Luke Hemmings is presenting his brand-new cd period with the reflective “Shakes,” and to commemorate, the 5 Seconds of Summer singer took a seat with Billboard‘s Rania Aniftos to go over the composing procedure.
“I already had a lot of ideas for the album from being on the road, a lot of it was written in hotels and planes and all the sad boy places,” he remembered with a laugh. “That’s where a lot of it came from. The chorus was written in New York, and I was experimenting with pitching my voice, which is why the chorus kind of sounds like me but has other layers of pitched vocals.”
He proceeded, “I listened to a lot of The Verve, Blur, M83 and Beach House, which is where a lot of the inspiration came from. A lot of how I write for this project is pretty chaotic, so I’ll write a piece here and then won’t write anything for the rest of it for nine months. It turned into a mish mash of a story but it still has that emotion and feeling.”
And no, the various other 3 5SOS participants — Ashton Irwin, Calum Hood and Michael Clifford — have actually not listened to the brand-new songs yet. “I try not to play it for too many people. The whole point is to try and stand on my own two feet, but I will play it for them, for sure,” Hemmings described.
As wherefore he desires followers to pick up from his approaching songs, the 27-year-old celebrity disclosed, “I’m a very private person online and socially, so I think these songs are very much a window into how I see things and how I see the world. It’s stepping into how I see things and I hope they resonate with it on a personal level.”
Watch Billboard‘s complete meeting with Luke Hemmings over.
