Luke hummings6/25/2023 ![]() It was a strange 18 months, but I’m so stoked with what I’ve made. “I always speak about the band because I want people to know that I love being in 5SOS, but just because I’m in this one thing doesn’t mean that I can’t do something else creatively. The whole album revolves around that theme, so that title felt very natural.”īranching out on his own from 5SOS wasn’t a decision taken lightly but it’s one Hemmings feels is justified. And the only way I know how to do that is by writing songs, making music and trying to figure out why I am the way that I am. “Going from 5SOS at such a young age and then being inside for a year, I had to face my past. “Every song on the album speaks about being on a unique walk of life,” he tells me. Contemplatively titled When Facing the Things We Turn Away From, the record collects his memories and feelings of being in 5SOS while also looking forward to the future, both alone and alongside his beloved bandmates. Revelling in this time of self-reflection and inspired by the supreme songwriters he was listening to, Hemmings decided that it was finally time to release his debut solo record. It’s why when the pandemic hit last year, it offered him the unexpected opportunity to take stock of his life up until this point. Having been in Australian pop-rock group 5 Seconds of Summer from the tender age of 14, Hemmings had only known one way of life for the past decade: incessant touring, overwhelming adulation and constant recording. Such is the case when you’re also the frontman of one of the biggest boy bands of the 21st century. Many of his Nine Songs selections are recent discoveries, made during the dislocation of the last year, of classic artists that Hemmings knew that he should have listened to more by that point but had just never found the time. Stuck away from family and friends, then, the isolation of lockdown led him to find connections in the words of other artists. He speaks of the sadness he feels at not being able to return back home in a long time and asks me keenly how things are ‘Down Under’. When we meet via Zoom to talk about his favourite songs, he’s in Los Angeles and it’s a small irony that I’m in Australia, Hemming’s home country.
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