Gotta Get Out – 5SOS and One Direction

Article by: Thetommoway_arg

When One Direction was taking the world by storm during their six year run, everyone was introduced to several things that inflicted their fans and the world. From everything to hair styles and fashion choices to music listened to and promoted would trend not just within the fandom but worldwide as well. Today we’re going to go over arguably one of the most popular things to come from One Direction : 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS). The band consists of four members: lead guitarist Luke Hemmings, rhythmic guitarist Luke Hemmings, bassist Calum Hood, and drummer Ashton Irwin.

In the early days before the band was officially formed Luke, Michael and Calum all went to the same high school, but just because they all went to school together doesn’t mean that they were all friends. In fact, according to Luke in their official book “ Hey Let’s Make A Band,” “It’s funny, Michael and I didn’t like one another when we first met a couple of years earlier in year 7”.[x]

In year 9 at their local high school Luke and Calum decided to enter their school talent show, which Luke said might’ve started a small rivalry due to Calum having previously done the talent show with Michael. Just before the talent show Luke proceeded to make his Youtube Channel Lukeisapenguin which has now turned into the bands official account.

Luke started out at age 14 with posting covers including, but not limited to Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars and Please Don’t Go by Mike Posner. Shortly after the talent show performance, Luke’s YouTube started to gain traction and Luke claims that this had broken the ice with Michael who warmed up to Luke. Then all three boys, Michael, Luke and Calum all started posting covers and messing around with covers on the Youtube channel, and decided to form a group and called themselves 5 Seconds of Summer. Michael decided on the name in his Science class and told the rest of the guys the name he had picked out [x]. And quickly thereafter, Calum wrote their first song and named it Gotta Get Out. The first time that Michael, Calum and Luke all came together for a performance was when someone had reached out saying that there was an opportunity to perform at a local movie theater for about 20 people, so none of the boys considered this to be their first official gig [x].

After a few more guitar covers were posted Michael decided that they needed a drummer as not all of them could play guitar and they needed a drummer for an upcoming show [x]. Michael had heard of Ashton, who was one town over, due to performing with several other bands as a drummer. Michael messaged Ashton on Facebook and told him about an upcoming gig that they were needing a drummer for [x]. After a few more guitar covers were posted Michael decided that they needed a drummer as not all of them could play guitar and they needed a drummer for an upcoming show [x].

Michael had heard of Ashton, who was one town over, due to performing with several other bands as a drummer. Michael messaged Ashton on Facebook and told him about an upcoming gig that they were needing a drummer for [x].

The next gig that they consider to be their first major gig was December 03, 2011 which is also considered the start of the band, was at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney, which has a history of launching bands and being milestones for up and coming bands by being a nurturing environment [x]. By this time the band already had its own official Facebook, Twitter, and of course Luke’s YouTube channel which had amassed around 10k followers at this point [x]. When posting the event on their Facebook they had around 200-300 people respond saying that they were going, but only around 12 people plus the parents arrived [x]. After the gig finished they officially asked Ashton to be a part of the band and that was the start of something amazing.

Shortly after the famed Annandale gig the band posted a Youtube video of all four boys performing was a cover of Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus, , which, as of the publishcation of this article, has 10 million views. Some of the early analytics showed that Sweden and Norway had some impressive viewership at times having more viewers overseas than locally in Australia [x x]. The next year around, March 2012, the band had officially obtained a manager named Adam Wilkinson and continued to practice 4 times a week [x x].

Adam ended up getting the boys to professionally record and video their song Gotta Get Out, along with getting them a small tour around Australia for two weeks on the weekends in four cities [x x]. At this point they were also throwing around ideas for logos to place on t-shirts to bring with them to the venues to sell. They came up with their first logo of the five tally marks and placed that on a shirt in black and a shirt in white.

They were doing all this while continuing to write songs, go into rehearsals, and continue to post on their YouTube and go live on Twitcams for their fans, all while they were 15 and 16 years old.

June 26, 2012, the band released its first EP with four acoustic songs with two covers and two original songs on the EP.

The release of this EP was to help gain fans due to them opening for Hot Chelle Rae on their Australian leg of their World Tour in October 2012.Then a life-altering tweet from Louis Tomlinson was tweeted November 16, 2012, telling people to check out the band with a link to their video of Gotta Get Out. As of the publication of this article, the tweet has over 80k retweets, 95k likes, 2.5k quote retweets, and 1.9k bookmarks.

Adam is the one who got the boys the gig to tour with One Direction on their Take Me Home Tour in 2013 [x]. With signing onto becoming One Direction’s opening act they ended up signing with One Direction management company and moving to London to ultimately fine tune their craft. On December 7, 2012, the band released their first non-acoustic EP which included 3 new original songs and Gotta Get Out.

In the span of the Take Me Home Tour the band performed at 119 shows as an opener for One Direction [x]. While performing these shows the band couldn’t afford personal trainers, vocal coaches, hair and makeup people, etc, so they used One Direction’s crew [x]. The Australian and New Zealand leg of the tour sold around 190,000 tickets [x]. While touring with One Direction they also occasionally performed acoustic sets in malls, radio stations, and outdoor parks and continued to do the Twitcams and Video Diaries all while being 16-17 [x]. In November of 2013, the band officially signed an album deal with Columbia Records, and they moved out to Los Angeles to start working and recording their first studio album [x].

On February 05, 2014, the band released their debut single She Looks So Perfect. The single debuted at number one in 4 countries including the UK which hadn’t been done by an Australian band since 2000 [x].

The highly anticipated music video for the single released on February 24, 2014, which features the band singing while men and women dance and strip down to their underwear due to the lyric, “You look so perfect standing there, in my American Apparel Underwear [x]. The video went viral accumulating over 300 Million views as of the publishing of this article. The success of this video got the band the nickname of The Underwear Band. March 23, 2014 the band released their third EP She Looks So Perfect which had 3 other new original songs plus 4 additional songs which differed depending on where you were in the world [x]. This EP charted to number two on the global charts, but was blocked by Frozen’s movie album coming out [x]. March 24, 2014, One Direction asked the boys to come back and be the opener for their Where We Are Tour [x] Between the release of the EP and the release of the debut album, the band was constantly doing promo, radio interviews, and small tours. On May 9, 2014, Don’t Stop, the second single of the album, came out and debuted at number 2 on the UK charts [x]. The third single was Amnesia and debuted on July 15, 2014, and peaked at number 7 on the UK Chart [x]. July 22, 2014, the band released their debut album titled 5 Second Of Summer and it debuted at number one in 14 countries [x]. At the end of 2014 in November the band went on a year long headlining tour with dates in the US and Europe.

Between the start of 5 Seconds of Summer and their first headlining tour was only a whopping two years. Within that time frame the band won 19 separate awards across multiple award shows and was nominated for an additional 16 awards. The massive amount of success that the band has had can greatly be attributed not only to the band and it’s members hard work ethic, but also because of One Directions helping hand with boosting the public’s interest in the band.