it right. We had found our sound and knew what we were aiming for. We're really proud of that in this chorus, it all happened so quickly within an hour.”
“Easy For You To Say”
“This one started with Luke and Calum sat at a Juno and an organ. Michael spearheaded this direction of the sonic, while Ash captained us towards excellency with the top line. The main organ in this song was actually recorded on a $12 organ from a yard sale. It had real magic to it and is the foundation of the whole song. We were writing a lot of free-flowing lyrics, everything came so naturally in the first writing session. Many songs on the album reflect on metamorphosis, moving foward by getting through obstacles that have been stuck in your way for a long time. When we wrote this, we hadn't been home for a long time and the Sydney lyric is really important. Thinking about where you want to end up and perhaps settle down in the city we grew up in.”
“Bad Omens”
“One of our favourites in the album. It feels like fall in Australia. Jason Evigan absolutely nailed this production. We recorded the gang vocals at the end of this song together all in the same room, rather tham layering it harmony by harmony. “Bad Omens” was recorded towards the end of the album process. A lot of the songs that we made were just on our own, and towards the end it was really fun to be able to fill in the gaps. Like, we need a song with more tempo or whatever it might be, and this song was definitely that. Really satisfying to have something missing on the album, then totally fill that spot. I love how big this gets to the end with the strings, and the rising chord in the chorus is really cool, it's a beautiful song.”
“Me Myself & I”
“The first time we heard this was in front of Michael's house in Los Angeles. At the time, it was only guitar and Jon Bellion's vocals in the track. This song originally didn't even have drums on it and we felt like something was missing. It really shows the meaning in the music video, where you're cycling through whatever those different parts of yourself may be. I've really grown to love this song. It's clever and it still has 90s feel, but in a very modern way.”
“Take My Hand (Joshua Tree Version)”
“This song was another blessing from Joshua Tree. We wrote it on our second trip out there. We tried re-recording a bunch of vocals, but we just never really beat the magic of that first recording, and in some parts, you can actually hear the other three of us talking in the background of the other room. There's an inner dialogue with songwriting, in the last couple years we really hit a stride and tapped into it. There are times to wrestle a song and perfect it, but this one came in such a natural, sicere way and we wanted to stay true to that.”-
“CAROUSEL”
“We wrote with Sierra Deaton on this one. She has an innate ability to compound all our perceptions of the concept into one cohesive overarching storyline. Started with the versem we were chasing down this sort of Jony Mitchell style lyric and dove into that. The production on this, we really pushed it to its limit. The song originally had a whole different beat structure, but then we experimented a little and ended up changing it to four on the floor beat you hear. It completely changed it and helped us find the life. It was meant to be this energetic up-tempo song. Michael did a really great job on production and we're really proud of this one.”
“Older”
“'Older' was originally a voice memo of a 50's-style love song that Luke wrote with Sierra almost as a joke, then forgot about it. Michael loved it and thought it was beautiful, so they finished it with him and Michael Pollack. The song changed a lot from the original voice memo, but the main line in the chorus was the crux of the whole song. This song's theme has been sung in a few different ways over the years by many artists, but this really captures the feeling. Despite all the beauty, the ups and downs of a long-term relationship over many years, there's inevitably going to be the worst moment of your love because one of you is going to lose each other. That's what we tried to capture in this song.”
“HAZE”
“'HAZE' is definitely the most riff-based song on the record. It started with this guitar riff in the intro with two different layers over the top of it. We wanted to make a Two Door Cinema club meets Tame Impala kind of a riff-based song which has become one of the band's favourites. “HAZE” was written at Michael's house — We were very inspired by Coldplay and U2, where the guitar riffs are ear candy, and we tried to do that on a lot of the songs in this album. I remmeber Ashton singing this chorus, it's a real cruiser. It's not trying too hard and it feels like it floats. It's a great song to listen with the windows down while driving on the highway.”
“You Don't Go To Parties”
“One of the few songs that started just on piano, then Ashton brought the lyrical heat to this one. This song feels like 5SOS mixed with a country style, the way the drums and everything play around it. It's storytelling.”
“BLENDER”
“'BLENDER' was made toward the end of the album process. It was one of those feelings of going in for something specific and we got exactly what we wanted, and that's not always the case. This was the first time working with Peter Thomas and Jake Torrey. So thankful to Pete for writing this bassline, but playing it and singing it takes it to another level. This song feels closer to Youngblood and CALM and I think it really carries that over to 5SOS5.”
“Caramel”
“This songs is one of our favourite songs on the album. It started with a voice memo of the chorus part. We took it in and went straight to the piano at John Feldman's house to work on it. Ashton had that really cool idea of four-part harmonies throughout it, like a Half Moon Run thing. This has everything you want in a 5SOS song: Crazy guitar lead, cool rythm section with the acoustic, vocal harmonies, and a really beautiful concept. This was our attempt to finally crack the bass cover market on YouTube, hope we did it. It was special to go work with John Feldman and do something like this after not working with him for a little bit, and sort of progressing that sound that we started with him all those years ago.”
“Best Friends”
“'Best Friends' started in the desert, Michael had the string staccato part and we built the vocals and the melody around the gaps phonetically in that rythm. “Best Friends” went through a bunch of different lyric stages. Getting this story of what friendship can be like to other people, but also what friendship is like to us personally. We definitely wanted this chorus to be one that unites everyone at a concert with us. It's super high energy and this song is just full of love.”
“Bleach”
“We wrote this with Sarah Aarons, and it actually started as this tiny little piano riff that Michael played called “GOOD MIDI THING.” This is one of Michael's favourites, he's done a really great job in the production. All the electrionic stuff that he loves and that we all love is in this track. He's done a really great job of making that into something that the band can play, it's a really great mixture of everything. This was acturally originally a jingle pitch for Clorox.”
“Red Line”
“When we were 16-18 years old, we used to catch the Red Line in London to go to all of our songwriting sessions. This started as an acoustic song with Michael on the Juno. Ashton sang the chorus and post-chorus first, and it almost sounded like a Michael Jackson melody, then Ashton took the idea home to write the verses. There's an amazing voice memo of Ash singing the verses in this Johnny Cash style with a low voice. We really focuses on guitar riffs on this album, and instead of big power chord guitars, we use riffs in clever ways to add hooks. This is the last song on the standard album. It's melancholic – we're all on this train of life. Calum played the piano part at the end and we added the train doors to close it out.”
“Moodswings”
“Another song written with the amazing Sarah Aarons. Michael played these chors, then Ashton did the vocals in the booth in one take, and then we dove into the verses back in LA at Michael's house. We love this ode to our older sound, but donw in a hopefully tasteful way.”
“Flatline”
“Love the juxtaposition of the dark verse to the candy pop uplifting chorus with the running acoustic. We wrote this with Rami, SLY, and Brian Lee. Best consumed with a margarita and surrounded by good friends.”
“Emotions”
“We always loved Michael's voice in this track. It stuck out to os that only he should sing this song. And he produced it, too! What a legend.”
“Bloodhound”
“This song would have lived for 22 months before it was to be released. Love the way this chorus floats. Another great Michael production!”
“TEARS!”
“The rhythms in this song are so beautifully structured throughout the song. Such a dark beautiful song. Ashton really shone with his songwriting ability on this, and it was obvious it had to be him leading the vocal.” - source : Apple Music
