5SOS sign new powerhouse management, confirm new album

5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS) has signed to new management, the band revealed.

The news comes days after media reported that the LA-based Sydney band had quietly parted ways with UK-based Modest! Management and their US label Interscope.

The band are now with YM&U Group, with hubs in Los Angeles and London.

It covers music, sports, entertainment, drama & comedy and business management, likes to intertwine its acts across all, and its former CEO once called it “a company without an ego.”

The chairman of its board is the legendary British promoter, Harvey Goldsmith.

Its acts include Blink-182, Bush, Jane’s Addiction, Steve Aoki, Take That, Liz Phair. Friendly Fires, Gary Barlow, Common, 3LAU and RAC.

5SOS now come directly under the personal orbit of Beverly Hills-based YM&U Group executive managers Peter Katsis and Joel Mark.

Like Modest!’s Richard Griffiths, Harry Magee and Will Bloomfield, Katsis and Mark are highly respected in the music business.

At 23, Katsis was in Chicago, managing industrial-rock band Ministry, and gave many of the Chicago house names their first gigs.

He moved to LA and set up Prospect Park Entertainment which managed Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, Korn, Audioslave, Ice Cube and the Backstreet Boys.

In 2002, Vanity Fair called him “the best manager in the music business, period.”

He was responsible for selling 735,000 Backstreet Boys tickets in less than an hour, and producing the history-making gigs in Cuba by a US band (Audioslave) to 100,000.

Mark started out doing A&R at Geffen and MCA and was responsible for signing Creed and Sigur Ros, before moving into artist management.

“The key is to respect the fans and recognize they’re people like us who love music,” he told Billboard.

In an online session with fans last week, 5SOS guitarist Michael Clifford, singer Luke Hemmings, bassist Calum Hood and drummer Ashton Irwin, revealed they are working on their fifth album.

They stressed, however, that the record was far from being finished.

Mark and Katsis are working on a new US record deal for 5SOS to replace Interscope, which released their March 2020 album CALM.

But they are in no hurry for a deal, and told Billboard there is already early interest.

Katsis called it “one of those transitional periods” for the group, which has generated 3.7 billion on-demand streams and had 14 chart entries in the US.

“We’re structuring touring for next year to coincide with their record,” Katsis added.