I remember when I was a kid, I, “Did you listen to Pink Floyd as a kid?” and he was like, “Oh no, they’re too psychedelic.” I think it’s so funny because this album is super influenced by them but he was never into them.ģ. I listened to so much Pink Floyd the last couple of years, especially, and was very influenced by them, particularly Dark Side of the Moon. Definitely all of my rock influences are very Australian typical. My mom was more on the softer musical end of the spectrum, so Crowded House and stuff like that. My dad loves AC/DC and INXS was a big one. I grew up with a lot of Australian rock music. How did your parents shape your music taste? I bought a CD of Good Charlotte’s The Young and the Hopeless, I believe.Ģ. What’s the first piece of music that you bought and what was the format? Settled at home in Los Angeles with his now-fiancée, singer-songwriter Sierra Deaton, the 25-year-old found himself obsessing over the uncertainty of time and dissecting the blur of the years he spent growing up on the road.Īhead of the release of When Facing The Things We Turn Away From, Hemmings answered Billboard’s 20 questions about his relationship with songwriting, overcoming self-imposed pressures and creating an ethereal, over-emotional album as a bookmark in this chapter of his life.ġ. For the first time in nearly a decade, Hemmings was indefinitely still. When the pandemic brought the world to a stop, the band’s promotional cycle for its fourth studio album, last year’s CALM, was cut short, and the band’s touring plans pushed to 2022. In the following years, the band found itself whisked away on endless tours in support of its first three albums - 2014’s 5 Seconds of Summer, 2015’s Sounds Good Feels Good and 2018’s Youngblood - all of which hit No.

The quartet played small gigs and studied the art of pop songwriting as their musical vision came to fruition. ”I was literally scared to even try,” she explained on Instagram, but we’re glad she saw the freedom on the other side of her fears.The past 10 years have been a whirlwind for Luke Hemmings, to say the least.Īt 16, the frontman of 5 Seconds of Summer left Sydney to move to London with his bandmates Ashton Irwin, Calum Hood and Michael Clifford.

Selling out her 17-city arena debut was something that wasn’t once fathomable to the New Jersey-bred singer. SOS is currently certified double-platinum and spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No.

The evidence is all there no special guests appeared throughout the night and the overall tour amassed an estimated $34.5 million. SZA birthed a new rendering of herself with her sophomore ascent without apology or explanation. SZA performs onstage during SZA The SOS North American Tour.įiguratively riding a wave of commanding dominance with a massive anchor placed behind her, SZA jumped right into a slew of bangers like “SOS,” “ Kiss Me More,” “Love Language,” “Snooze,” and “ Kill Bill.” The anchor represented impenetrable endurance while the waterfall that followed seemingly depicted a moment of clarity as she merged into “ I Hate U” and “The Weekend.” As the dawn of a new day surfaced over the horizon and eventually bled into an array of stars illuminating the night sky, it signaled the “Good Days” ahead, a heartwarming conclusion to the show. The woman of the hour appeared on a diving board singing “ PSA”-the official teaser that ushered in the arrival of SOS back in November 2022-before jumping into the fictional deep end. When the lights cut to the show’s opening visuals, we were transported to sea, with seagulls heard flailing in the sky as waves crashed into one another. And Europeįans swarmed the entrances of the Kia Forum in Los Angeles for the penultimate night of the SOS Tour, evidently ignoring the chilled weather based on their attire and humming melodies as they waited to see SZA take centerstage. SZA's 'Kill Bill' Breaks Nearly 20-Year Record Held By Mary J. SZA, Jorja Smith, Josh Levi, And More Deliver New R&B To Get Lost In Nearly a decade later, the First Lady of Top Dawg Entertainment is still graciously in awe of herself, having unleashed two successful albums that still chart on the Billboard 200 and earned a Grammy. Starring one of the few artists dominating R&B right now, the nearly two-hour experience is a literal live-action film-and arguably the most entrancing concert experience from a mainstream act in recent years.īack in 2014, one of SZA’s earliest gigs was as an opener on Jhené Aiko’s Enter The Void Tour. Her first arena tour is a blaring alert, humbly juxtaposing “big d**k energy” and her return to the throne.

Sos with hummings