5SOS Frontman Luke Hemmings Opens Up About Writing His Debut Solo Album

Luke Hemmings is debuting his first solo album, and he opened up about why he “needed” to branch out from his role with 5 Seconds of Summer after about a decade.

The 5 Seconds of Summer vocalist released his first single from his new album, “Starting Line,” in June. When Facing the Things We Turn Away From is out now.

To mark his album release, Hemmings answered 20 questions from Billboard about his songwriting process over the years and now. Hemmings revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic spurred his work on the solo album by making him “look back at a lot of stuff that I hadn’t dealt with,” he told Billboard. “It changed by songwriting style slightly to somewhat become more of a daily [practice].” He added later: “On a personal level, it almost felt like I needed to make this. I needed to say these things and I needed it to feel like this and be packaged in a way that had this hyper-emotional feeling to it.”

Hemmings acknowledged that for an artist who wrote a dozen songs for his new album, he’s at “a loss for words” today. He wrote on Instagram:

“For someone who poured everything into writing these 12 songs, it’s ironic that I’m at a loss for words. Blown away by the support so far and so grateful to everyone who takes a chance to listen to this record. When Facing the Things We Turn Away From is now yours. What a beautiful dream. ❤️”

Listen to When Facing the Things We Turn Away From on iHeartRadio here.