5SOS Makes Videos With 'Messages'
(MENAFN- Arab Times) Australian pop-punk outfit 5 Seconds of Summer won a 2015 MTV Video Music Award for "She's Kinda Hot" Sunday night in the fan-voted "Song of Summer" category. Variety caught up with guitarists Luke Hemmings and Michael Clifford, bassist Calum Hood and drummer Ashton Irwin at the Vevo Certified Live concert earlier this month, when the band was celebrating 100 million views for its biggest video, "She Looks So Perfect." 5SOS shed some light on what they think makes a good video, the "cool revolution" they've started with their followers and what fans can expect from their upcoming sophomore album, "Sounds Good Feels Good."
Question: At what point in your songwriting process do you guys start thinking about a video?
Hemmings: It depends. Sometimes you're writing a song and you have an image whilst writing a song. I don't think you ever base a songwriting process around a video, but when you're writing a song sometimes it'll be a very visual song.
Irwin: I think the video ideas come from when we get toward the campaign, sort of at the end of the writing process. You want to convey a message to your fans. Here at 5 Seconds of Summer, we love making videos with actual messages. We're not into shallow videos.
Q: What's important to include in music videos these days?
Clifford: I still think music videos are really about choreography and especially special effects now. Just loads and loads of the most hot women in bikinis you can fit in the video. Like Flo Rida.
Hemmings: It's about getting the message of the song across as well as you can. With "She's Kinda Hot," it was about a place for our fans to fit into the "new broken scene." With us on the float in the video, we're leading the leaders of the "not coming backs" and all our fans, and they're following us in this cool revolution.
Q: Are there other artists' videos who have influenced your videos?
Irwin: I think a lot of '90s and early 2000s bands made some pretty cool videos, in the sense that the grades they used and the tone of their videos were cool.
Hemmings: I love the idea of making fun of yourself as a band and having the really cool performances and the humorous side of it. All those videos in the '90s and 2000s.
Irwin: We're not hugely into copying people, though. We really want to do something different and unique and interesting to people. We try to have elements of our favorite videos in our videos, but then we really put our own 5SOS twist on it.
Clifford: I think it's that bands in the '90s used to have a message in their videos. We've always wanted to have a message. Not one that's, like, so obvious, but if you read deep enough into it, you could get it.
Q: Will "Sounds Good Feels Good" have similar lyrical content to your first album?
Clifford: We explore loads of different topics. It varies between songs. There are still songs about love and stuff that we wrote about on the last album, but it really goes into loneliness.
Irwin: Even childhood.
Hemmings: I think on the first album, we were so young. We had stuff to write about then and I love all the songs that we wrote. With the second album, though, we've toured the world for a few years and we've done some stuff. We're older now and we've been through more. On the second album I think that really comes across. It's much more personal.
Much like the MTV Music Video Awards themselves - hosted by Miley Cyrus in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday - the event's red carpet was full of over-the-top ridiculousness and crazy antics.
The long, winding carpet was packed with thousands of reporters, photographers and screaming teens, who were told at one point by a woman's voice blaring over the PA system, "Kids, you need to back up."
In addition to the usual photos and interviews, the carpet was treated to several live performances, including Nick Jonas' performance of his new song "Levels," an energetic cover of "Uptown Funk" by Todrick Hall and Walk the Moon, who played their hit "Shut Up and Dance."
Walk the Moon's summer sing-along jam has been part of a crop of songs in contention for this year's song of the summer, which - without a ubiquitous and earworm-y track of "Call Me Maybe" proportions - has been a highly debated topic in certain circles over the past few months.
Youtube savant Tyler Oakley asserted that Jepsen, in his heart, is still queen of the summer.
Images of Kanye West's face on Mount Rushmore and a potential White House takeover by the Kardashian reality TV clan fired up social media on Monday, a day after the rapper virtually hijacked a rambunctious MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) show as he declared he planned to run for US president in 2020.
West, who is married to Kim Kardashian, sparked dozens of satirical memes on social media after his rambling, 13-minute speech on Sunday - when he admitted he had "rolled up a little something earlier in the night - while accepting the Video Vanguard award for lifetime achievement.
Although most viewers saw West's presidential declaration as a joke, a Maryland college student on Monday filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to set up a political action committee called Ready for Kanye.
Eugene Craig III, 24, chairman of the Young Minority Republicans Fund, told Reuters he hoped West would consider running as a Republican in 2020.
"We think he is a champion of a lot of issues and he has an interesting perspective. (The PAC) is not just a joke," said Craig, a student at Bowie State University.
West, 38, scored the award show's top hashtag, #Kanye2020, according to social analytics company NetBase. The show became the most-tweeted television program since Nielsen began tracking Twitter TV activity in 2011, with some 21.4 million tweets sent in the United States alone.
West's declaration of presidential ambitions triggered images of his face imposed on Shepard Fairey's familiar 2008 Barack Obama "Hope" campaign poster and pasted on Mount Rushmore alongside the sculptures of US Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.
Fantasy opinion polls showed West running ahead of Donald Trump, who has been leading polls among the many Republican presidential contenders, while another viral post placed Kim Kardashian, as well as sisters Khloe and Kourtney, outside the White House.
Question: At what point in your songwriting process do you guys start thinking about a video?
Hemmings: It depends. Sometimes you're writing a song and you have an image whilst writing a song. I don't think you ever base a songwriting process around a video, but when you're writing a song sometimes it'll be a very visual song.
Irwin: I think the video ideas come from when we get toward the campaign, sort of at the end of the writing process. You want to convey a message to your fans. Here at 5 Seconds of Summer, we love making videos with actual messages. We're not into shallow videos.
Q: What's important to include in music videos these days?
Clifford: I still think music videos are really about choreography and especially special effects now. Just loads and loads of the most hot women in bikinis you can fit in the video. Like Flo Rida.
Hemmings: It's about getting the message of the song across as well as you can. With "She's Kinda Hot," it was about a place for our fans to fit into the "new broken scene." With us on the float in the video, we're leading the leaders of the "not coming backs" and all our fans, and they're following us in this cool revolution.
Q: Are there other artists' videos who have influenced your videos?
Irwin: I think a lot of '90s and early 2000s bands made some pretty cool videos, in the sense that the grades they used and the tone of their videos were cool.
Hemmings: I love the idea of making fun of yourself as a band and having the really cool performances and the humorous side of it. All those videos in the '90s and 2000s.
Irwin: We're not hugely into copying people, though. We really want to do something different and unique and interesting to people. We try to have elements of our favorite videos in our videos, but then we really put our own 5SOS twist on it.
Clifford: I think it's that bands in the '90s used to have a message in their videos. We've always wanted to have a message. Not one that's, like, so obvious, but if you read deep enough into it, you could get it.
Q: Will "Sounds Good Feels Good" have similar lyrical content to your first album?
Clifford: We explore loads of different topics. It varies between songs. There are still songs about love and stuff that we wrote about on the last album, but it really goes into loneliness.
Irwin: Even childhood.
Hemmings: I think on the first album, we were so young. We had stuff to write about then and I love all the songs that we wrote. With the second album, though, we've toured the world for a few years and we've done some stuff. We're older now and we've been through more. On the second album I think that really comes across. It's much more personal.
Much like the MTV Music Video Awards themselves - hosted by Miley Cyrus in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday - the event's red carpet was full of over-the-top ridiculousness and crazy antics.
The long, winding carpet was packed with thousands of reporters, photographers and screaming teens, who were told at one point by a woman's voice blaring over the PA system, "Kids, you need to back up."
In addition to the usual photos and interviews, the carpet was treated to several live performances, including Nick Jonas' performance of his new song "Levels," an energetic cover of "Uptown Funk" by Todrick Hall and Walk the Moon, who played their hit "Shut Up and Dance."
Walk the Moon's summer sing-along jam has been part of a crop of songs in contention for this year's song of the summer, which - without a ubiquitous and earworm-y track of "Call Me Maybe" proportions - has been a highly debated topic in certain circles over the past few months.
Youtube savant Tyler Oakley asserted that Jepsen, in his heart, is still queen of the summer.
Images of Kanye West's face on Mount Rushmore and a potential White House takeover by the Kardashian reality TV clan fired up social media on Monday, a day after the rapper virtually hijacked a rambunctious MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) show as he declared he planned to run for US president in 2020.
West, who is married to Kim Kardashian, sparked dozens of satirical memes on social media after his rambling, 13-minute speech on Sunday - when he admitted he had "rolled up a little something earlier in the night - while accepting the Video Vanguard award for lifetime achievement.
Although most viewers saw West's presidential declaration as a joke, a Maryland college student on Monday filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to set up a political action committee called Ready for Kanye.
Eugene Craig III, 24, chairman of the Young Minority Republicans Fund, told Reuters he hoped West would consider running as a Republican in 2020.
"We think he is a champion of a lot of issues and he has an interesting perspective. (The PAC) is not just a joke," said Craig, a student at Bowie State University.
West, 38, scored the award show's top hashtag, #Kanye2020, according to social analytics company NetBase. The show became the most-tweeted television program since Nielsen began tracking Twitter TV activity in 2011, with some 21.4 million tweets sent in the United States alone.
West's declaration of presidential ambitions triggered images of his face imposed on Shepard Fairey's familiar 2008 Barack Obama "Hope" campaign poster and pasted on Mount Rushmore alongside the sculptures of US Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.
Fantasy opinion polls showed West running ahead of Donald Trump, who has been leading polls among the many Republican presidential contenders, while another viral post placed Kim Kardashian, as well as sisters Khloe and Kourtney, outside the White House.
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the
information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept
any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images,
videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information
contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright
issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.
Comments
No comment