5 Seconds of Summer Reflect on 'Nasty' Boy Band Tag

5 Seconds of Summer say they have fully embraced the boy band moniker with their new album after years of criticism.

Appearing on the Rolling Stone Uncut podcast, the Sydney band discussed the tongue-in-cheek approach in promoting their sixth record, Everyone’s a Star!, out today, which was teased with online posts that read “your favorite boy band is back”.

Drummer Ashton Irwin said it was both a shot and a nod back to the critics.

“Well, that’s punk, isn’t it? It’s more just thank you for such a sharp tool,” Irwin said.

“Pop is a conversation with society, to us. The things you call us, we can turn them into firepower, creatively. And that’s really a bit of a breakthrough psychologically for us. Call us more things, we’ll just make a pop song out of it and utilise that conversation.

“When people would call us a boy band when we were younger, it was almost to emasculate us and make us feel smaller than we were and to belittle our dreams as musicians. It was nasty, but we weren’t intellectualising it enough to use it as a mirror… it was a bit of a breakthrough when we did that on this album and and actually just accepted it fully.

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“If you you say we’re that, then this is our version of that, which is funny because it’s been very enjoyable and cathartic to to use that language to our advantage, you know?”

Watch the full interview above or listen below.

5SOS will return to New Zealand and Australia next year in support of the new album.