Luke Hemmings
I think as a teen who was thrust into the public eye pretty quickly, I got overwhelmed easily and felt constant pressure to be a certain type of person.Collection: Teen
I think I learned 'Smoke On The Water,' then 'Eye of the Tiger,' then 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.'Collection: Teen
Coming home is what helps keep us sane.
I think on stage I would like a cheeseburger to be thrown at me.
We're not trying to be anything that we're not.
It's nice to miss somewhere.
We have this determination to keep going and keep pushing ourselves creatively.
We never tried to be anything we weren't.
I'd want to play the Sydney Opera House.
We are all human and all make mistakes, sometimes we hurt the ones we love and inevitably, ourselves in the process.
At primary school I was in a world of my own and often I would get told off for being too loud, Then when I was around six, I woudn't go to class. I would be in school , but running around the playground having a great time while everyone else was in lessons.
Time just gets away from you so quickly. And there's these moments that will never come around again. And there's something so terrifying, but also so beautiful about that.
What makes us so different from anything else is we're a rock band with a boy band fanbase.
You write different songs when you're 16 or 17 to when you're 22 or 23.
I think our fans were the same age as us when we came out. I think they grew up with us.
Good Charlotte is the reason I started playing guitar.
I had the Foo Fighters' 'Live at Hyde Park' DVD, and my dad had the AC/DC box set, and I used to watch them all the time.
I had the Slash 'How to Play Guitar' DVD. I just wanted to be the best guitarist, like, ever. My brother played guitar, and he taught me 'Smoke on the Water,' and I played it over and over again for ages.
You've got to be this massive entity on stage, and just bring people in and make them have a good time.
Obviously we're pop songwriters.
I grew up with a lot of Australian rock music. My dad loves AC/DC and INXS was a big one. My mom was more on the softer musical end of the spectrum, so Crowded House and stuff like that. Definitely all of my rock influences are very Australian typical.
When you start a band like we did - we started with pretty pop-punk roots - the whole plan is to get out of the whole town and to make something of yourself.
I was very lucky to be a part of going to so many different countries and cities and seeing so many different cultures and people, living that lifestyle at such a young age.
A lot of bands have to change what they sound like, but we are exactly the band that we want to be: a pop band, definitely, but we've got a rock and punk edge.
We're not the new anything. We're the first 5 Seconds of Summer.
The first gig we ever played was at a pub in Sydney called the Annandale Hotel to approximately 12 people.
I love the spirit of early pop punk and we incorporated that into our earlier albums.
AC/DC being such a huge Aussie band is definitely something I carry with me, and it still means a lot with us being from Australia.
I love Michael Hutchence from INXS and what he used to wear.
The only way to be original in your songwriting is to write about your own experiences, and I think that's what we try to do as a band.
Those American '90s bands shaped us.
I think it's really important to have a good team around you. They're the ones that are going to make you go the whole way so you gotta treat them really well.
We feel quite comfortable on stage. That's our happy place.
I truly believe that 'Easier' is the beginning of the best era for 5SOS.
Usually if I'm going on a date, I know that the person is good.
You know who does really good chips? Australian KFC.
When you're 16 you write about different things to when you're 21 and have fallen out of love and been on the road for six years and have a house.
I just see us as songwriters.
Wow. Debuting No. 1 on the ARIA charts on my first solo release means more than I could ever express.
I don't know anything about the Chicago Bears, but I know a few things about bears. I know they eat fish out of rivers sometimes. They like salmon. They're cuddly-looking, but they're very vicious.
I think for a band like us, we're all really close friends. We grew up and went to school together. We're not by ourselves.
If there's a problem we can talk to anyone in the band. There's other people around us. Everyone in the band are on the same level. We know and help each other.
The first album was written over the course of a couple of year while we were supporting One Direction on tour. It was us trying to figure out exactly who we were as a band.
For this second album, which was written in about three months, we knew exactly who we were and what we wanted to do.
The Swedish style of songwriting is so mathematical.
When you're driven to your absolute limit, working 14 hours for 14 days straight, you have to know what you want, and not listen to all this other crap outside.
The thing is, all the lyrics come from us.
I would ban guns in the States. It's just such an epidemic that's been happening for so long.
Everyone wants to know everything that you do when you're in a job like this.
You know what, if you play 'She Looks So Perfect' backwards... you just listen to it.