5 Seconds of Summer: Hey, Let’s Make a Band!: The Official 5SOS Book. Литагент HarperCollins USD

It was always bands like Counting Crows and Smashing Pumpkins, and the guitars would be blaring out of the lounge, but it was nice because they were in love. The sight of them staying up and listening to music together is a really cool memory for me.

      Those times also taught me a lot about different bands and developed my taste in music. My musical tastes were a little bit different to a lot of kids at school, I guess. I didn’t go to the same place as the other guys, and when I started at Richmond High School I was really into pop–punk bands like Green Day, Blink-182 and The Living End – stuff I’d discovered when I was making my mixtapes. Green Day quickly became my favourite band ever. I loved their energy and the songwriting.

      I think the first song of theirs that blew me away was called ‘Jesus of Suburbia’. I used to love their singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, and I would play a Green Day live album called Bullet in a Bible all the time. I listened to it so much that I knew the words off by heart – even the parts where Billie Joe would talk to the crowd. They were definitely the band I wanted to be in when I was growing up.

      When I was around nine, a friend of mine called Lachlan asked me if I wanted to be in a band with him. He was a guitar dude and he had a drum kit at his house. I figured, ‘Yeah, I want to be in a band, just like Green Day!’ The only problem was, I hadn’t learned to play any instruments at that time – but that didn’t stop me! I told Lachlan that I could play the drums and he seemed pretty happy to have me come round to his house to play.

      When my mum dropped me off and I got inside, I sat behind the kit and tried to play a song called ‘The Mexican Hat Dance’, but it was so bad. Lachlan looked at me funny. He was like, ‘You can’t really play drums, can you?’ I tried to laugh it off. ‘Yeah, I can,’ I said. ‘I’m just not very good today.’

      Luckily for me, Warwick was a drummer. I remember seeing him later that day and saying, ‘Hey, can you teach me something? Next week I’m going back to Lachlan’s and I want him to think I can play.’ As soon as he gave me a lesson, I picked it up really quick. I fell in love with the drums after that. I couldn’t get enough – that’s all I did from that moment.

      When I got to high school, the swimming started to be too hard for me. I was competing in regional events, and I even reached state level, but by the time I was 14, I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t get to hang out with my friends or play the drums as much as I liked, so I told my mum that I didn’t want to swim any more. It was devastating for her, but I’d had enough. I hated it.