5 Seconds of Summer's Ashton Irwin is releasing a solo album, check out first track 'Skinny Skinny' now

Ashton Irwin - he of 5 Seconds of Summer fame - has announced a debut solo album.

It's called 'Superbloom', and will arrive on 23rd October. The record was recorded after Ashton noted an empty touring and recording schedule with 5SOS at the start of lockdown. Made in his LA home with his producer husemate Matt Pauling, a press release lists influences including "Foo Fighters, Nick Drake, Helmet, Silverchair, Stone Temple Pilots, My Bloody Valentine, & Curve". Oooo, etc.

There's a first single from the record to hear too. Titled 'Skinny Skinny', it was inspired by a deep dive into the works of the previously name-checked Nick Drake, and concerns a conversation with Ashton's 15-year-old brother about body image.

“He’s already caught up in his own mental image of what his body should look like,” explains Ashton. “I thought that was such a crippling trap for a young man to try and walk through. I needed to write a song that captured the pain of body dysmorphia. I have been through stages in my life where I’ve been sickened by that state of mind”.

Speaking about the album as a whole, he reveals: “The over-arching narrative is support system, healing, recovery, strength and focus on true self. I felt like I had a lot to write about.”

“I had to reach a certain level of lyrical maturity in order to write about something I actually cared about. I think it’s always important as an artist to have a mission statement, like, ‘why do you make music? Why do you write the lyrics you write?’.”

“It was really freeing and inspiring to me,” he says. “The journey I was intending was growth, self-understanding, self-reliance when it comes to song-writing and production. The songs I’ve written for this record couldn’t be sung by anyone else but me.”

And yes, he has played the rest of 5SOS the record - he did it just a few hours after finishing. “I wasn’t scared because I’d told myself, ‘trust yourself, you’re proud of this record and you know these guys are your best mates and they will fucking get it’," he recounts. "It was awesome, I felt stoked to show them”.

You can check out 'Skinny Skinny', and the album's tracklisting, below.