5 Seconds of Summer Artistfacts

2011-
Luke HemmingsLead vocals, guitar2011-
Michael CliffordGuitar, vocals2011-
Calum HoodBass guitar, vocals2011-
Ashton IrwinDrums, vocals2011-
The spirited rock band 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS) formed in 2011 when Luke Hemmings, Michael Clifford and Calum Hood were high school students in Sydney, Australia. They all ended up dropping out of school in 2012 or 2013 because the band got very popular very quickly. The fourth member, Ashton Irwin, who went to a different school and graduated in 2012, soon after he joined the band.
The original trio gained a following by posting YouTube videos of cover songs, including Mike Posner's "Please Don't Go" and Chris Brown and Justin Bieber's "Next 2 You." Shortly after, they recruited Ashton Irwin as their drummer.
The group's popularity exploded after One Direction's Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson tweeted shout-outs to them after watching one of their videos (it was later revealed that 1D had a financial interest in 5SOS). 5 Seconds of Summer would be the opening act for One Direction on their 2013 Take Me Home tour and their 2014 Where We Are tour.
Clifford had a brief relationship with actress-turned-singer Abigail Breslin. He claims her 2014 single "You Suck" was written about him. The lyrics single out the scar above his eye, his "fly to the moon" tattoo, and his formerly bleached hair.
The band's 2014 self-titled debut album peaked at #1 in 11 countries, including the US. The big hit from the album was the first single, "She Looks So Perfect."
The band members were teenageres when they rose to fame and had many young female fans, but they refused to accept the "boy band" label. "That implies that we don't play and we don't write our own songs," Hemmings told The Sun-Herald. "It makes us seem a bit fake."
Hood has several tattoos, including ones of his father's and mother's initials on his hands.
Hood's sister, Mali-Koa Hood, competed on the first season of The Voice (Australia).
The #vote5sos hashtag was used to unite fan army votes for 5 Seconds of Summer around the 2014 American Music Music Awards. It was the biggest music-related hashtag to emerge in 2014.
Michael Clifford was the genius behind 5 Seconds' band name. He came up with it during math class.
5 Seconds of Summer played their first show at Sydney pub Annandale Hotel on December 3, 2011.
From 2013-2016 they were either on the road or in the studio pretty much all the time, and it burned them out. The took some time off before recording their third album, Youngblood, which was released in 2018 and includes the hit "Want You Back."
They play with such intensity, it takes a physical toll. By the time they released their fifth album, 5SOS5, in 2022, the band had been together for 10 years but were still just 26-28 years old. Still, they realized they needed to slow their roll "A decade of touring really makes you aware of the fickleness of your physicality," Ashton Irwin told Dork.