With 'Youngblood,' 5 Seconds of Summer reach new heights

5 Seconds of Summer were already in shock when their album beat out Beyonce and Jay-Z for the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart this summer. But having their single "Youngblood" reach the No. 1 spot on the pop songs chart and become an international smash hit has the band in awe.

"We really didn't expect this," said singer-guitarist Michael Clifford of the Australian rock-pop band, which includes Luke Hemmings, Calum Hood and Ashton Irwin.

"Youngblood" recently spent five weeks at No. 1 on the pop songs charts, which tracks Top 40 radio airplay. The track is spending its seventh week in the Top 10 on the all-genre Hot 100 chart, where rap songs have heavily dominated in the last year.

This Oct. 18, 2018 photo shows members of the band 5 Seconds of Summer, from left, Calum Hood, Ashton Irwin, Michael Clifford and Luke Hemmings posing at Capitol Records in Los Angeles to promote their third album "Youngblood." (Photo by Chris PizzelloInvisionAP)

Clifford calls the hit song "authentically us" and said it allows fans to "see the real version of ourselves and our music in a very bold way than what we've delivered in other songs."

"You can never predict the success of a song — you can only hope," he added.

The band's impressive year kicked off when "Youngblood," also the title of their latest album, outsold Beyonce and Jay-Z's "Everything Is Love," giving the band their third No. 1 album on Billboard's 200 albums chart.

In this Oct. 18, 2018 photo, members of the band 5 Seconds of Summer, from left, Calum Hood, Ashton Irwin, Luke Hemmings and Michael Clifford pose at Capitol Records in Los Angeles to promote their third album "Youngblood." (Photo by Chris PizzelloInvisionAP)

Clifford admits the band was worried when the superstar duo released their album as a surprise a day after 5SOS' album.

"It was incredibly scary for us," Clifford said. "But our fans really rallied behind us. They knew what it meant to us. We've always been kind of underdogs. But we were able to show on a large scale, a large platform that we can perform. We also showed that 5 Seconds of Summer mean business."

They followed the success with an extensive tour — which wraps on Nov. 19 in Madrid — playing "Youngblood" to thousands of fans as the song continued to climb the charts.

In this Oct. 18, 2018 photo, members of the band 5 Seconds of Summer, from left, Calum Hood, Ashton Irwin, Luke Hemmings and Michael Clifford pose at Capitol Records in Los Angeles to promote their third album "Youngblood." (Photo by Chris PizzelloInvisionAP)

5SOS initially planned to release an album last year but held off to "perfect" a new sound. "Youngblood" comes three years after 2015's "Sounds Good Feels Good." The band's self-titled debut was released in 2014.

"You write different songs when you're 16 or 17 to when you're 22 or 23," said Hemmings, who sings and plays guitar. "I think our fans were the same age as us when we came out. I think they grew up with us. I think, in a way, we have similar tastes. We were trying to find something that would define ourselves as men like in our 20s. I think people have responded to that."

Each band member was a solo artist before they formed the group in 2011. The foursome posted videos on YouTube of themselves covering songs by Ed Sheeran, Blink-182 and Chris Brown, garnering millions of views.

Their successful grassroots movement afforded them an opportunity to tour with One Direction in 2013, which gave them their first claim to fame. At the time, the group said it was a "huge risk" by leaving the comforts of Australia, where they had already built a good support base.

But Clifford adds that the band always knew they would make it.

"We were playing to 20 people in Sydney, Australia, and we knew that we were going to be the biggest band in the world," he said. "With that mindset, we were just like unstoppable. There was no ceiling. You can never really know what you're going to do, but you can manifest. Our career has been telling people what we're going to be. I think people believed us."

Online:

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A hard-line cleric leading Friday prayers in Iran's capital demanded the death penalty for protesters detained in a nationwide crackdown and directly threatened U.S. President Donald Trump, showing the hard-line rage gripping the Islamic Republic after the demonstrations.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami's sermon carried by Iranian state radio sparked chants from those gathered for prayers, including: “Armed hypocrites should be put to death!” Executions, as well as the killing of peaceful protesters, had been two of the red lines laid down by Trump for possible military action against Iran over the protests.

Khatami's remarks also offered the first nationwide counts of damage done during the demonstrations, which began Dec. 28 over Iran's ailing economy and soon morphed into demonstrations directly challenging the country's theocracy.

Iran cut off access to the internet Jan. 8 and intensified a bloody crackdown on all dissent, which the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reports killed at least 2,677 people. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll and Iran has offered no overall casualty figures.

Khatami, appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a member of both the country's Assembly of Experts and Guardian Council, described the protesters at time as the “butlers” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “Trump's soldiers.” He insisted their plans “had imagined disintegrating the country”

“They should wait for hard revenge from the system,” Khatami said of Netanyahu and Trump. “Americans and Zionists should not expect peace.”

Khatami long has been known for his hard-line views in Iran, including in 2007 when he said a fatwa calling for the death of writer Salman Rushdie remained in effect. He also threatened Israel in a 2018 speech by saying Iran could “raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground” with its missile arsenal.

Khatami also provided the first overall statistics on damage from the protests, claiming 350 mosques, 126 prayer halls and 20 other holy places had sustained damage. Another 80 homes of Friday prayer leaders — an important position within Iran's theocracy — also had been damaged, likely underlining the anger demonstrators felt toward symbols of the country's government.

Khatami said 400 hospitals, 106 ambulance, 71 fire department vehicles and another 50 emergency vehicles sustained damage, showing the scale of the protests.

“They want you to withdraw from religion,” Khatami said. “They planned these crimes from a long time ago,"

Khatami, as a cleric in the public positions, would have access to such data from authorities and mentioning it at Friday prayers likely meant Iran's government wanted the information to be communicated without having to formally address the public. He also issued a call for the arrest of “individuals who supporters the rioters in any way.”

FILE - Iranian senior cleric Ahmad Khatami delivers his sermon during Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)