5 Seconds of Summer. You guys have hardly been born, and you're already humongous.
Hardly born. Foetus band.
But can you tell me the story of, I mean, how did you guys meet? How did 5 Seconds of
Summer even come about?
You want the inside scoop.
I want the inside scoop.
We all went to the same school together. Ashton wasn't there.
I wasn't here yet.
And I put some videos of myself up on YouTube, of me playing and singing really badly and foetus-ly.
-It wasn't that bad. -You were pretty good.
I used to watch your videos before I was in the band.
I saw them when he started to get quite popular.
You thought I'm going to get on this.
I was like woah. I dived in. I dived in. It was a business decision and I said,
maybe we should start a band. And then somehow, I don't really know how it happened but Calum
got in the band. How did you do that?
I don't know.
No one officially asked Calum to join.
I just assumed because like I was best friends with you.
He was just friends with us, so he just assumed he was in the band. Just like yeah guys.
I think they were a little too scared to be like you know what Calum...
We then booked a gig.
We're set. We just need a drummer. And then Michael...
-Well we weren't really set, were we? -We weren't set at all.
The first time Calum played a bass was on stage for that gig, but we're not there yet.
We're not there yet.
You have to wait.
I messaged Ashton. I said, in this voice, I said: "Hey man. What would you say about
playing a gig to 200 people?"
And I was like woah. And I was like woah, that's a lot of people. I would love to do
that, so I said: "Yes Mr Clifford. I would love to play this show with you." So we played
this gig. We played lots of really poorly learned and executed Blink-182 covers and
one really bad Adele cover.
And what was that?
It was Rolling in the Deep.
And we played some original songs that Calum had written.
And they were kind of cool. That's when I actually was like, man I really want to be in this band.
I remember us discussing backstage: "Should we ask Ashton to join?"
And I must have been on the toilet at the time because I was usually backstage as well.
Yeah, and then Calum literally proposed to him.
-He did. There's photos of it, yeah. -That's so romantic.
-Yeah, it's pretty cute. -And I said yes.
What's the craziest thing a fan has made you?
-Made us? -Or kind of done for you?
They like to throw plastic boobs at us.
-They're more like squishy. -Squishy.
-I don't know. What material is that? -I don't know what they're made of, but they throw them at us.
They don't hurt. Someone threw a Rubik's Cube at me on stage the other day.
-That's such a strange thing to throw. -It was quite pointy.
Talk me through your debut single. What is it about?
-Well... -It's about a girl.
It's about... No, we wrote the song with our friend Jake Sinclair in LA, and he sort of
came in with the idea of the chorus. So it's sort of like, she looks so perfect standing
there standing in my American Apparel underwear. And he's like bear with us, it's kind of weird...
And I was like yeah that's cool. We really like weird lyrics. The song's about having
the person there wearing your clothes after you've woken up or whatever, and there's something
so sweet about it I guess.
-I've got a theory. -Okay. Give us a theory.
So I think American Apparel underwear is really ugly.
Yeah, they're not the best underwear.
So I think if you think a girl looks good in American Apparel underwear, then she's perfect for you.
But the thing is. That's the theory, but that's not what we were thinking when we wrote it.
That's like the underlying message.
-How many times have we been asked this question? -But we didn't know that.
-Me and Michael... -We didn't know that. We were just like underwear. Yeah!
We thought underwear sounds cool. Let's go with that.
But that was actually what we went.
I really, really enjoyed your video, and it made me laugh because I thought around a brainstorm
session when you're thinking oh what should we do in our video? Hold on a minute.
Why don't we just make sure everyone gets naked?
That sounds great. Who's down?
The director Frank Barnes came to us with the video, and we're like yeah, we love everyone
to be naked in our video. That's the ideal first video.
As many people.
What more could you want from a video? So yeah, we ran with it.
And did you choose your models or were they chosen for you?
No, they were chosen.
No, we wanted like a broad spectrum of people. We didn't want some like just like epic babes
to be in the video. We wanted people with beards, people with funny haircuts, like all types of people.
So um, moving away from underwear and onto One Direction. And you guys went on tour with
them, and you're going on another tour with them. What are they like? Off camera, off
stage, hanging out.
-The same. -They're pretty much the same as they are.
I think that's what we like about them as a band is their characters. They're real people.
They were massive supporters of us, like on the tour backstage, they were always like
watching us on stage.
Yeah, yeah good dudes.
Who is up for the most laughs?
I think they're all larrikins. I think...
-What did you say? -They're pretty comedic dudes.
Sometimes I usually can't help but laugh at everything Niall says.
Do you know who's an underrated funny guy in 1D? Louis.
No, he's not underrated. Everyone knows he's hilarious.
Yeah, I find Zayn funny.
What's the best piece of advice that they've shared with you, passed on or you just got
from working alongside them?
Yeah, I mean, I got a load of stuff just from watching from afar, just like how they like treated their...
From the bushes. (laughter)
But yeah, just how they treat their crew and how they're so professional. It's really crazy.
Their work ethic. You have no idea how hard working they are.
Say Irish wrist watch.
-Say that. -Irish wrist watch.
That is difficult. Irish wrist watch.
It's really hard.