2025 gave us a lot of things, including a long-awaited – and absolutely spot-on – collab between Michael Clifford and Awsten Knight. So we brought the 5SOS and Waterparks frontmen together to talk chemistry, creativity and cooking (sort of)…
Awsten Knight has just likened Michael Clifford to a herb. Lemongrass, to be exact. We’re precisely 70 minutes deep into an interview with the pair to get the lowdown on working together for Michael’s debut solo album SIDEQUEST, and, to be totally honest with you, readers, this isn’t quite where we were expecting the discussion to have ended up.
“It’s so good!” the Waterparks frontman grins, expanding on his culinary comparison. “I’m going to get you some tom yum soup – I’ve got three places we could go that are perfect…”
In very Awsten fashion, he’s conjured up this image by way of describing how the four members of 5 Seconds Of Summer – including guitarist Michael – have successfully been able to branch off in recent times. Away from the giant machine of the Aussie pop-rock princes, they’ve each been able to show the world their own individual flavours, if you will.
“It’s so interesting and cool to see, because I like 5 Seconds Of Summer a lot,” Awsten enthuses. “Seeing all of the ingredients separated and then going into a bowl, it’s like you’re making a bomb-ass soup, and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I’ve been eating this for years, and here’s all the ingredients, one by one.’”
“That’s a good way of looking at it,” laughs Michael. “But I don’t think I’ve ever willingly eaten lemongrass, so can you describe it to me?”
Really, Kerrang! should have predicted such a conversational derailment. After all, we’re catching up with two of the alternative world’s most entertaining personalities – “authentically unhinged” is how Michael affectionately describes his Waterparks counterpart at one point. We join them in their respective Stateside homes in the run-up to the release of give me a break! – their collab from SIDEQUEST, along with its music video which smartly and hilariously dives into the curious world of fan-fiction (with a Death Note spin).
Awsten is, unsurprisingly, the more energetic of the two, constantly on the move around his apartment. He begins the interview in a grey hoodie but later takes it off to reveal a black longsleeve and chain necklace, looking every bit the rock star with his quintessential bright blue hair. Michael, meanwhile, exudes a much calmer vibe beneath a beanie and a pair of over-the-ear headphones – but never misses an opportunity to drop in sarcastic one-liners with a soft, American-tinged accent, the product of having left his Sydney upbringing more than 10 years ago.
“Chemistry” is word they whole-heartedly agree on when unpacking their friendship as well as an evidently seamless working relationship, and give me a break! perfectly showcases the magic that’s conjured up from being in each other’s company, particularly when it comes to its genius back-and-forth verse (‘Awsten, you’re making a scene,’ sings Michael, before Awsten bites back, ‘Michael, you do the same thing…’).
“I love songs that can’t be sung by anybody else, you know?” Michael begins, turning to Awsten. “And I love that when you hear this, it’s like you and I are the only people who could have written it. You can hear our DNA in it.
“The references that Awsten and I had for this were the OG Eminem and Dr. Dre conversational stuff,” he continues. “And nobody [in the alternative scene] has really done that. I think doing collaborations that are actually organic and feel real are pretty few and far between – it’s hard to find artists that make so much sense collaborating with each other. And you can just feel it and hear it. That’s why give me a break! was always one of my favourites, because it’s so authentically us.”
“It’s really cool,” agrees Awsten. “And I feel like this isn’t something that alternative artists do a lot. Pop and hip-hop people are always shouting each other out; in Ariana [Grande] and Nicki Minaj’s Side To Side, they shout each other out, like, three times. It’s crazy.”
“I haven’t listened to that song in a long time…” chuckles Michael.
“Well, you should, because it’s awesome,” replies Awsten. “This word is so lame and I feel mediaeval saying it, but there’s a certain camaraderie… what’s a less lame word for camaraderie? There’s a connection. And I just wanted to come in and help. At the end of the day, I want you to be happy with this. This is your baby – your other baby! I’m like, ‘If there’s a world where I think it rips but you don’t love it, then why are we doing it?’ This is your thing, and you need to love this.”
“For sure,” nods Michael. “I’m so particular about everything, and when we landed on the concepts, I knew that I had to love it, but I also wanted you and Waterparks fans to love it – that was equally as important to me. I hate when people do collaborations and it’s so clearly one artist [having all the say]. I really didn’t want to do a disservice to Waterparks.”
On the contrary, give me a break! is an enormous credit to these two brilliant artists and their day jobs – and given how excited Michael and Awsten are about it, may we already put in a request for more, please?
“We’re gonna make another band,” confirms Awsten.
“We’re gonna make three more bands,” Michael corrects him. “We’ll just keep adding people…”
“Okay! One of them is a grindcore band. Another one’s a ska band.”
“I don’t like ska. I’d rather not do ska.”
“Nobody wants to do ska. It’s like community service. Wait – do you have jury duty in Australia? That’s what being a ska band is (laughs). Everyone has to do it a little bit.”
“The ska initiation…”
“We can both play bass, then maybe we could do another set where we both play drums.”
“That’d be so annoying.”
“How so? Name one way.”
“We’re getting sidetracked…”
Awsten and Michael reckon they first officially met in 2018, but in actual fact, their history goes back much further than that. Long before Waterparks got their breakthrough, the frontman had been putting his guitar skills to good use locally by teaching lessons in his Houston hometown. It was there that a girl called Natasha (Awsten has a weirdly good memory when it comes to names) asked to be taught early 5 Seconds Of Summer bangers She Looks So Perfect and Don’t Stop, and he instantly became a fan.
“I didn’t know that,” admits Michael. “I need guitar lessons from you, man! I suck. Did you learn the songs?”
“Of course I did,” he grins. “I think I still know them. There was also this other person I taught, I’m pretty sure it was Anastasia. It was the person with the chunky little wiener dog who would pee every time, whose name was Fergie.”
“You remember the weird dog name but you don’t remember her name?”
“It was a really memorable dog!” Awsten reasons. “Listen, anybody who pees in front of me every time I see them, I will remember you.”
“You’re gonna really regret putting that in Kerrang!…” Michael warns.
Anyway, back to that first in-person meeting. It was April 18 at Texas’ House Of Blues, and 5SOS drummer Ashton Irwin had invited Awsten out onstage to sing She’s Kinda Hot with the band. The two groups had already garnered a feverish crossover fanbase, while Awsten’s Twitter bio had read – in his classic all-caps style – for many years, “CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF I’M NOT IN 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER.” Needless to say, this team-up went down a treat.
“You crushed it!” smiles Michael. “But I don’t know why we forced you to sing that song (laughs). Did you know the lyrics before you came to the show?”
“Yes, but I was nervous that I was going to sing the first verse during the second verse,” says Awsten. “That was my concern. That’s always the singer’s nightmare. I knew the words but I thought I might fuck up – I do that with our shit all the time! But that moment was very validating, because, like I said, I was teaching your songs at guitar lessons, and then it was like, ‘Hey, do you want to come sing?’ It was one of those moments of validation where I thought, ‘Okay, I don’t have to go back to community college!’”
Fast-forward the clock, and as the moment arrived for Michael to collate the solo music he’d accumulated over the years into a proper album, of course he was going to get his buddy involved.
“I was flattered,” Awsten smiles, “because Michael said they were gonna have Jack Harlow do it first, and he was like, ‘No chance. We need Awsten.’”
Wait… you’re having us on there, right?!
“I’m totally fucking around!” Awsten jokes. “You should print that, though.”
“That makes me seem so much bigger than I am,” Michael laughs. “But before my album was even written, I had gone to Awsten because I love his creativity. And I feel like people have been wanting us to do something together since I first heard of your band’s name, so it’s definitely been a long time coming. Awsten was someone who I went to for a gauge on if stuff I was creating was cool. He has a really good eye for authenticity, and especially when it comes to words and things to say and how to get across concepts. I was always asking him a lot and getting his opinion.”
They hung out at a sushi place at first, where Michael played Awsten some of his early demos for SIDEQUEST through his phone. Both feeling the freedom of not having any “baggage” attached to an entirely new project, ideas didn’t just spark, they fully ignited.
“I get so excited thinking about, ‘Oh my god, okay, what’s the colour palette? What’s the message? What’s the log line? Is there a concept?’ And if not, let’s fucking build it,” explains Awsten. “Instantly, it was very exciting, and like, ‘We could do anything.’”
“It was so loose,” Michael picks up. “No idea was bad or stupid or crazy, because it was like, ‘Well, fuck it, why not?’ Every decision was, ‘Let’s just fucking swing.’ If it sounded fun or enjoyable, then hell yeah, let’s do it.”
So appreciative was Michael of this liberating process that Awsten even gets his own ‘thank you’ in the SIDEQUEST album notes, where he’s labelled a “confidant”. But how else would the two describe each other on a work level?
“Perfectionist is one word,” says Awsten. “And that’s not a bad thing…”
“It’s pretty annoying!” counters Michael. “I’ve got one for Awsten! Unfiltered. You throw every idea at the wall, and then you trusted me to take the things that are good. That’s where I thrive: bringing it out of other people where it’s like, ‘You go be creative and go fucking nuts and let me figure it out,’ and that’s what is amazing about what you did.”
“Dude, for Michael, I would also say generous,” continues Awsten. “Sometimes features can be like, ‘You’ve got 20 seconds, and you can’t say fuck.’ (Laughs) I so appreciated being trusted.”
It hasn’t all been plain sailing, though. Just take a look at give me a break!’s video, in which the whims of a fanfic writer take over in real life, to the extent that Awsten finds himself stabbing Michael in the neck with a pencil, poisoning his coffee, smothering him with a pillow and electrocuting him in the bathtub with a toaster. Then, it all comes to a surprising end as the pair solidify their bromance with an on-screen smooch (pretty much sending the YouTube comments into meltdown).
“I knew it was gonna be a great video,” Awsten grins. “When I heard it was about fanfic, I was like, ‘I’m familiar with fanfic, I’ve read, like, 800 of them and they’re gross!’”
“I loved that you trusted me on the nitty-gritty details, and you could take more of an overview picture,” Michael continues. “I loved that you trusted me enough where you could be like, ‘Yeah, you know the concept, and I trust you to make it into something that we’re both gonna love.’ And you got all the references!”
“I was walking into each setting,” Awsten recalls of the video set. “I’m looking at the bathroom, for example, and I’m like, ‘He steps through the door. The ghost of a smile crept across his face, he smirked an ever-growing smirk…’ I knew them (laughs).”
No comment.
At this point, while we’re giving Awsten a lot of credit for his help on SIDEQUEST, there was an even bigger and closer-to-home influence on Michael: his daughter. Born in October 2023, Lua Stevie Clifford has had more of an impact than her dad could have ever anticipated, not only on the album’s title (which comes from the fact that everything else away from domestic family life now feels like – you guessed it – a side quest), but also its ethos.
“A big part has to do with becoming a parent,” he explains. “Before that, I was taking this project a little bit more seriously and I was overthinking and being like, ‘Is this good enough? Is it meeting this expectation? Blah, blah, blah.’ But after watching my daughter discover shit for the first time, I was like, ‘Fuck, dude, I miss being like that. I miss the feeling of being completely un-jaded and amazed by every little thing with this wondrous, childlike sensibility.’ She really helps me understand a lot more about that side of myself. My whole album and the aesthetic, I just wanted it to be something that you smile about.”
“It’s got to be fun, dude,” nods Awsten. “I feel like I step into that trap sometimes where I’m trying to crack a song that I’ve been sitting on for a second, and I’m like, ‘I know if it can be done, it’ll be so good,’ but you’re bashing your head on the wall. I was watching this Jordan Peele interview the other day, and he was like, ‘Writing is literally the fun thing. I do what I have to do during the day, but then I go do the fun thing.’ If it’s not fun, then what are you doing? It needs to spark joy…”
“Marie Kondo vibes!” Michael agrees. “She’s my main inspo. She’s actually the first in the album ‘thank you’ list – she gets about four paragraphs.”
What’s also sparked joy is piecing together a multitude of genre styles across the record’s 10 songs, including collaborations with DJ Porter Robinson (on opening track kill me for always) and indie-pop singer-songwriter Ryan Hall (for the song if i had a choice).
“There’s a ton of different kind of vibes on there,” Michael says. “There’s some electronic, there’s some alternative, there’s pop. We were creating a bunch of stuff, and that was the hard thing for me, being like, ‘How do I combine all of these things that I love? Because they don’t necessarily go together.’ But there is a through-line and I was trying to figure that out – how my guitar and my voice becomes the thing that holds together each song. I think the idea of Waterparks and Porter Robinson being on the same album is fucking awesome, you know? They are such different ends of the spectrum, but they still make sense on an album. And I have my friend Ryan Hall, who’s the craziest fucking guitar player ever, on a song. I was creating a bunch of different shit that doesn’t necessarily go together, and then trying to make it work.”
Just as importantly, it’s given Michael – a naturally anxious chap – the confidence that he has his own voice away from the safety blanket of being one-quarter of 5 Seconds Of Summer. And the fact that fans have eagerly followed him to this next step means the world.
“It’s nice to know that there are people who believe in me,” he smiles. “I just want this to be something good for the people who want it, you know? That’s the hard part that I was figuring out: like, yes, a lot of it I was creating for myself, but I really want this to be something that everybody who likes me is proud of as well. Maybe that’s the wrong way to say it, but I want to do justice to the people who have given me support over the years. And I hope I have. And if I haven’t, well, then I fucking tried!”
“Then you’re like, ‘Fuck you, man!’” laughs Awsten.
While 5SOS of course will kick back into gear in the future, for the time being Michael has loved seeing how his bandmates have gone off on their own separate journeys (you can think of Awsten’s soup analogy again if you want). But also how SIDEQUEST is all of his own doing, and came from his brain.
“No-one [in 5SOS] ever told me that my ideas suck, but sometimes you make compromises – that’s what being a band is, because there has to be a vision equally with all members,” he explains. “And it’s fun watching the other guys create things that are so identifiably them. And then you get to me and my project and it’s just so incredibly unserious and ironic and stupid, and I think that’s kind of representative of me as a person. I really like that there’s a place for all of us individually to be ourselves and create stuff that represents us.”
All that’s left to be done, then, is get Awsten’s verdict. Be honest: how successful do you think Michael’s SIDEQUEST has been?
“10 out of 10!” he yells, without missing a beat. “Moving mountains, erupting volcanoes that didn’t need to be erupted. We’re fucking out here. We’re throwing fireworks at the ground. No permit. Killing shit. Big.”
“I’m so here for this,” Michael grins. “I’ve been up since 5:30am and I couldn’t dream of having that much energy…”
This interview was originally printed in the limited-edition Michael x Awsten zine.
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