Transcript of Louis Tomlinson: "The Room Was Cold That Day". When The Police Knocked... I Just Knew

Not really ever spoke about it in-depth like this. Nothing prepares you in life for those situations, but I felt like I'd failed at the time. That's the truth. And it's still something that I'm unpacking still, to be honest. Louis, we spoke to your sister, Lottie, about this.

Would you like to see it?

Louis Tomlinson. I didn't spend my life as a young lad thinking I was going to be a singer. I grew up in a working-class town. Seven living in a three-bed house. My mom used to work a lot of night. She had to play dad as well. So I would have to get my sister's ready for school. So people in Doncaster didn't get those opportunities. And then the X-Factor came along. I auditioned three times. The first time I failed, the second time I failed. I remember thinking, this is utterly crushing. Just sobbing to me more. But she made me feel like I could do anything. So instead of running away, it was like, I know I deserve it. I know I can. So how do I relearn confidence in going for a third time?

When I think about what happened in the preceding five or six years, it is crazy.

Yeah. And the toughest thing to deal with is just the lack of normality. And part of growing up in a working class town, I have this guilt for the success and money that I've earned. And then personal worth within the band, I really struggled with.

But you co-wrote 15 platinum singles.

But I wanted to do more. But mostly for me, I didn't realize the value of family time. And the more time I spent at the band, the more time I spent away from home, like two of my sisters who are identical twins. I've never told them this, but I wasn't confident enough to tell them to pop. That shows just how little I was at home. And then it ends. And what was really strange was being 24 years old, realizing that the only way is down from it.

Louis, there's so many things that happened in your life. How does a young man grief.

It's not really something I speak loads about, but I'm happy to because I cannot have that defined me. The floor is yours.

Just give 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm going to make to you. I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to, and we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show. Thank you. Louis, to understand you, what is the earliest context that I need?

Something that played a massive role for me in my life was the fact that maybe for the My first four or five years of my life, it was just me and my mom. My first proper memories are just having really nice and warm and really emotional conversations with my mom. I think something that I'm proud of is that I find it easy to be emotional, and I like talking about my feelings, and I like getting into conversation with other people about that. And that was definitely something that she instilled in me from a really young age, and something that still definitely It really, really helps me today, especially navigating through the life like I have. Those things of being able to talk about your emotions and your feelings, like vitally important, actually, for the job that I do mentally.

So your father wasn't around? Your biological father left Soon after you were born?

Yeah, it's not really something I speak loads about, but I'm happy to. Yeah, he wasn't involved in my life at all. I've met him three times ever.

So your mother played, I guess, several roles in your life?

Yeah, my mom was always really good at that. I think she realized the fact that my dad wasn't going to be around, that she had to play dad as well. And she had this mischievous instinct in her mom and definitely inspired some of that. And part of that was her being her, but part of that was also trying to play that dad role, where you walk about and encourage to do silly things that aren't going to hurt. She was just... I got to get emotional. She was just the best woman I ever knew, definitely. And also just I feel so vitally I'm lucky to be able to have her as my mentor because everything that I look to in friends and partners, et cetera, they're the things that she embodied, really.

And you had siblings? Yeah. Lots of them.

Yeah, lots of them. So when I grew up, the bulk of my childhood, there was seven of us living in a three-bed house. I've got a little bit better at it. One thing I really have struggled with is being on my own. And the more I've thought about that as I've got a bit older, it's because I just never had an opportunity to be when I was young. When you live in a house, it's three bedroom, there's seven people living in it, you're literally all living on top of each other. And I love that. It was one of the best things that have happened to me being an older brother. It's one of the definitions of my purpose, I would say. I just like to look after people in my mind. Being an older brother is a role I feel I was always supposed to do. And then I think even as we move through life and a couple of things got more challenging, that role has become more prevalent, definitely.

I was fortunate enough to speak to quite a few people that have known you over the years.

I heard. That was cool. That was cool.

I was just listening to some of the recordings of those conversations. Nizam? Yeah. He's your childhood best friend?

Yeah.

Cal, who's your photographer and videographer?

Yeah, love Cal.

Throughout the years. And Lottie, who's your youngest sister, six years younger. And It's interesting that one of the things they all came back to is that you really haven't changed.

I appreciate that. In terms of the fundamentals.

But that's what they said. Your best friend from childhood said, That's one of the most remarkable things, that you're still made out of the same stuff and you've never turned around and thought you were anything more than you were Back then when he knew you.

That's one thing I love about him as a friend. I've never said this to his face, but he's a real guy. He's never turned around to us and ever said, I'm this big shot now, or that ego, that's never played, and he's never been embarrassed of us. He's a real guy. It's at least 50% conscious of that, or at least it started out as that idea. Because I think when you enter a crazy situation and One Direction being the pinnacle of that idea, there's people around you that all of a sudden feel that used to feel really similar, and all of a sudden they feel really different. I'm not talking about day-to-day conversation, but I'm talking about stuff that we can relate to, problems that I might have had that I might talk to them about. I think that's quite an alienating feeling. So Instead of just submitting, I've always, always resisted that. It's been really important to me. And those things, hearing that and hearing other people say that about me, that does make me really proud because it's definitely a lifestyle that can sweep you away. But I think the other side of that and getting swept away, I don't really like the idea of what that might look like.

And I think you need people around you that are going to tell you if you're being a dick, like vitally important in this job, definitely. And those things, I think when you're surrounded, like a lot of successful people are, when you're surrounded only by success, it breeds a funny narrative. To be respected from people in Doncaster, that means a lot to me, definitely. So that's another reason why I wouldn't drive through the streets of Doncaster in a fucking Ferrari or whatever.

And you went to school in Doncaster, Hayfield?

Yeah, Hayfields, where I did most of my time. And then I failed my A-Levels and then went somewhere else for a year. You failed your I failed my air levels, yes. That was the first time I'd ever, ever got a real bollocking off my mom, a real, real dressing down, because she was really, really fair. But there was something that she was strict on with schoolwork, and I remember getting in the car and she said, You've fucked your life for. And she never swore. She never swore. And I remember I got Goosmans thinking about it there. I remember thinking, Maybe I need to do something with my life.

At 15 years old, 15, 16 years old, you join a drama group. I was watching, actually, just before you arrived. At 17 years old, you got the lead role in Greece.

The foundations were set and you ultimately, at 18 years old, decide to go and audition? Yeah, that was the third time I auditioned for the X Factor. Every year previous to that. That would have made me 16 when I first auditioned. There's three producer auditions, and then you get to see Simon. It's the main one. The first year, I didn't get through any of them. The second year, I got through the first round. Then for a final time, I said to myself, Well, I'm going to give this one more shot. Because that was another thing at that age. It's one thing saying you're resilient, and I do think I am. But it's a lot easier to be resilient at that age as well, definitely.

It's really surprising that someone would go to the X Factor once, be rejected, essentially, go again, not make it, and then go again without having their Their self-esteem or their confidence, not to the point where they go, I'm not going to go through that again. Because every time you got to come home, you got to tell your friends and family, it didn't work out. Yeah.

Well, the first year, I can remember it being utterly crushing. I'd not really had real rejection at that point. I hadn't really experienced that thing. The second time I went was even more challenging because I went with what I'll describe as the hottest girl at school at the time. She's also a singer. We got talking months ago. It turns out she wants to audition for the ex-factor as well. I'm like, Well, go together thinking this could be a smart little play. She goes before me, and I think at this point, I feel like I was still in the queue, and she showed me that she got through to the next round. It was like a gold ticket. I then didn't get through. And then we got, because I was with her, I was traveling with her, we then got ushered into a room of, say, 200 people, and every single person in the room had a yes. I remember that being really, really challenging. You're just surrounded by people that are dreaming. They're really, really excited about what does the next stage look like. And That created a bit more fire, I think. It was like, Okay, how do I get on the right side of this next year?

How do I be in this group of people next year?

Did your mom play a role in you going for that third year?

I can't remember specifically, but I would say if I would have had any level of doubt, 100%, the musical that you just referenced that I did at school, I didn't want to go to that audition, and she literally picked me up and drove me there. I was so thankful that she did. She was often very, very good at Pushy parents, that's not good. She was never like that. She always had the right amount of force. Because sometimes you need that as a kid, and especially, actually, even as adults, in a situation where you're second-guessing something, as soon as someone goes, Go on, you can do it, you're okay. So I think that definitely played a big role in that. Even if I had just suggested that I wasn't going to go to this audition, throughout the year, she will have been giving me a hundred different reasons to go. Now, not literally, but just from a confidence point of view, the way that she was talking to me, how she always used to put me on this amazing pedestal. She made me feel like I could do anything, definitely. I think that helps in those situations, going for it for a third time because my mom's saying I can do it, so maybe I can.

So you do the audition where you sing, Make you feel my love.

That was Boot Camp. So that was the second part of the audition. My first audition was a song called Hey There Delilah. It did nothing for me sonically. Obviously, now I can say this because I've got a bit more experience, but as a young lad, you're not thinking about any of these things. It was just, I like that song, I'll sing that song. It was bad. It was really, really bad. And to the point where it still makes me deeply uncomfortable listening to or watching that audition. The only thing I'd done like this is the school production of Grease, and that was to about 250 people over two nights. And that felt like a fucking mountain of people. Cut to then your live TV audition at the MEN in Manchester, and there's 3,000 people in the audience 3,000 people is a big gig for anyone to play, full stop. If you do 3,000 tickets, you're doing really, really well. So it's the definition of being thrown at the deep end. I think that's part of what they want, but it's not going to yield the best results from everyone. Some people it is, but I just remember feeling like a fucking deer in a headlights, really, really shaky, really, really.

Just felt really, really uncomfortable. I just wanted the ground to swivel me up. I'd never been in a situation where I was quite a confident young lad, so it wasn't very often I'd even been out in my comfort zone like that. I just felt like a deer in the headlights, definitely.

Am I right in thinking that they probably had the idea to construct a band much sooner than-They must have done.

No inside I mean, I will have had these conversations with him in the past, but can't remember now. But knowing Simon, yeah, I think you know what he's like, right? He will have had that in his mind for at least for the year before.

He loves a boy band as well. He's got a track record.

Yeah, they make him a It's a lot of money.

You come third on the X-Factor as a band when you were put together, and then you signed at 19 years old to Simon Cowell's Psychomusik. It's crazy because when I think about you signing at 19 years old and I think about what happened in the preceding five or six years. I mean, it is crazy.

It's only now, outside of being in one direction, that I actually have a little bit of a concept of what happened and even the craziness of it, because nobody has any context to it before it happens. So we definitely felt like things were going really, really well. But there will have been part of us, especially in that first year, of just assuming this is what success looks like. A successful artist does these things. The first moment that I remember distinctly, actually, that I realized that maybe this was bigger than, let's say, the average thing at the time, we got booked on a support gig with a Disney band called Big Time Rush. Before that tour show, our senior manager, the guy you only see six gigs a year, and it just happens to be Vegas and LA in all the best places in the world. When he sat us down, it was like this dressing down. It was like, Look, this is what you need to expect from a gig like this. I expect people to only know the singles, and even if they know the singles, that's a real win. They're not going to know the words to the album tracks.

It's going to be a very It was a very different show to what you expected. So we're all ready to go out fighting because we'd not really had that at that point. We'd have most things that we'd done, we felt really confident doing. So we were going on the back floor. And then I can remember when we walked out on stage and I think we opened with something that wasn't a single and people were just locked in, massively locked in. It was really, really fucking loud in there. I think that was a moment where I remember, again, I had this side to me when I was younger. I was so excited to tell Richard, he was our manager at the time. I was so excited to tell him post-gig about how it actually went. Did you see it then? Because that was obviously not how it played out. I remember feeling pretty smug about that. But I think it was once I got to bed that evening, I was thinking, I wasn't an overly deep thinker at that point, but I was still thinking occasionally on a deep level. I'm looking at this music manager and I'm thinking, this guy's uber experience.

He's been in this situation countless times. If he was to I picked it wrong. Maybe he did. I'm like, well, maybe something is happening.

How do you take care of yourself amongst that? Because one of the things I've learned from doing this podcast is I've learned so much about the brain. I've learned so much about dopamine and sleep and circadian rhythms and all these things. And so when I fit that into the context of what your life was like at an age where these neuroscientists tell me that the male brain is still growing, it's still forming itself, you're putting this tremendous external pressure on it. You're shocking it I remember when I interviewed Liam, your former bandmate, him telling me that he would... He remembers walking out on stage, and I think it was Dubai. There was like 100,000 people there. Then, you probably remember the gig, thrown into the taxi, taken back to the hotel room and locked in there. He was like... I remember him saying to me, Stage, car, hotel, locked. Stage, car, hotel, locked. Fuck.

I would say the way that we both handled it, me and Liam, was quite different. I think that's often why I I had a good relationship with Zane from early on because neither of us are rule abiding. And not in a way that's like, utterly disruptive. It's just we have our own ideas. And that at least alleviated a little bit of the pressure, knowing that deep down, if I wanted to just go and do something, I would genuinely just go and do it. Whereas I think Liam and the other boys, actually, to a degree, there was an element of a little bit of fear, I think. And also Liam had worked so hard from the age of 14 to get there. Liam Liam's journey was a lot different to mine. I just felt like a happy-go-lucky guy who won the lottery. Whereas Liam was very, very precise and deliberate, and he got there for all his hard work. So I think we also came from a slightly different point of view. Another benefit that I had during that time, and I still have, is I'm not a dweller. I'm an overthinker for sure, but I wouldn't say I'm a dweller.

So I wouldn't use this phrase with me very often, but there's definitely an element of ignorance is blessed during that whole time.

I find it so fascinating that you talk about this idea of you being having the minerals or the personality where you would push back against the system a little bit, because when I spoke to your former cameraman and videographer, he said that You were the one in the group that stood up against the label. You'd be the one to turn around to the record label and say, We need a day off. It's interesting, again, because one of the things I learned from doing this podcast is this idea of learned helplessness and control and autonomy. Basically, TLDR, it says that people who feel like they have control have much better physiological health outcomes. They have less stress, they're more insulated, better psychological states, less anxiety, less depression, because they feel like they're in control of the situation. There's this crazy study that I was reading about when I was writing my last book about these rats, where they learn that they can't do anything about the situation, and they basically give up, and they become submissive, and they stop trying. I think about this in the context of humans as well. From what your videographer told me, Kam, you were clearly not that.

You were clearly someone that would push against Simon Kau's record label as a young man.

Yeah, and that's something I've had a few conversations with my friends, similar things about this. I'm not certain why that was inspired by because it's brave, right? To stare someone who at the time, at least in pop, was one of the most successful people in the music industry and say, No, you've got it wrong. Here's me, an 18-year-old with no experience telling you, You've got it wrong. I I think what gave me confidence in those ideas is even if it wasn't a collective voice, even if it was just my voice delivering the message, it was always with collective intention. It would always be for the good of all of us. Making those decisions now on my own, they're not quite as easy. There's a lot of different things at play. And again, it comes from that Big Brother role. Again, I was the oldest in the band. It was my role in the band, I think, to do that. And I realized that by far, I was the most opinionated in the band, definitely. I think I wanted to use that for good and not just chatting shit about someone on Twitter or something. Another important distinction about One Direction is this is not disrespectful to Ed, I appreciate I was in a boy band.

I know that, right? But if there would be one genre of music that I would think might be the most naff, it's boy band, if you could call that a genre. At this point, going into One Direction when I was 18, growing up in the north of England, it's real, it's like snobby musical. There's real music and then there's boy bands. Having that feeling going into it, that was why it was easy to push against some of these old-school ideas because they were the ideas that the reasons I didn't like these bands is because they all looked the same and because they all felt very PR-pressed. It was always a really interesting project for me to try to look at One Direction and think, Well, how could we make this a little cooler? I remember the real turning point in One Direction was when we put up the pre-order for our first single, What makes you Beautiful. I can't remember the number, how much we sold that week, but we broke some record, the pre-order, and we got told this, and we don't release any music at this point. I remember thinking, That's fascinating, because they don't know what it's going to sound like yet, but they're invested.

That felt like power early on. It also felt like that we could rewrite the rule book because people were invested in us as much, if not more, than the music. I think that's fair to say.

Was there a part in the evolution and the journey of One Direction where you had that moment where you go, There's elements of my life that I love that I no longer have access to because of this success?

I would say that it's more gradual than that, really. You start to lose some of your own independence to a degree. Then I think also the age I was, right? I was 18 when I first joined the band. I always say this, That year of my life before I auditioned for the X Factor, at least up to those 18 years, was the best year of my life. You've got independence at that point. I was driving. You could go out. It was So fascinating. Socially, there's always something to do. So to leave that behind was quite gutting, actually. And that took me a second to get used to it first. Now, I always felt incredibly grateful and really excited every time I was doing something with One Direction. But any time for reflection, I was really, really missing home. Me and Zane, when we were younger, we had countless conversations of, should we just pack it in? Should we just call it a day? Why? Because You feel alienated. You are living this lifestyle that... And there's a million different reasons, but the fame thing is really difficult. Mostly for me, it was about being alienated.

Any of my life experience was now not so relevant to some of my friends. I think that also I have this... I think this is part of growing up in a working class town, but I have this guilt for the success money that I've earned as well. I think that also is part of the same thing. I think it's two different things. The Fame thing I'll never be okay with. Of course, every artist says this, but if I could just do the music, that would be amazing. I suppose I could on a lower level, but I wouldn't get the same rush that I do. I think it's almost everything else that comes with It's interesting when someone says they felt isolated, which is something I've heard a lot from people who've had great public success where they've got a big fan base, because we think of isolation as not being around people.

But I guess isolation in the context you describe it, it's more about connecting to people, relatability.

Yeah, but it's also like the metaphor would be, what's that really famous crossing in Japan? If you took a drone shot and you pulled right out from that and you would just become a little dot amongst the noise, sometimes that's how it feels. Because also it's not the real world. Even in the way that people perceive you, it's not the real world. The first moment that One Direction We got the first big payback, it was a merchandise deal that we got, and we always did really good merch. How old were you? 19. That was the first moment where I felt really, really excited. And so I rang my mom straight away. I told her about it like I always would. And she was really excited for me. And obviously, she's just proud. That's it. And then I remember the feeling of, Who else do I tell now? Because do I call up Nizam and tell him? Well, he'll be into that and he'll be really proud of me. But bear in mind, he's just seeing me on the X-Factor. This is another thing I realize about people is they think if you're successful, then everything is just successful, and that's how it goes.

I think if I didn't call Nizam, but if I had called him, he probably would have been really nice, but in his head, he would have struggled his shoulders. It's like, well, obviously, things are going really well for you. I think there's definitely a lack of understanding there, rightly so. There's also a guilt Especially at that age. Life's really, really expensive at that age. People are up to their eyes in student loans. It was only about two years ago that I put all the plaques up on my wall at home and my awards, the Brit Awards and stuff that I got in the past from the band. They still annoy me, even now in my lounge. Because if I'm in a conversation with someone, I don't even really want... I want to just be me. I don't want to be that guy that won those awards. We can be and we can conversate like that. But truthfully, if someone, if As I came over to my house for a chat and a coffee, I would hate that the conversation might end up then gravitating to me or my success. It's much more about just what those relationships and conversations look like in the real world.

That's what I'm craving, is that It's a real normality. All I want is to just be on an even playing field with everyone in any conversation. I think that was the toughest thing to deal with, is just the lack of normality in every sense of the word.

How does things like alcohol play into this? Because you're living a crazy, crazy life where your dopamine and your brain is being tested in all different ways. I remember Liam saying to me this is really when he started to have a problem with alcohol in the early years of the band. I'm never going to forget him talking to me about the minibar in the room. One of the things I didn't realize is, okay, you've just been out on stage in front of 100,000 people, then you're back in a hotel room with a minibar.

I feel the pull from alcohol, and I definitely drank quite a bit when I was in the band. But I think an important distinction post-show would be I'd smoke my weed. I'd go back to my tour bus and I'd go and smoke my weed, and Zane would smoke with me, too. I hope he doesn't mind me saying that. I'm sure he won't. And that was great. Actually, people do things for different reasons, and that was my vice. That was my choice. Now, the reason why that suited my brain at that time was I've just had all this noise in my head. I've just had this crazy experience on stage, and that's the noise that you need to quiet down sometimes. What we would do is we'd get back on the tour bus, we'd play Call of Duty: zombies, we'd smoke our weed, and that's all we'd think about, and that's all we'd do. Then we'd get into cliché stona chats of deep conversation, probably UFOs, all that shit. And as daft as that might look and feel, again, it's our normality. It's creating the normality on tour. It's a version of what our friends were doing back home as well.

But also it was such a lovely way to debrief from those moments, away from the manicness. You've just got this really subdued, nice environment. The juxtaposition actually felt quite nice.

If you could go back to the day that you signed a contract with Psycho, what is the advice that 33-year-old Louis would give 18, 19-year-old Louis?

That is a really, really big question. I think I would say to be be be be confident in the earlier years, because the older I get, the more I realize most people in their earlier years of doing said thing are, to a degree, faking it. I think for a long time, I was just thinking, Well, I didn't spend my life as a young lad thinking I was going to be a singer, so I'm playing catch-up and all those things. Also, there's another thing I'm more than comfortable enough to say. I'm not the best singer in the world. I'm okay with that. But there was definitely a time where those things were challenging as a young lad. I think I would just cut myself a bit of slack as a young lad because it's been a lot of my defiance and decision making that's got me to where I've got, and that should give me confidence. I think as a young lad, I did really just felt like a deer in the headlights, and I didn't really have any context what was going on. I think when I'm talking about these things, I'm not talking about, No, we're not going to do this Disney performance.

Because I don't think it looks good for One Direction. I'm talking about more introspective personal worth within the band, all those things. I really struggled with that as a young lad, big time. I would say I would give myself a bit more credit there.

You really struggled with that?

I found it really tough. As I said before, I was the kid who won the lottery. I sang my first audition for the X Factor. I didn't feel like I did a good job. Was really surprised that I got the three yeses. Now, that was maybe four months before the first audition's air. I've told everyone at this point, obviously. I'm in a band, I'm on the X Factor, and I have told anyone that will listen, everyone. I Actually, neither me nor Niall got any TV time on our audition. The irony is we get put in this band, but people have no idea we are. There's no context for the viewers to actually see this and actually really care. I felt like I was playing Catching from that moment in. I remember this really like, real nothing, typical X Factor theme. We went filming for the Judges Houses, which is the stage. You have the auditions, then Boot Camp, Judges' Houses, live shows. We went filming for Judges' Houses. I was already questioned. I wasn't really singing at all. I had not had any individual thing to sing. It was all like harmony stuff. I got stung by sea urchin, right?

Random story. My foot blew up like an elephant. We had to film all this. You know what XFact is like? We had to film all this jeopardy. This is like, how will the boys audition without Louis? It was awful. It was awful because there was no credibility to that statement. The boys could have auditioned straight away. At that point, I was doing a lower harmony, and I would be shocked if anyone could even hear me in the mix at that point. That was really challenging where I'm already starting to feel those things, and then you get something like that that's quite literal, and they're trying to sell this jeopardy. I remember thinking, Oh, it just really... I wanted to do more. I just didn't know how to do that. Again, there's no context. I thought I was a good singer before I went on the X Factor. Then I get through the audition, they put me through. I'm like, Okay, well, I must be all right. Then they don't show the TV audition. You're like, Oh, maybe that's a personality thing. I don't know. Maybe it is my voice. There's a lot of, especially as a young lad in this situation, there's a lot of unanswered questions.

Did you ever ask those questions?

Did I ever ask him why I was in that band? No, I would love to, though. I would have loved to. But do you know why I would never with him? Simon was always very brilliant at making me feel worthy in the band. But as you said before, I was often a voice between the band and the label. He was the label. Well, he put me on side, and that's a smart move, isn't it? One thing he would always do, Steven, is he would always say my name. Now, when you're a 19-year-old lad and Simon Cowell says, Do you know what the thing is about that idea, Louis? You are empowered. Now, we like people using our names. Now, imagine that Simon Cowell and you're 19 years old. There is a spell that comes with that, and there's a power that comes with that. I think I think for a long time, I fell for all those ideas. Now, I think Simon, again, is an interesting person. He is a brilliant businessman. Now, I learned a lot from him. I still deeply respect him. I was in awe of him as a young lad. I love to be around him.

I love to listen to him make decisions and all of that. I thought he was definitely brilliant at that time. He built It got me up on a pedestal to the point where I thought that it would actually have a real-world meaning, not just a 'Thanks, darling' vibe.

When did you realize that it didn't?

When I joined Psycho on my own.

This is after the band, you signed a third party?

Yeah, sorry. The band split up. Now, I didn't have my pick of record labels. It was never like that. But even if I had, I could have had 10 offers on the table. Let's just assume they're all the same money. I would have picked Simon always because, again, a little bit like the north of England, loyalty is a really important currency. It really is in these working cost places. It's really, really vital. I think for me, that always meant a lot to me. I thought, well, if I'm... I'd heard that some of the other boys were thinking about going to other labels, which they were right to. I found out was they're the only one that was going to stay with them, and that just motivated me more. All the other boys went and joined different record labels, some of them not even within labels that were in Sony, which Psycho was part of. I never thinking, Oh, wow, this is amazing for me, actually, that all the boys have done that because look how good this makes me look to Simon. I look really loyal. Some of it was deliberate, but mostly that's just how I am as a person.

I would rather just keep the happy family vibe. That suits me.

One of the things people don't talk about is the impact that your success has on everyone else back here in Doncaster, including your mom. I spoke to your sister, Lottie, when my team I was listening to the recordings, and she said that it was especially hard for your mom because you leave home suddenly at 18 years old. From everything you've described, you were more than just a kid. You are, in some respects, a partner in raising the family.

I'm best mates as well, man. Yeah, definitely.

Did she ever speak to you about the impact it had on her, all of that?

That's something I can remember really clearly. She used to do the university analogy, and she used to say, I knew you were going to leave home at some point, but I had at least It's a time scale to that. I could work towards in my head, okay, in three months time, he's going to leave for uni, and that's that. One Direction never happened like that. It all ran away with itself. So I think it felt like we all blinked, and before we knew it, I was no longer living at home. So my mom had no time to even grieve that idea. And just for context, I mentioned this and I made a film and documentary, and it sums up me and my mom's relationship perfectly. The first person I told when I lost my virginity was my mom. As if I was telling one of my lad mates, I wasn't telling her for any other reason other than to show off and be like, Guess what happened today? We definitely had that energy together. I always saw her more as a best friend than anything else. And especially because I was her first. She helped me when she was 19.

We spent the first few years together without a male role model. So it was a little deeper than your average son and mother situation. So I think it really hit me mom like a ton of bricks. If I had my time again, I would have been more present and aware of those ideas. Here's a story, actually. I've never told Daisy and Phoebe this. Daisy and Phoebe are two of my sisters who are identical twins, and they're about four or five years younger than Lotties. They're about 21. Now, I could always tell them apart perfectly, but they look utterly identical. I got these two, especially when they were really young. I can remember the more time I spent at the band, the more time I spent away from home, I wasn't confident enough to use their name to them. It'll be always like, Oh, babe, or something that way. I wouldn't have to mention the name because I wasn't certain who was who. These are two sisters that I spent my life with and grew up with. But I think shows just how little I was at home. My mom would come out to see me, which was great, but the kids were at school and stuff.

It was like that. There was a long time for those out of those five years we were in the band, a long time spent not spending enough time with family. I would say that was 85% the job and the situation and One Direction and stuff, and then 15% me, too. I could definitely have done more like that. But when you live in a life like we did in One Direction, free time is so competitive. When you're young, you're not smart enough to realize the value of this family time.

You were on an absolute rocket ship up until you must mean, what, 23, 24 years old when the band originally announces that it's breaking apart. See, in March that year, Zane says he wants to leave to have a normal my two-year-old's life, which shocked the world. How do you reflect on Zane's decision now? Because were you pissed off at the time that he was breaking things up? I was fuming. Really?

Again, it's not something we've discussed enough yet, but me and Zane, I mean. But again, it comes back to loyalty for me. Selfishly, I'd wish he'd had a conversation with me first because me and Zane, I'd like to think that he would say this, too. I think he would. There was times where we were like... Let's put it like this. This is a good way of describing it. On the last tour that Zane did, we always said we would never be this band, the type of band that would have all their own individual dressing rooms. Well, sometimes when you got a lot of guests and stuff, it can be challenging, but we always said we wouldn't be that band. And on the last tour, Zane did, Harry had his own dressing room, Liam did, Niall did, and me and Zane shared. So I think that's testament of the relationship. So I felt a little bit hard done by. I felt like, not like, throw these boys under the bus, but let me know. But just a little bit. I thought that we had a relationship where he could have had that conversation with me. In reflection, and he hasn't told me this, we'll see when I chat to him about it, but I think if he told me, I would have tried to tell him to stay.

And I think that's probably one of the reasons why he didn't because he knew I was always very opinionated.

So how did you find out?

That evening, the night before we found out, everything was normal. We're in the hotel room. We were somewhere, I don't know where, somewhere in the world, maybe where weed isn't legal, but we were having a joint. Everything was normal. And then I think he maybe left at 11: 00. He was cool, wasn't in a bad mood or anything like that. Good night, lad. And then next morning, I woke up, we had a shoot with Coca-Cola for some sponsor thing, and we found out that he wasn't coming. Now, I had this in me, too, but Zane was quite prolific for it. This wasn't out of the ordinary. I always rated him for it. If he didn't want to do something, he literally wouldn't do it. You name the thing, it doesn't matter. If it's not right for him, then he won't do it. I think Well, then that's probably why he left the band. And that's what I admire about him, because if I was in his same situation, I would have probably put six plusters on it just to hope that we can stay playing Happy Families. I want to know if he regrets it.

Not in the way that... His own personal success has been incredibly successful, and he's done really, really well like that. But he must miss it. He must do, because I know Zane really well, and Zane has a bit of the energy I do in such a way that sometimes this whole job can just be a little bit fussy. It's just a bit fussy in general. There's just a lot going on. Now, when you're in a band, you can share that It's like, say you're sat in an interview, you're not enjoying it. You just shut up a little bit and let someone else pick up the pieces and they'll do that role. We could share the things that we didn't like to do as much. There must definitely be times that he misses the comfort of that, for sure. But it's like the elephant in the room, to be honest. I've met up with him a couple of times recently, but it's not often something we'll discourse. But there'll be a time for that, for sure. I would like to have those conversations with him. But it crushed me, man. It absolutely crushed me. I was devastated because it felt like, Oh, is this the beginning of the end of the band?

But then also I'm like, This is my best mate in the band at the time. So I'd lost a friend and someone in the band.

It's funny. I've heard you say that you weren't prepared for the success of One Direction, but you also weren't prepared for the end of One Direction.

Oh, no.

You describe it as hitting you like a ton of bricks.

Yeah, it was awful. It wasn't until after the event that I realized that I actually computed all these feelings, but it was like I was straight grieving for it. That was grieving the band. I'm someone who, unfortunately, has a little bit of experience in grief, and albeit it felt different, but it was a version of the same thing. It was something that I really wanted that couldn't have anymore. I think like anything like that, if you're I'm a glass half full guy. I felt the wheel start to turn in motion like that. But you're looking the other way, you're like, No, it's fine. It's not going to play like that. It's never going to come to that, whatever. And then we had a meeting one day and it did.

What happens in That meeting, what said? Is it Simon saying something? Is it the boys? Is it representatives?

It was us boys, which was great. Always how it should be like that, obviously. But I think it almost might as well have been representatives. What's really fascinating is those real serious moments. We wouldn't have a lot of them in one direction. We were just going with the flow and really happy for each other and stuff like that. But I think those moments where you have to be selfish, it was an atmosphere that I never really felt in the band because normally, like I said, we're arm and arms. It's all this camaraderie. Then all of a sudden, you get someone thinking more independently and more for themselves, which, by the way, they have every right to do, of course. But the room felt cold that day. I can remember that in particular. I'm trying to find the right metaphor for it, but it was something where... These are all the same faces that I've seen every single day, but I'd never quite felt an energy like that in the room. There was this emptiness. I think probably because we all knew collectively where it was going, and that's probably some friction between those ideas. The thing that really bothered me It was, and this again is naive, was so naive at the time, but I was adamant on having some indication of...

Because it was originally said as... What's that fucking word we've used a million times? Hiatus. Yeah. Which, by the way, is just such a cringey word. It was originally pictures that. I was thinking, I remember saying, well, if I'm going to try and do some stuff on my own, and at this point, I'd even know what I was going to do. I was like, be good to know how long this break is going to be for. Let's speculate. A year, two years, Five years, 10 years, 15 years? I never really got an answer to that question, which I understand now, because truthfully, I don't think the people or person involved was brave enough to answer that question deep down. I think they probably knew the reality, and that's why it was tough.

Does Simon try and persuade you back into the band?

Let me say that by this point, and I'd say Simon was aware of this, but maybe not quite so aware, because we're a band, after about two years of One Direction, Nobody, absolutely nobody could tell his shit. Now, we were nice boys. We were never rude or anything like that. But if Simon, we didn't have that. He might have had that relationship prior, back in the '90s, when all that stuff was prevalent, but I think we'd always had our own confidence like that. So he was never involved in those decision makings. In fact, he was smart enough to realize that that would rub us up the wrong way.

Makes sense. And then it ends. And your life goes from absolutely crazy to less crazy.

Yeah, it's still something that I'm unpacking still, to be honest, and still trying to work out all of those things. I remember, so then I spoke I've talked before, but Julian Baneta, who is a producer who worked on a lot of the One Direction stuff. We had a great relationship with him. Really cool guy. We had this crazy night. It was like some billboard awards in Vegas. Julian, he pulled me aside and he said... And it was funny because he's not really this heavy, but it's a real heavy statement. He'd obviously had a few vodka red balls or something. And he was like, Where do we go from here? Now, by the way, the we upset me a little bit. It's like, I understand that and We are all in this together, but that question is a hell of a lot deeper for me than it is you. I understand, I get it, but at the same time, you're probably, and what he did end up doing is carrying on doing what he did. I still don't really know the answer to that question. In fact, maybe I don't think you can. I think a lot of people's, not everyone, but most people's natural trajectory of, let's just call it success.

I could make a pedantic argument for it not being specifically that, but they have a linear journey. The older they get, the more successful that they get. What was really strange was being 24 years old and realizing that the only way is down from it. There is no alternative reality where I at least keep up or supersede. No way. There was no chance of that. That was very obvious. It was very obvious to anyone around it. Still, it's something that is challenging, definitely, because you've had a look behind the curtain. Now, those Some of the things that maybe I had then that I don't have now, I'm not overly pressed for. I don't know, like a billboard for the album in LA or here in New York. I don't get those opportunities anymore. Do I lose any sleep over it? No, not really. But I think the feeling in general of I have to work really hard to compete at the level I do, that is just a fact. I just got a number one record on the last record of Faith in the Future. Never in a Million Years, never in a Million years, when I started my solo career, did I ever think that I would be getting a number one record.

It's a testament to my fans, testament to the record, the producers, et cetera. But I've always had to work on my own anyway. I've I've always felt like I've had to work really, really hard just to keep my head above water. Now, the reality of that statement is, and I realize that as I say it out loud, my version of head above water is very different to a lot of people because from 18 to 24, that whole landscape looked very, very different. That's why I've always found it quite unrealistic to not compare the two. I completely agree with that because you cannot compare them, the two being One Direction and My Own, so they're clear. But it's something that you can't ignore. I do a cover. It's stupid of me to call it a cover. I realized how funny that is. When I do a One Direction song, I call it a cover, which is really ironic. But I do Night Changes on my tour show. I can remember this one show in particular. I think it was a 5,000-capacity room. I think maybe we'd done 1,200 tickets, which is okay. That's all right. But when you're singing Night Changes at a gig like that, when you can vividly and visually remember singing Night Changes like that at, say, Wembley Stadium, and you're literally singing, Look How Fast The Night Changes, and you're looking out to this sparse room, it's like a brutal poetry.

That's the point about it being unrealistic is I could be the most, and I am, I could be the most glass, half-full guy in the world, but life is going to constantly challenge me like that, definitely, because that was the pinnacle.

Yeah. I mean, it's very human. Obviously, the example in the scenario you're talking about is one no one can understand. But the comparison is how we work. It's how we understand the value of things. And as you say, going to the top amount Everest at 24 means that you're always going to have some even unconscious comparison to everything thereafter. What do you do about that? Do you have to use a different yardstick of measurement?

I tried to.

These are words, aren't they?

Do you know what I That's it. Being honest. Some days I live by it. Some days I live by it, definitely. I wrote something on my social media, probably four or five years ago now, but it was on Instagram, I think, and about my interpretation of the word success because I'd spent a long time and I only knew through the lens of one direction. I think that's a constant battle. It's a constant conversation with myself internally that I can measure my own success in a different way. It doesn't have to be a numbers game. In terms of fulfill, for example, and going, doing this latest record that I've just written, I feel really good about it. There's been an element of me swimming against the tide a little bit to this point. The feeling of fulfill is that's legit.

Did you have conversations with your former bandmates about how they were coping with these? Yeah. Is it all different?

To be honest, that would only happen me and Liam between the other boys. Not that it's not emotional because it is, and it's definitely deeper than surface level, but it's more... I would struggle to text the other boys as much. Why? I would love to hang out with them in person like that, but there's an element of it feeling It's just all a bit small talk, which is lovely and it's nice. It's nice to catch up like that. But me and Liam would always speak on a much more deep level. I felt bad saying this because I feel arrogant because I feel arrogant. I feel arrogant I shouldn't. I wanted to look after him, definitely, Liam. That was a role I feel I was there to play. He definitely... Often the way he would perceive certain parts of his life, I would be really inspired by. He was someone who... Really brave at times, which is contrary to sometimes what he put out, but really, really brave. He would ask anyone anything with a smile. He had a really good way about him like that. I would say he was the closest to being my brother.

Love him deeply, could spend hours and hours and hours with him, but there was an element of always checking in and just making sure that he's cool like that.

Did you worry about him?

Always, always, yeah. Because I knew he was a little misunderstood, but also, interestingly, the record when you're starting out solo artist, the parallels of people who know themselves made the best records, definitely. If you're still unpacking all that information of who you are as a person, as an adult, which we all were post One Direction, It's near impossible to point and go, This is who I want to be as an artist, because essentially, it's just a metaphor for who you are as a person, or at least the best stuff is. Liam will be someone who candidly, I could say to him really honestly, Bro, fucking hell, I miss being in the band. We could have a really honest conversation like that. I don't mean this in any way, but if I'd said that to any of the boys, I'd be worried that they might think, Oh, things aren't going well in It's a solo life. Whereas Liam, I never had to worry about those things. It was like brothers like that.

He wore his heart on his sleeve, didn't he? Liam was Liam.

Yeah, definitely. It's really fresh that. It's a really A cool way of living. Because we all say, even like I would like to say, I wear my heart on my sleeve, but there's still 10% of me. It's God in the right places. He certainly had his way of being. I like to.

As we were saying, I do wonder if that made him slightly more susceptible to the pressures, because sometimes if you can put on a second face, if you can't-Yeah.

What's helped me in this job, and there's no truer time that that shows itself, it's me as a Being a parent is there is a real distinction. There is me at work and there is me not at work, basically. So either being a parent or being a friend or a partner or whatever. That's always helped me to have that distinction of when I'm dad to Freddie, I'm full-time dad and I'm not a singer. And any of that world outside does not really matter. It's not relevant to me as a father, which it isn't.

Did I ever tell you about the data breach that we had at my previous company?

Yeah, I remember hearing about that.

Which was a total nightmare. So I'm glad that we now use 1Password.

What actually is it, Steve?

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Cute. Nice denim jacket.

What do you think when you see that photo?

It looks like... It reminds me of a nice time. This one? Yeah, I remember that vividly. We did a full photoshoot in my living room. Yeah, the pose with the hands in the pockets. It's much more nonchalant than I would have actually been feeling.

I mean, these ones are all the band photos. I mean, it's just fucking unbelievable. Looking at some of The crowds on these images is insanity.

Oh, yeah. My mom took this picture. This was the first picture I've ever taken of us. My mom took this.

You look super young.

Yeah. Again, I was the oldest, 18. Then you got the Harry, Liam, and now they were 16, saying 17.

And of course, your...

Yeah, I love that picture. I love that picture. It really sums up mine and Liam's relationship. I love it. He will have been telling me a joke that I didn't think was hilarious at the time. I'll be giving him that face. Then probably about an hour later, I would have laughed to myself about it.

I have these beautiful pictures of your beautiful mother.

Oh, yeah, they're lovely. I love this one. I love this one. This is cute. I got a very similar picture to this by me, bedside table at home in my bedroom.

About a year after you leave One Direction, your mother passes away from leukemia. Thinking about the timing of all these events, thinking about the shock of being thrown into a very different life, one without the boy band around you, and then your mother getting leukemia, which people don't know is the 12th most common form of cancer. She passes away at age 42. The timing of all these things is quite unthinkable to me because there's so much transition in your life. I'm just terribly sorry. I appreciate you saying that. I don't really have anything else to say other than just understanding what she meant to you and the role she had in your life. I'm terribly sorry.

There was definitely, as you said, the time in. Obviously, there's no good time for anything like this, but I think the time in, that's what created a bit of It didn't last too long. I want to say maybe six months, but of true resentment for the world, real resentment. Just feeling really hard done by... The one thing I remember about grief when you're in the midst of it, you could stab your toe, right? Something like that is utterly unjust. Now, that's something you might have done. None of this ever happened. You stuck your toe, it'd be annoying, but you just get over it. Little things like that I really struggled with when I was grieving. So it's things that should work a certain way that don't. There's a zip on my jacket that won't quite go all the way up. Real micro, non-important little things. But I think because Because of the weight of the stuff that had happened, there was a moment in my life, as I said, for about six months, where it just felt like I couldn't win. In fact, I could only lose. So that's where even just stubborn your toe, you'd be like, Another fucking thing.

Now, it sounds stupid to say, but once you met with these... When you met with that mindset of feeling hard done by, the smallest things definitely can amplify that.

When did you hear that she was sick?

I got friendly with a footballer called Jamie Vardy, and he'd invited me to his wedding. So I was at the wedding, and it was the party afterwards, and it was 10: 00 PM. At this point, I already had quite a few vodka Red Bulls, which was not ideal for the weight of the conversation. My mom called me. I was stood outside. It wouldn't be an ordinary for me mom to call me, so I wasn't worried or anything like that. She called me most days, if not every day. And then she told me... And you know what it's like anything like this in life, when you hear something that carries any weight, the first 10 thoughts are either it can't be true, maybe she's got it wrong, maybe the doctors have got it wrong, just all these stages of denial before actually even embracing the thought. It wasn't really... It wasn't really like me. I didn't even feel like it was a cry for help at the time. But that night, I got absolutely battered. I got I got really, really drunk. There'll be nights where, and this has been nights in the past, where I'll have a little bit too much to drink, more from not knowing my limit.

But in this situation, it's not something I've ever really used drink for, to be honest. But I felt the only way just to completely escape that moment at that night. What I found really challenging during even that first conversation with her about it was I still I wanted to inspire hope. Because she was really hopeful. I was trying to have this genuine worry that any son would, but I also was trying to shield a bit of my mom from that. I didn't want her to feel like she'd upset me, even though obviously it wasn't her choice. But I can remember that idea of really trying to... I would be real with my mom about how I was feeling, but there were times when I wouldn't be because I wouldn't want her to You're guilty.

She told you over the phone that she had a diagnosis?

Yes, she told me that she had leukemia. My first answer was, I don't know where, again, this is just the definition of denial. My first answer, word for word was, Oh, that's the good one to get there, right? Meaning that has the most survival rate. And bless her, she has to be like, No, not really.

How long was it from that phone call to her passing?

I have no idea. I could not My guess would be 18 months. I think it might have been quicker than that. The anniversary of her death, I get text all the time on whenever the anniversary is, and someone will say, I'm thinking of you today. It's only at that point that I know that that's the day because it's deleted from my brain.

She passes because your biological father isn't around. You're very much at At that point, in some respects, you're the father of lots of siblings because you're your big brother. You went out on stage three days after her death for an X-Factor performance. From what I understand from Lottie, she very much pushed you to do that before she passed away and told you that you needed to do that performance.

I'll never forget the X-Factor final performance that he did with Steve Ioki when my mom had only passed away a couple of days before, which I still can't believe he even had the strength to do. But my mom was just so proud of him, and especially him starting his solo career. Even in her final day, she was like, If I don't make it, I still want you to do this performance. And when she did pass, we were like, There's no way. No one would have expected him to do it, but he wanted to do it for her. And I I knew exactly what that was. I knew why she was telling me. She was telling me because she would have hated something that had happened to her affect my career and my life as a person. I would do it again for her. I don't think I'll ever have a more challenging time in my life than those three and a half minutes on stage. I did it only for her. It's not something I look back on and go, I I'm really proud. I am proud that I did that, but you almost say those things when you want to do something, right?

I'm really proud that I did that. It felt like it was taken out of my hands. I didn't want her to have that gill, but it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Obviously, it was horrible. Also, the song alluded to... The song was called Just Hold On. It's weird how empowering those moments are. I can sit here now and comfortably say that the chance, now, obviously, they could, but the chances of my life being as dark as it was in those three minutes alone, I would be desperately unlucky to ever be in a situation like that again. Where I was so young. I was in a situation where, as you said, all the timing was, and then I felt like I'd been encouraged to go on stage, but it wasn't really something that I wanted to do. It puts everything into perspective. Nothing's going to get as hard as that. I think there's times where my job will weigh me down, even like today. Not today, but in this current head. It's just where it helps me remember and helps me put things into perspective that just because a radio station isn't playing my single, that hurts 0.

0001% in the same as something like that. I think because I was so challenged emotionally and I I've survived the experience. It's given me a weird confidence, to be honest. Just knowing that life probably won't get that dark again.

You sometimes don't realize that the role that your parents were playing until they're not around, that they were almost this tectonic plate underneath everything. Was that a realization at that point?

Big time. There was this true dependency on my mom that I did not realize until I'd lost my mom. I think there was definitely stuff that I've had to learn, being on my own. Often, she would inspire confidence. I'd say, I'm worried about this. I don't want to go to this audition, or I don't want to do this, or I'm worried about this song. She always did. Made me feel like I could do anything in the planet. She'd actually made me feel stupid for even questioning the fact that I couldn't do anything. I think there's moments like that where you've almost had to relearn confidence like that.

How does a young man grieve the loss of his mother at such a young age?

Obviously, everyone's grief is completely individual. That's something I found out more recently. Purpose was mine. Now, this is, again, not a luxury that everyone has in a situation like I found myself in. I grieved and I had moments where I was deeply, deeply upset. But these were fleet in moments because there was too much to do for my sisters. There was too much to do for my dad and grandad. There was too much to do for me family where it gave me something to do. It gave me a true purpose. It gave me a reason in the darkest days to get out of bed and confidently get out of bed because there was stuff that needed to be done. At that time, my sisters were so, so, so young, and I was so terrified of what effect that would have on them growing up. Luckily, they impressed me every day, the amazing, amazing women. My role felt like the strong one in that situation and someone who's willing to give someone... Daisy would call me and she'd be really upset, and by the end of the call, she can just see the glimpse of a glass half full.

That was my job. The grief became less relevant because of the need to look after everyone else. Sometimes you might ask, what advice would you give to people with grief? It's just an impossible question to answer just because I'm still feeling it. The interesting thing about that is you could spend two weeks with me and you never knew me and you never knew my life story. Never in a million years would you think, I don't carry myself like that. I'm not someone who's down the dumps like that, but it's still there. It will never go away.

What What are the symptoms of it still being there?

There is this air of, I suppose air of unpredictable, this feeling of... That's sometimes where my positivity comes from, too. Things could change tomorrow. I suppose that is in that jeopardy, in that idea, that's how I would interpret it. Because for any grief that I've experienced, it has been relatively quick. I haven't really had a lot of time to compute these ideas.

Does that create a certain anxiety with life and a certain worry for life that if the foundations are uncertain and bad news can arrive at any moment, that seems like the breeding ground of worry and anxiety. I actually wrote that down earlier, because when we were speaking earlier, you said, I wasn't a warrior back then when you're talking about your childhood.

Yeah, I didn't used to be a warrior. Now, I'm sure most people can say that, right? Your worry levels, or at least for most people, you have less worry when you're younger. You haven't quite understood all your emotions yet, really.

Do you have anxiety? Do you struggle with it?

Yeah, I experience it all the time. Is it something that controls me? No. I'm sure you've heard about this. My vocal coach always used to say to me that the feeling of being anxious and excited or near-identical in feeling. That was something that always stuck with me, really, It was not always, but a lot of stuff that feels really good can be quite intimidating beforehand. It was an anxiety that comes with doing something that is out of the ordinary, I suppose. I can distinctly remember, not so much now, but on the first tour, I would literally, before going out on stage, I'd literally, as futile and as ridiculous as it is, I'd think to myself, How do I run away from this? How could I literally run out the door and not do the gig? Maybe that would be a version of anxiety, but it didn't stop me getting up there and doing it, I suppose. Maybe there's the difference.

Couple of years after the passing of your mother, you lose your younger sister, Felicity. The circumstances of her death are deeply, deeply tragic. When I was speaking to several people in your life around you, they talked about how you had done so much since the passing of your mother to support your sisters, how you'd really taken on the role as being the 'head' of the family, is what they told me. The tragedy is deepened by the fact that she's 18 years old at the time. Again, an unthinkable, an unthinkable tragedy for one person to go through in their life. But for you to go through two of these things in succession is... I mean, I don't have the words.

Yeah, that was what I was speaking about before, that moment of stubborn your toe and that aggravating you. That was just that idea accentuated. I just couldn't believe. I couldn't believe how deeply unlucky we've been as a family. That was just Now, maybe it's not overly uncommon. People that lose parents young, and obviously, it's got to deal with a bit at the time. I felt angry at life, and I felt angry, mostly on behalf of my family. Now, it wouldn't be... Obviously, I would know that I was included in this idea, but I wouldn't be thinking, What have I done to deserve this? It was more, Daisy and Phoebi are so young. They've already had, and Lottie as well, already had so much to deal with. Why this and why now? It did feel incredibly unfair. That's something that's interesting about grief is just how different each thing feels. Because that definitely hit me in a different way. It was completely sudden and immediate. Again, one of the most challenging moments of my life. So I'm sat in my house in London and everything was fine. I was a little bit worried. I've been worried about Felicity for the months prior, as I was worried about all my sisters.

And I was just sat in my front room smoking a joint, not thinking about anything, really. And then the doorbell rang at 1: 00 in the morning. I or something, or maybe like, midnight. I had this feeling come over me straight away. I'm not really this guy, where on another day, I might have been worried that the police were coming to grab me weed, but it wasn't like that. I just had this thing come over me straight away, and I knew it was bad. I knew that, look, when someone rings your door about that time, it's not really good news. Then I opened the gates. I've got these gates, and I opened the gates and I saw the police car and the policeman, and then they told me that she passed away. I literally was like, Okay, right. I can't tell you why, because it was just... It was only me and my best friend and my ex-girlfriend at the time. So it wasn't a pride thing of me being like, Okay, I'm cool. I'm fine. I think I didn't I just... Not only was I in denial at that moment, I just refused to even compute it.

It was just like, okay, cool. Then I remember shutting the door. Then I told the people I'm in the house with, and Obviously, then they start crying, and obviously then I think your brain starts catching up with you. Something that was really tough for me at this moment in time, and this is a stupid thing to say because I know that he was more than willing to be there for me, but my best friend who I was living at the time, he was here today. I remember him saying, I'm just so sorry, and he was crying his eyes out. I was just like, I'm just so sorry. I'm so sorry. I felt guilty that he felt like that. It's just stupid. And so I'd said before about how this is Me and my family are some of the characters in this story, but often what's not spoke about in the name of grief is people like my best friend, then the role that they have to play. Now, these are not trained therapists. These are not people who've had any reference of this pain. And all you're doing as a best friend there is actually demanding or just praying, hoping that they give you something in return that will not change It's not the reality, but just be there for you or whatever.

And nothing prepares you in life for those situations. That's something that I will forever, forever, ever be in debt to him for because, yes, this is an unfathomable, really impossible situation for me and my family to have found ourselves in. But there are other people at play, too. I can only imagine how How hard that was. He knew how hard it was for me and how I just lost my mom. There are no words, right? I'm sure you're just scrambling your brain trying to find the words, and there isn't any. Also, bear in mind everything that I've said before this. If I were to dumb my role down to one thing in life, I'd maybe say to look after people. Well, in the context of my sisters, they're protector. To lose my sister in the manner that we did, even though I knew that it wasn't fair on myself, I felt utterly guilty. I felt powerless, and I felt like I'd let my sister and like I'd let my mom down, really. My mom said to me, in the last couple of weeks of her life, she was like, You better promise me you look after your sisters.

And I'm like, Yeah, of course. I will. And she was like, But specifically, Felicity, she's I felt like I'd failed at the time. That's the truth. I know now that I didn't. And if she was here now, she would say that you didn't. But yeah, it doesn't change the feeling. And again, that's always been the role I played in the family. And all I was trying to do after my mom was just put me and me sisters and me grandparents in a bubble. I just thought, let's just Nothing's going to get to us. That sounds like a really arrogant thing to say. I mean this more metaphorically, but it truly undermined me. It undermined all the hope that I'd had, all these ideas that I was instilling post a life without our mom. It just undermined all those ideas. It made it a lot more challenging for me to say them and feel them and believe them. But it's the same with my sister's. It just made everything, obviously, infinitely more difficult. The only thing I'm thankful is that my mom wasn't around to see that because that would have been horrible for her.

I actually learned this from being around, funny enough, being around Liam. When someone is struggling with their own demons per se, unless you've been around someone who's really struggling, You probably don't understand how helpless it often feels. In hindsight, someone that's not been in a situation thinks, Well, you just go over there and you sit with them and have dinner and then you fix it. But actually, the reality of helping someone who's struggling is they often do things in private and secretly. You referenced you knew that Felicity was struggling with something. Was that the passing of your mother that she was struggling with or was it life generally?

I think it was a bit of both. I think obviously mom I've seen definitely amplified any of those things. But I think with Felicity, she was one of these people that... She was uber-intelligent from a young age. Really, really, really intelligent, which is ironic because I'd say we're a relatively smart family, but she was in her own league. Really, really intelligent woman. I think that brought its own social frustration for her, definitely. You hear these people that are intelligent from a young age. She would always have felt like she was on the outside looking in, but only because of her intellect, really. That's tough for kids when they're younger, definitely. It's not something I can personally relate to, but I can imagine how that would be really alienating and tough. Felicity was probably the most like my mom. Then that also carried its own way because it felt... I'd say Felicity looked the most like my mom as well, visually. I mean, she's been. Yeah, Yeah, it's crazy.

You look like each other, to be honest.

Yeah, we do. I used to get that when I was younger. People always just say how much I look like my mom. And as a young lad, that's not really what you want to hear, but I'm really proud. Yeah, you can see how much I love her that I bless. You see, I've alluded to some of this stuff in the past, not really ever spoke about it in-depth like this. And part of the reason for that is, and this is the correct forum, and it makes sense, but part of the reason for that is I can't think of anything worse than being... What's the word? If someone like this was talking to me about this and I had not experienced that, I'd feel really sorry for them, naturally. I don't like that. I don't like those feelings. I don't like those ideas. I appreciate that it's weighty and people should, of course, feel sorry. But I think the reason that I'm always quite selective of how when I talk about it is because I cannot have that define me. I can't. It's not fair to my family. It's not fair to Felicity. It's not fair to my mom.

I can't. The problem is if we walked out of here and we just to get papped, in the article, the Daily Mail print, every single time, they will write about this stuff. Every single time. It could be me and you going to get a coffee, and then they do that thing where it's like a 20% new article, and then they just fluff out the rest of the 80% with basically the narrative that they want to push. But that's something that I can't escape. I find that really frustrating because I'm not someone who is a glass half empty I don't want those feelings and emotions. I empathize and understand with anyone hearing these stories. Of course, you're going to... Maybe you would feel bad for me. But I think my biggest worry in these things is to not be defined by it. An example of that would be when I released a song called Two of Us, which was a song that was written essentially about my mum's passing. Yeah. I didn't realize by releasing that song, how, A, it would open the floodgates to have many people put a lot of their trauma on me as well, which is okay, but also creating this thing where anyone just feels like they could ask anything then.

I remember going on to BBC Breakfast News, and it's one of those things, it's fucking early morning slot. Not even the presenters want to be there. Never mind me at that time. I'm not good with the early mornings. Anyway, so I'm going on to talk about Two of Us, the Single. Now, We'd distinctly said, You know what it's like? These are the things that are okay to mention and do not mention these things. Now, if I was going to go on and talk about what the song was about, then fair enough. That's one thing. But I actually had a journalist at the time who asked me directly about those things, and I'd known that we'd said, Don't. Now, it's very different. Sometimes on that list, we might have, Don't speak about One Direction. This is not what I've got a problem with. But when someone They had their own grief and you're still then going to ask those questions, I think I found that really, really troubling. What was interesting was I left the interview, and I used to be good at this when I was a bit younger, and I took to Twitter, and I was like, I'm never fucking working with the BBC again.

Then he came back at me, this journalist. He said, Well, if you write a song about grief, expect to be asked about it. My instinctive reaction was, there's somebody who hasn't experienced grief, they couldn't possibly have. Because if they had, they wouldn't make such a horrible, horrible comment that just lacks all empathy. So I think it's those moments where I'm quite guarded with this information just because, as I said, I think a lot of people, if I never spoke about it, I don't carry myself as someone that looks like they're really hurt. At least I hope I don't. I don't think I do.

Do you know what I had? It sounds like a crazy thing for me to say, but I had no idea.

Okay, right. Yeah. Okay.

So we met at Socorade.

Okay, right. I had no idea. I like that. Okay. That makes me feel good, actually.

You No, it's just me being honest. I had no idea. I'm not someone that... I don't really read newspapers. I don't stay close to tabloid stuff. I had known Liam, but Liam hadn't spoken to me about these things. I'd met you, we'd hang out for a couple of days at Soccerade. I had no idea. Yeah, okay. It was only in researching your story and your background and understanding where you've come from and really what inspires a lot of the music and different things like that that I started to understand these things. You're certainly not someone that carries yourself with any particular identity, really, that one could discern other than just being a normal guy. The other thing that connects us was Liam. I think it would have been Liam's birthday a couple of days ago. His birthday was three days off mine. So his 29th of August, I believe. Mine's the 26th. I knew him a little bit. You knew him an awful lot. And he passed away while on holiday in Argentina. I mean, Yeah, I just couldn't believe it. And you to him, because he had told me, he talked about you all the time.

Through the pandemic, I know you were doing things together, doing these live shows and stuff. And he would talk about you as if you were his best in the band all the time. I guess you feel you reciprocate that feeling with him, right? You were like the... Especially thereafter the band.

Definitely thereafter. I'd say in the first couple of years, me and Liam used to speak about this, we butt heads a little bit. Like I said before, Liam had been... He'd been working really, really hard since the age of 14 to get to where he was in one direction. My journey wasn't like that. There was definitely If I wanted to do something and I might be going out late at night and then Liam might say something along the lines of, We've got a photoshoot at nine o'clock in the morning tomorrow, we never saw eye to eye on those things because I'm just like, Well, I've got this amazing opportunity, so I'm still going to go out and party or whatever. But I think Liam, he came from a very sensible point of view, but mostly because he had given so much more time and energy to it by that point. As I said, yes, it was my third audition, but really, they weren't too taxing, the moments of the rejection. I just got on with it and got through it and it was fine. The only time X Factor was relevant to me was the times when I was auditioning those days, whereas Liam, it became his life from 14 right up until 16.

He'd sing at West Brom Stadium before any of us had done anything. When I put my It's just so much of a mess up about him, and by the way, it's so utterly challenging that. There are just too many words and too many memories. It could just be infinite, the post. I really wanted I really wanted him to be remembered the way that he should be remembered. But I could just go on and talk all day about how amazing he was. But I think we all looked up to him. I don't think I would have been brave enough to say that age when I was in the band. I think I would have had too much pride. But we all looked up to him massively for the reasons that I just stated. He was vastly experienced before any of us had done anything. He was also the safest pair of hands in every sense of the word. So vocally, interview, music video, whatever it would be, and he'd be working and doing it. He would always be the safest pair of hands, where maybe me and Z in the back, either smoking a joint or doing something stupid.

Liam would always, always have his eye on the ball, which ironically created more space. When you've got someone who's willing to pick up the pieces and you've got young lads, young lads don't reflect and go, Oh, I can see he's picking up a lot of the pieces. I'm going to do a bit more for him. Well, no, you just see that. My role in the band might have been to be disruptive and have conversations with record labels or management or whoever, and that was for me to be disruptive and go against the green. Liam's role was the opposite, but equally, if not more important, to just keep everything going and be that safe pair of hands of keeping everything in check. That's why from a very young age, he was called the sensible one of the band, which I also don't think would have done him loads of favor as mentally either.

He was wildly misunderstood.

Big time, big time, man.

And oftentimes people maliciously misunderstood him, which was I don't know if I have the right words for this, but if you knew Liam Payne, and then you went on the internet and saw the way that he was described when certain moments in press, and there was that interview he did in LA and things like that, you It would only feel awful that he was so poorly misunderstood because he was often painted as being arrogant or whatever. But the reality of Liam is the opposite of whatever the word arrogant is. Pure is the word.

Yeah, really nice way of describing him like that. And I don't mean this in a remotely rude way or derogatory way. He had a bit of puppy dog energy about him. When you say pure, that's what it makes me feel like. He's just the guy that you might get a bit of banter on and it comes across a bit cutting and you see him go, Oh, and you go, Oh, my fucking ass. It's just really wanted to be liked. Now, we all do, obviously, that has seen all of us, but I I think for Liam, it was vitally important. But also he missed out on some of the social life because from 14 to 16, he was actually working at that point. He was still at school and stuff, but his brain and his dreams, and probably every night that he went to sleep, he was thinking about how is he going to achieve what it is that he wants to achieve. So he definitely had a very different journey to all of us.

Where were you when you found out?

In the car in I laid and I just dropped. I'm pretty sure, again, my memory isn't good at these moments of time, but I think I just dropped Freddie off at school with my son. We were just about to pull back up home. I think that's how it went down. I found out through Niall. He told me and then... I think Niall says something like, On the lines of, have you seen the news and I knew as soon as he said that, I knew what it might meant, what he might have meant. I had the same feeling that I had to flish to I think anyone has this when they're around someone who's struggling. My 150% wasn't nearly enough. And that's where it's my own arrogance thinking that I could have helped, really, because it was so much deeper than what I could have done for him. He was definitely struggling at that time in his life. A lot of people said this, and it really resonated with me. It just he If he could just see just for five minutes, just live in your head or my head and see how we perceive him, he would be so shocked.

He would be like, honestly, even the fact that you two were friends and I didn't know about that until you mentioned it, Sokrade, or maybe he mentioned it loosely. He would have loved that. He would have loved that. You would have been someone definitely, definitely that he would have felt really proud to know because you come from also a very credible space, and that's something that was always really important to Liam. Businessbusiness. Very, very important to Liam. So the fact that you saw him, That would have meant the world to him, definitely. He just... Yeah, he very, very misunderstood. But I think also the fact that he was misunderstood is because he was, like I said before, four about all of our solo endeavors. When most bands or artists start out, they do a development stage for six months, 12 months, 18 months, two years. We had to do this development in the public eye, post being in one direction. Liam was still working so much out. The fact that he might have been a bit misunderstood, you can't... There's some things that people definitely can be judged for. But in terms of him occasionally coming across like that, you can't even judge people on looking because they just see what they see.

But in reality, that's just someone navigating almost in the way that if you went down to university and just people watched for two months, you would see some stuff of people that were struggling with some things and whatever, or complete walking contradictions. You'd see someone in the first year who says that they swear by this brand and they'll never wear this brand. And then next year, they'll be wearing said brand. When we're at that age, we're all still just working it out. There's so much room to be misunderstood because you don't know yet. And I think that was a tough thing for all of us is working out who am Who am I outside of Liam in one direction, Louis in one direction? Who am I and what does that look like? That question is intimidating, really, really intimidating.

You lose a friend there, but you also, in some respects, it marks... It's grieving the band again, is it not? You know what I mean?

It definitely brought up feelings like that. Look, there's now only three other people on the planet that can deeply I truly understand my professional journey. I can never say never, but never. I can't ever imagine. I'm not sure it would be right to him. Say, for the sake of argument, 25 years time, it's like a fucking Oasis thing. They offer us an arm and a leg, and they're like, Come back and do this many shows. I don't know. I think it just completely put a pin all that. The irony is there was no one campaigning for WNDY to get back together more than Liam. I would say I came in a close second, actually, definitely. Another important thing to mention about Liam, which I thought was incredible, There's a time where I felt like me and Liam were professionally losing together. We were struggling to be solo artists and find true success, and we were struggling together. Then Liam had little moments where he had a really successful singles, and they stream really well, and he'd feel really good about that. But at that time, nothing was really working for me in my job. So I was really proud of him, and I'd messaged him and stuff.

And then not to the same weight, but role reversed a little bit and Liam was struggling a little bit more professionally, and I just started to understand the picture a little bit more, started doing more touring and stuff like that. For example, I made a documentary in a film about my life after One Direction. And Liam came to the premiere. Now, I'll just say this because I was going to mince me words, but none of the other boys would have done that. Fact, boys out the band, the lads in One Direction. Would Why have even done that? I like to sit here now and say, Yeah, I think I would, but I don't know truthfully. And the point being that me empathizing how I was a couple of years prior to that, Liam was sat in a cinema watching a film about how I'd been successful in the last 12 months when he was struggling with his own things. It's something that I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to do. I'm not sure the other boys would have. Basically, all that is, to sum that up, is just utterly putting himself second.

There's no way that that wouldn't have had a certain weight on him, because as you said, we're all human and we naturally compare. So there might be things that were happening there that he was wanting for. And I think just the fact that he turned up on that day and was there for me, and I just did the role reverse in my head and imagined that. I just imagined how challenging that could be. And it's just a real testament to Liam. And he couldn't have been more happy. And that's another great example of this, of where the fucking internet is just horrible place at times. He put up, and luckily, I know someone will have a screenshot of it because he deleted in the end, but he put up this beautiful post after my premiere for this documentary, an essay, a fucking essay. Like stuff that he's never said to me before. It was the sweetest, nicest fucking shit. And then about two days later, he deleted it because the fans were just caning him for it, just saying that he was bandwagon, you know what it's like? It's a very small percentage of people, but they make a lot of noise, and sometimes it'll push you to a point of even deleting a post.

But that being an example of him just really putting himself second and really trying to say to the world how proud he was of me. The end goal was more ridicul.

It's what happened right when he was in Argentina. He was there watching Niall performing. There was lots of similar narrative around his appearance there.

All I would say in any regard like that, not just Liam, in any person like that. After you judge, because sometimes it's human nature to judge. After you judge, just give those things just a little bit more thought. Take the tour thing, for example, and he's at the tour show and people were making comments of how much he was loving the attention. On the surface level, that's someone who wants attention. If you just look a little bit deeper, that's someone who's just been in the biggest band in the world and wants those situations again. Who hasn't had those live situations again and craves for them. The reason also Liam could be misunderstood is because he didn't really operate with a filter. He would just feel something say it, and there you go.

Is there anything else that you've been meaning to say?

It's a great provocative question, though. Because that's what it is, right? No, there is. We should talk about Freddie for a second, my little boy.

From other hit.

Which is, again, something that happened to me. I was young. I was 24 when I had Freddie. Now, what a lot of people, the emotions that a lot of people go through when they become a new parent, some of those will be different for me because I've always been uber excited about it, even from being a young, young lad. But also, truthfully, I felt utterly confident. I felt like I was going to be a good dad. I really, really wanted to do that and to play that role. And he's just, honestly, he is just the sweetest kid, man. He's just so kind. That's what, honestly, I could well up thinking about it now. That's what makes me feel deeply proud.

That's what I did ask Lottie and a few others about him. The quote that I got back is, Louis is the most amazing dad. His little boy is the nicest, sweetest, most polite boy ever. That's obviously because of how Louis has brought him up. I try to take a lot of advice and be more like him with my parenting, and that came from Lottie. I have multiple accounts of just how wonderful of a young man Freddie's growing up to be.

He's great, man. I tell you what, I'm at this 33, a few gray hair's on me head, starting to be a bit more aware of my age, feeling a little bit older. There's nothing that makes you feel better than when I go pick him up from school. I am a young dad. For that age group, I'm still a young dad. So, yeah, it's good for my ego as well. The only thing that can sometimes be challenging like that with Freddie is it took... It was like the elephant in the room for ages, me talking about my life and specifically the fame, specifically those things, because I think to a kid, they just see it in the pure sense of a singer. There's someone who sings and that's that. But I think where it became inevitable that I'd have to have conversations with them, it'd be like, say we're out at Target in America and someone stops me for a photo. Now, I'd like to say I'm pretty good with photos. I'll do them eight times out of 10. Whenever I'm with Freddie, there is a 1,000% no chance. That is just not happening. I don't get enough time with him as it is.

I'm always balancing my time between tour and go and see Freddie in the UK. It's just a flat now every single time. After the second or third time that that had happened, I just played on my mind. I put into bed that night and I was reliving it. I was thinking, he's going to think I'm a dick. Because it's really important that I push kindness on him and respect and seeing the good in people and all of that. And all of a sudden, I was doing this thing that was really contrary to what I was trying to teach. So I did have to have a conversation with him about it. But again, you're trying to explain algebra, as I said to you before. When I'm not at work, I would be more than happy to like nobody to ever recognize me. When I'm not at work, when I'm at work, I'll need it for the promo. Give me a bit of that. But when I'm not at work, I could go out of my way to just never have any of that. Hud up, no one, cool. When I'm picking up Freddie from school, I am certainly not somewhere I used to be in this band and this singer.

Not at all. I am there like everyone else as a father or as a mother. It was last day of term, go to pick him up, I go into his class, and I could just hear what sounded like karaoke. I'm thinking, I've all fucking days of me going to pick him up. They're doing karaoke today. She had absolutely no problem asking me in front of everyone if I wanted to come to the front and do one of the songs. Now, I'm there as a parent. What's really tough is in front of Freddie and all his friends, I have to quietly decline. Now, I don't really like how that's going to make Freddie feel. Those situations are really tough like that where... Now, some people may, Well, I just grabbed the mic and just took the stage. But there are moments like that that I I don't think he's going to truly understand until he gets a little bit older. He's been to a couple of gigs and that definitely added some context to it all.

He came and saw you in California, didn't he? When he performed out.

Yeah, that was amazing, man. It was so amazing.

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Was that Nizam? Yeah. Sounds like him. That's funny.

You went Instagram official? Yeah, yeah.

I saw that post. New territory for me, all that. I'm learning on the job.

How does that all weave into the music? How is the music different this time around? What are you thinking going into the studio?

All those things are so relevant. They are like personal life and how happy you are and fulfilled and content, all those things, of course, play into the record, definitely. I think because of a lot of the This conversation we've just had, there's been a certain weight to the music before now. Like I said, I wrote that song about my mom called Two of Us. I could imagine listening to my first record, I'd be pretty exhausted after listening to it emotionally. It's like, fucking hell, just put in a couple of nice, happy, fun songs. But it wasn't true to me at that time. I think now I feel in a comfortable place to be positive and happy and confident. That's one thing I was thinking about with this record is my intention is just to maybe feel good. I know that's a really cliché and obvious thing to say, but I'm not sure some of my other music did that. It made you feel it It was honest, it was painful at times, but it didn't feel that good. I think now I've got this almost like a new sense of life, a new sense of happiness and purpose and fulfill, all those things.

But also it's something I've The older I get, the more hippie I can get on these ideas. And if I would use an analogy, on the last two records, I had a very small palette of paint of the colors I was choosing from, and a lot of them were darker colors. Whereas on this record, it feels like the palette is a lot deeper. There is a lot more to say, but there's a lot more color on there as well. That makes me really good because I must feel good to make that record. You can't fake shit like that, or at least I can't anyway.

How much does love come into all of this?

As I said, I'm deeply, deeply romantic person. It's also easy to be romantic when you are creative. Those two things are just tight. But I think for me, I really struggle to write in a fictional sense. I really, really struggle. For me, I have to have been living it. It has to be literal. It has to be real to me. If I wasn't feeling so good right now, I wasn't feeling so in love, the record probably would have a slightly different feel to it. Just because things like that are in everything that I, we, I do, I would say.

What is success for you this time around? We talked about the comparison and this and that and all these other yardsticks we can use.

I'll tell you what success is. Success, for me, is actually successfully computing what the new idea of success is. I know what my old idea is, but true success for me, and I'm not there yet, is getting to the point where I don't just say this is my new version of success, I mean it implicitly. What's really difficult is the music industry is an industry that is, A, a numbers game, and B, competitive. Now, you can pretend to have this different vision of success, and you can get there in the end. But the point being that there are a million different tools in place to pull you to the other side. It genuinely shouldn't matter where my album charts, let's just say, the UK, for the UK, for example, where my album charts in the UK. It shouldn't really matter that much to me. But it does. I've not quite got there yet. I think the irony is I just started to get there on the last record, and the last record, obviously high-class problem, I get that, went to number one. Then all of a sudden, I'm Obviously, I want it again now. I started to have the answer for what the new thing of success looks like until I succeeded, I superseded my own idea of success.

Then I'm like, Oh, well, then the barrier has just changed. Then you're basically just playing the same game you were before.

Where are you in your journey of happiness? If you had to plot your life on a timeline of like...

I like that because I normally thought about it like this. It makes me feel good. It feels like I'm on the home That's great.

Okay, nice. Beautiful.

I feel like, truthfully, obviously not what I would have told my sisters back in the day or my family or anything like that, but it was more of a concept, the idea of me getting over this and being truly happy for a long time. It was like a concept as opposed to any form of reality. It was like, Oh, well, I'm sure. Logically, that makes sense in my head, but will I ever get there? I don't know. I now feel worthy for the success that I've earned. For a long time, I didn't know if I'd ever get there. I would say this record, this album, is the album that I always deserve to make. It's just I had to be brave enough to say, yes, I'm an artist, yes, I'm a recording artist, and I'm a touring artist, and I'm a songwriter, and all these things that sometimes just felt a little bit cringe to say out loud, weirdly. I think part of the imposter syndrome, maybe. But the picture that was forever quite blurry looks a little bit more sharp now.

I mean, the fans are waiting.

Yeah.

I saw the tweet you did the other day where you talked about the music and how confident you are and how you're feeling about it. The response underneath that post was just insane. Absolutely insane. The energy is there and people are extremely excited. You have an incredible fan base.

Yeah, honestly, I can never talk about this enough. Anyone listening to this now that doesn't know me or my fans will just think that this is just another artist speaking another cliché about his fans. I'm telling you, this is what I call it a codependency. They do so much for me, and I do, hopefully, stuff for them when I do the gigs and stuff. But when I feel the energy on stage, this is not a, let me show you all what I can I do. This is a, Look what we've done together. I really, really feel that. The size of the venues that I'll be playing on this next tour, these are things I never considered for myself. I only made possible from the fan base being like, Really, really loyal, but also real patient, real patient for me to just work all these things out on the fly while they keep buying the record.

The other thing that really surprised me that a lot of people didn't know about is that you are also a pretty prolific on entrepreneur in your own right. You've founded a music festival called the away From Home Festival, which originally in London, but has expanded internationally around Spain, Italy, Mexico. You got your clothing brand as well, 28. I saw 28 tattooed on your arm there, I believe, which is a streetwear brand, and that's done tremendously well. The brand has sold four sold out drops worldwide and hosted some incredible events. I'm very excited. I'm very, very excited about your album. I'm very, very excited by it. I guess, do you have a name for your fan base yet? Everyone seems to have a name for their fan base.

Do you know what? That's so funny because...

The Tomlinson? I don't know what's it.

There must be, though. I think they call themselves the Louies. The Louies, okay.

I'm a Louie.

There we go. It just rolls off the top.

We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left for you. It's been a paragraph, but I'm going to give it my best shot. If you are truly prioritizing the most important things in your life (e. G. Family), and we only have limited time and effort to give, if you are a high achiever and performer, have you prioritized the most important thing?

No, I haven't. But that's a really tough one to answer. It requires some true, true honesty. The things that really, really matter. For a start, I spent a lot of my later teen years and early adult life in one direction, so I wasn't really in the head space for the ball to have dropped for how important certain things are. When you're younger, you're super literal, right? If I drink this alcohol and get really drunk and I feel good, then that's good, right? Then you get a bit older and you realize, Oh, maybe it's not so good. So any of those things. I suppose now I understand how important looking out for yourself is and mental health, but also I've always been a family guy, but I mean, actually deeply cherishing those moments as well. So I definitely could have done that more as a young lad, but I think that's probably the case of a lot of young people, that they probably reflect and think, well, I should have done that more as a young person. But the truth is the ball hasn't really dropped yet. You don't realize how important all those little intricacies are.

Because also when you're young, everything's so new. So the allure is so much sexier on the other side. Oh, look, there's a new thing here, new thing here, new thing here. Whereas I think it takes a bit of age and experience to look at those things to go, Oh, actually, maybe I haven't been spending my time correctly.

Yeah. You said it perfectly. It really held the mirror up to me, to be honest, because I think you said you haven't perfectly prioritize the most important things, but you're certainly prioritizing more than most people. Because I hear about how much effort you put into making sure you spend time with Freddie and your sister described you as always being family-centric. That's a really, really beautiful thing. Louis, thank you so much. I can't be more excited to listen to the album with all the context that we've described and also the understanding of where you've arrived at in your life now and how your perspective has developed and all that lived experience has poured into a beautifully really uplifting, wonderful sound. So thank you so much for the honor and the privilege of being able to have this conversation with you. And just for being a really on and off camera, just a really, really sound guy.

Oh, nice one, man. I appreciate that. No, I really enjoyed it, man. It flew by, though. We've been talking for some time. Yeah, it's good, man.

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