Calum Hood Australian Bassist Born 1996 in Mount Druitt

Early life

Calum Thomas Hood was born on 25 January 1996 and raised in Mount Druitt, a suburb of western Sydney in New South Wales. He has described his childhood as middle-class and unglamorous. His family background includes Scottish ancestry on his father's side and Maori ancestry on his mother's side, and his sister is the singer-songwriter Mali-Koa.

School shaped the story of his later career. At Norwest Primary School he became friends with Michael Clifford in the third grade. For secondary school he went to Norwest Christian College, where he met Luke Hemmings in Year 7 after the two performed a cover of a Secondhand Serenade song at a school talent show. Both of them would later form a band with him.

As a teenager Hood was serious about football, which he calls soccer in Australia, and was seen as having a promising future in it. He travelled to a training camp in Brazil as part of an attempt to build a career in the sport. When his band moved to London in late 2012, he chose to give up football for music and left high school in 2012 after finishing Year 11. He has recalled that his parents were not convinced at first that this was a good decision.

Career

In 2011, Hood, Clifford and Hemmings began posting cover versions of songs on Hemmings' YouTube channel. A mutual friend, Ashton Irwin, joined the videos after some months, which completed the line-up of 5 Seconds of Summer. As the band's audience grew, major labels and publishers began to take notice, and it signed a publishing agreement with Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Hood plays bass guitar and sings backing and shared vocals.

With the band he has released six studio albums: 5 Seconds of Summer in 2014, Sounds Good Feels Good in 2015, Youngblood in 2018, Calm in 2020, 5SOS5 in 2022 and Everyone's a Star! in 2025. According to figures reported for the group, it has sold more than ten million albums since 2014, sold over two million concert tickets worldwide, and its songs have been streamed more than seven billion times. That total places 5 Seconds of Summer among the most commercially successful music acts to come out of Australia.

Away from the band, Hood has worked as a songwriter for other acts. He co-wrote songs for artists including Black Veil Brides and Makeout.

In April 2025 he announced his first solo album, Order Chaos Order, along with its lead single, "Don't Forget You Love Me", which came out on the day of the announcement. The album was released on 13 June 2025.

Recognition

Hood's profile rests largely on the commercial reach of 5 Seconds of Summer rather than on individual prizes. The figures above, covering album sales, ticket sales and streaming, are the main measures of the group's standing. His solo debut marked his first release under his own name after more than a decade as a member of the band.

Public roles

Hood is among the more followed members of the band on social media. His Instagram account had about 7.2 million followers in October 2026, a larger audience than any other platform listed for him. In 2017 it was reported that he had bought a house in the Hollywood Hills area of Los Angeles, a city where the band has been based for part of its career.