Michael Clifford was born on November 20, 1995. His work with 5 Seconds of Summer began with guitar, vocals and school friendships, then expanded into songwriting and production. Producing much of 5SOS5 gave him another way to shape the band's music, drawing on recording techniques he'd spent time learning himself.
Growing up in western Sydney, Clifford received an acoustic guitar from his parents at eleven and began lessons. At Norwest Christian College, he connected with future bandmates Luke Hemmings and Calum Hood. In 2011, the three began posting covers on YouTube, with drummer Ashton Irwin completing the quartet. Describing those beginnings to Music Feeds in 2012, Hood recalled joining Hemmings' videos with Clifford after seeing the response they were getting. They were finding an audience while still working out how to fit the band around school.
Clifford's contribution also took shape in the writing room. He co-wrote “Jet Black Heart,” which appeared on the band's second studio album, Sounds Good Feels Good, in 2015. Production would become another way for him to help decide what a 5 Seconds of Summer song could be.
That opportunity arrived during the sessions that became 5SOS5. The band traveled to Joshua Tree in late 2020, but a producer who was supposed to join them couldn't make it after his car broke down. Clifford had spent lockdown learning sound design and production techniques, so he took over the recording setup. As the band explained in a 2022 Dork interview, an interrupted plan gave the four musicians room to try working on their own.
The results included “COMPLETE MESS,” written by all four members and produced by Clifford. He was careful to explain that sitting behind the desk didn't make the music a one-person operation. “It's done by all four of us,” he told Dork. His bandmates helped him get beyond his own doubts about unfinished ideas, and their familiarity made it easier to reject something that wasn't working without the awkwardness of addressing an outside producer. They could make decisions directly and try another approach.
Some of those decisions involved keeping the earliest performances. Clifford told Variety in 2022 that “Take My Hand” retained Hemmings' vocals from its first demo, while the drums and bass on “Bloodhound” came from Irwin and Hood playing together in the room. Producing meant recognizing when an early take already had what the song needed. The finished fifth studio album arrived in 2022, with Clifford producing much of it and outside collaborators contributing to other tracks.
Making a record under his own name brought a different challenge. His debut solo album, SIDEQUEST, was released through Hopeless Records on July 25, 2025. Discussing its single “cool” with HATC Magazine, Clifford described questioning whether his work represented him in a way other people would appreciate. That uncertainty became part of the song itself. He also acknowledged that stepping outside the band meant letting listeners hear more of a voice that had shared space with three other singers.
The solo project gave him room to combine interests that didn't automatically fit together. Looking back on SIDEQUEST in a December 2025 Kerrang! interview, Clifford described working across electronic, alternative and pop ideas, then having to find what connected them. His guitar and his voice became the elements he used to hold those different songs together.
