Ep. 250: Niall Horan | Outlasting Pop's Biggest Band, "Dinner Party" & More

Were you scared to go solo? I guess the fear was after having what I had, I didn't want that just to be the end, you know. What I've been proud of is that I've always just kind of stuck to what I think I do best. I mean, it's what makes you so special. It is so hard to have a solo career. You stuck to your guns like the whole time. You weren't the first to write songs out of the band. How was it watching your bandmate success influence you as an artist? It definitely got me, like, fired up. I can't imagine losing a brother. You can't foresee that stuff. Julian actually said it, he was like, this song is about Liam. We just don't know it yet. We were like school kids the whole time, just having a great laugh. This season is presented by NMPA, the National Music Publishers Association. Champions of songwriters and publishers everywhere. Welcome to And The Writer Is. I am your host, Ross. And I'm your host, Julian Scullin. Today's global superstar built one of the most consistent and intentional solo careers ever to come out of a successful band. Literally, one of the hardest things to do in the music industry is to not alienate your existing fanbase while inviting them to your new era and still score number one hits. He did it by defying trends and defining his own, by pulling influence from classics while collaborating with today's best. Listen, it's not just the look of the Irish. Is that good? I don't know. Okay. It's what happens when you work your arse off. Oh, I'm so sorry about that. All the way from up the hill, this golfer is one of the songwriting community's favorites. And the writer is Niall Horan. Hello. Hello. That was one heck of an intro. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Dude, this is exciting. I know. I've been. I've watched this from the start, even before you went to video. I've been listening for a very long time, so I'm very excited to be here. That's amazing. You're on like a whole new era. Here we go again. Yeah. How do you feel about that? Yeah, no, I'm really excited. I think coming off the back of the last tour, I was just like pumped to get back in. Usually, I like to take a long time to debrief, take a second. But this time, I finished the tour and basically went back into the studio. A couple of months later. Is it because you feel the pressure from a world where everyone's like, give me more content, give me more content? Or is it just like artistic? Well, I guess no, not really. I just I just really wanted to go again. I got so excited off what I did in 2024. I sold a lot more tickets than I thought it was going to sell playing arenas around the world. And I was just pumped off the back of that and just wanted to hopefully do it again. How crazy is that? Is it hard to maintain in terms of, I don't know, selling out tickets in arenas? Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, like, I obviously came from a world where arenas and stadiums was kind of half normal, but never expected it for myself. So to play, I played to like 1.2 or 3 million people in 2024, and it just was not expected because I hadn't toured for like six years, five years, and I just wasn't expecting it. There was no big smash hit of the show. And I just kind of wasn't expecting it. But the fans were we were in that period post COVID where everyone was just fired up to go to go to shows and get out of the house and see stuff that you would sometimes say no to. And yeah, and the fans are just obviously extremely loyal. And then we brought a few more fans in and I was able to do arenas all over the world. And it's just a crazy, mind blowing thing and still is. Yeah. I was trying to figure out when. You know, we've we've met a few times throughout the years and all this stuff, and I was trying to figure out what the first time that we would have met. And I don't I don't know if you remember this, but I actually went on tour with you guys, Derbyshire and Manchester. Where else was it? It was like Leeds. And it's the craziest thing. And I know like, you know, I'm here. I am a songwriter. Just like kind of just like, hey, do you want to go? And try and record on, you know, with these guys that are living this crazy life. And you're it's hard to explain what it's like to be. You drive like an hour outside of these cities to a random and maybe it was a hotel. Maybe it was like an abandoned building that was like where people lived three centuries ago. The hotel room was already set up with like with as like a makeshift studio. And within an hour and a half, there'd be 200. Young fans outside who somehow found their way to you. It's like it was just the wildest thing to experience, let alone, I'm sure, live it. I feel like you've been in this phase of, you know, from the beginning, just sort of like the travel around the world and have to be creative all at the same time. And like, it's hard to you. People out there think like, oh, there's an album that comes out and then there's a tour that goes out. But you're. You're like you came in a world where you were recording albums while on tour, while doing like a million things at once. When you are on tour now, are you still going back to hotel rooms and working on songs and ideas? Not really. No. I mean, those days were nuts. Like it was, as you said, it was like makeshift, you know, John and Julian would fly in with you or, you know, and the mattresses against the wall and like a makeshift like computer and a couple of PMCs and a couple of SMBs. And it would just be like recording things. And because we were just flying towards and albums and everything was just coming out 100 miles an hour. So kind of the way we did it, you come off stage, record vocals into the night with Julian or John or yeah, it was just the way we did it all over the world, different places, different corners. And it was fun. I mean, we were young and full of energy, so it was it was great. These days are a little bit different. I need my time after a show. These days. Yeah. What is your post show recovery? I literally take a shower, get into shorts and a T-shirt, watch Netflix or something and just like take it very easy. I don't I try and I don't do any of the drinking on tour or anything like that. Just literally try and take it as easy as I possibly can. And because when you're in a band, obviously, there's a lot everyone can do the singing, split it up when you're doing your own thing. It's a different singing for 90 minutes. And, you know, even longer, sometimes it's hard work. It's brutal. Yeah, it is on the voice, on the body. Just your adrenaline is just rushing. And then you go from like screaming crowds to you're just in your dressing room or in your bunk. And you're just like, what the hell just happened? And you get that feeling 90 times a year, you know, and it's a quite a roller coaster of it is something that I don't think you'll ever get used to. Why do you do it? I love it. I love that. I love touring. It's a it's something that something that I've always wanted to do, something I thought that's what the music industry is, is like getting out playing to thousands of people. It must be the best feeling in the world. And it is like you could be literally having the worst day of all time. And then at 830 at night, you know, the curtain drops and there you are in front of these people who put their money in their hands in their pockets. Come watch. It's a pretty cool feeling. When you're on stage and you're performing. Do you feel like do you ever get nervous? Are you just in the moment? Do you ever think about those things that are happening offstage? Do any or you can you really immerse yourself in 90 minutes of of just like ultra focus, you know, in the now show? Yeah, no, I definitely just completely focus in on what I have to do. Obviously, the more shows you do, the more of a you're just kind of you're just kind of. Doing it, it's happening around you and, you know, you can embrace the crowd more and get involved and you don't have to think about, you know, the early shows of a tour. It can be quite sketchy, like still trying to figure stuff out. And but once you get on a bit of a roll, you're just kind of yeah, you're just kind of doing it and it's and it becomes a lot more fun. And but I've noticed like with concerts these days, they become more of like an event. Like I remember a tour just used to feel like show, show, show, show, show, show. Now they're like each city has like its own event, like concerts are becoming more. It's all about the fans and what they're getting up to before the shows and building up shows. And yeah, you remember what city you're in more now than you than you, if you know what I mean. What? Why? I don't know. I think the way pop culture is gone with the with all the with the Taylor stuff and like Olivia and Harry. And so it feels like every city now is like it's a big deal when you when you come to town and it feels yeah, they feel like more events than just like, oh, it's just another show on that person's tour. They just feel. Like bigger for some reason. It must be like, you know, you have to have a team of people lead, you know, lead the tour before you get to that city in order to actually make that into a proper event. I feel like the fans are doing it. The fans are. Yeah, the fans are just so like they've always been like we're we're one of few artists, you know, I say that including all the boys where we just have that, you know, that that type of fandom that is just there for you all the time and they just build things. up themselves, they make a lot of noise around the cities it's like it's a really cool thing to to arrive into a place and feel like there's an event happening for you and now your fans some of your fans have children you know it's like it feels like you you guys are moving into the generational part of it yeah how does that feel it's great it's cool like it's it's crazy now like it recently like performed with like a couple of the you know the new crew whatever you call them um the new guard and it does make you feel that little bit older like i was recently got up and played with somber in london and um you know i did a couple of things did a thing with did sally with uh role model and all these young younger guys that um are you know want to come and sing my songs is pretty nuts like i remember somber said to me he said uh i dude i grew up on slow hands and i was like what do you mean you grew up on slow hands how old are you and you and i when i think about it somber was 12 when slow hands came out yeah and slow hands to me feels like it came out last week yeah it feels like that too i was kind of surprised at how long that's that's been i you know your story not mine but during the grammys i go uh every year and there's like uh the amount of people who are like oh man i've been listening to your podcast since i was in high school and you're like what oh man we've been around for nine plus years like yeah man nine years wow yeah it does make sense if you're 27 years old then yeah you were in college studying music that's the math yeah um congrats you're old you made it yeah do you do you golf on tour yeah it's niles golf tour of music with music do you really golf is that real especially in the states like i like i'm trying to like you know might some people might stay in the city that they just played if they have a day off the next day i'll like maybe have a stop on the way to the next place and i'll be like oh my god i'm gonna go to the next place and shower on the tour bus where are your favorite places to golf in the united states i mean florida is great there's so much good golf in florida tpc sawgrass all those like great florida golf courses we'll hit like random places in like ohio or how many rounds are you playing a year if we do 30 something shows i'll try and get in 10 rounds that's a lot that's a lot of golf well it is for somebody who you think like when you when you envision somebody who's a rock star you're like oh my god i'm gonna go to the marinas the last thing you're thinking is that in between shows that's what they're doing oh no my fans know exactly what i'm doing yeah you don't have to think do they follow to follow you at do you see fans at golf courses or they or is it sort of like at this point you can go do that no no that's that's fine that's how we kind of get it like properly into it like i played a lot when i was a kid like in ireland i played and grew up playing golf um and then harry and i would just like you know with the madness around hotels and stuff we go off into the countryside and play golf and you were behind the gates of a club and and um yeah there wasn't anyone around so that we really got into it around then do you have a handicap yeah what is it i'll play off eight that's impressive i heard john ryan i was gonna say yeah i knew that was coming are you better than john we go we flip-flop yeah he but you know what john's like you know he's just like dude i'm the best yeah like of course no one's better than you but everything yeah it's infuriating um uh you hear that john um who's someone you'd like to play golf with oh um steph curry he's a beast of a golfer like he's probably as good of a golfer as he's a basketball player is he really i didn't know he was that good he's like obviously he's a really really really good player um yeah i would love to play with steph um does he play with you it's interesting that you said steph and not like i mean well tiger's a little busy right now but like you know like you know you could have said somebody who's a professional golfer but you said steph like to be fair like i've um i'm good friends with a couple of the pros so i've played with a couple of the pros and like rory mcelroy and justin rose um they're good friends of mine and i've played with them a few times so uh is it just so you guys can get into like do you just drink guinness the whole time yeah we're just whiskey yeah i love playing golf with social golf with professional golfers because they come down a peg or two get them drunk and then watch them hit is there the irish thing though that that gets you and i mean obviously it's justin's he's he's english but like our english um is that what you know is there the irish bond that you get with uh a rory yeah i guess so like that's how we met we met through mutual mates uh who put us in touch and we were down in australia at the same time and basically bonded over drinking and not golf but since i've played golf since why is the footprint of irish people so big it isn't it's like it actually blows my mind most days of the week it's for a country of like i think there was a stat a while ago where it was like five million people in ireland and like 90 million irish passports on the planet and it's just like the cultural footprint that we have uh around the world it's just it's mind-blowing it seems like i've been to it's like i'm from my dad's from cork yeah how big is cork or there's one dad very busy but it's weird you know it's weird we were talking to dermot recently and it's like you know there's uh it's uh you know the the stereotypical irish male is not a overtly emotional person and then you have you have these amazing irish musicians and songwriters and writers as a whole you know books poems you know why why is it that irish men are able to communicate their emotion through art and not in in normal conversation i feel like it's the age-old question i don't think anyone's ever put i think if we talk about it then our art won't be as good yeah i feel like that's just like our vehicle and it has been for i don't know why we have a lack of emotion sometimes but can still put pen to paper quite well over the years whether it be screenplays or you know writers songwriters actors i don't know what it is did you grow up listening to uh traditional irish music yeah a lot of traditional irish music but my parents were more into like 70s laurel canyon rock uh but yeah i feel like it's just like i would play six eight straight away or you know like and that's why like country music here speaks to me or you know like there's a lot of in my roots and you know in in my bones that would be like a lot of folkier traditional stuff yeah yeah country music and and uh that appellation americana stuff is is our direct descendants of irish music and and irish immigration into this country so that that that definitely checks you're welcome yeah basically what i was saying is a long-winded thank you on behalf of all americans um me just taking credit for all this yes now horn takes credit for all of america yeah yeah what what kind of music did like you said uh laurel canyon but that's pretty vast like what well i grew up like my first ever concert was an eagles concert no way yeah i went to my first eagles gig when i was like four or five my dad like i recently found like my my mother's like original hotel california vinyl from the day it came out came with like a free poster or something and like i was looking at this just going do you realize what you've got like it obviously she didn't because she bought it at the time but like looking back 50 years later it's that's the best one of the best keepsakes you could have yeah and like final final like seven inch lionel richie releases and things it was just like geez you've got a good taste of music but thanks to them it kind of brought me into all the things that was going around around here like johnny and crosby stills and jackson brown and all of that and that's the stuff that i literally still listen to to this day and um yeah old head young shoulders i mean you can tell this is obviously the influences of that and the relationship with the with julian and john and you know this all checks out yeah i think you know and not not to jump too far ahead but i think that that influence is a lot of where one direction went to yeah you know is is because of what you were listening to has you know a massive influence on the direction of the band yeah i guess so like we would have been like talking a lot with with john and julian and about like what what the sound was going to be especially like the later albums maybe the last two especially about like where where the sound was going it was definitely hit like on the rockier side of pop but there are some like real folky things in there or real singer-songwriter things or kind of heavier american rock but that's just in that's in a few of us and it's also deep rooted in the boys like in john and julian like they're i mean that is that's that's them isn't it before i mean they can do everything they can do pop r&b like julian started making hip-hop beats and things and john's just he was his his roots are traditional american rock really isn't it and it definitely bled into and coincided with our or what we were listening to when do you first think i think i'm gonna write a song oh i was probably about 14 or 15 like i remember getting the first guitar and like playing the first four chords of like wonderwall like every kid of my age ever did not just your age yeah i don't know who you're kidding there's not a person who played guitar who wasn't that was that's what was going literally e minor g d and a for the first four um and yeah i don't know i just it was probably about 14 or 15 i can't like i can't even think about what the first thing that probably that it was but yeah i remember right before we started you said don't ask me about what the first song i couldn't even tell you what there were some weird titles like street light and random how did it go how did street like god knows i like i was it was at that period where i didn't have like the confidence to actually go the whole way with a song like it was just like writing bits i'm still doing a bit of that now actually you know like you're just constantly just writing verses and writing choruses and just like never actually getting to the end of things because i didn't actually know what i was doing well congrats you're a professional songwriter yeah i know i mean that's what it is a lot of help along the way no but that's what it is it's like you you come up with these random ideas you record them in your phone or wherever and you're trying to were you into poetry were you writing lyrics and stuff or is it always like a melody guitar thing more of a melody guitar thing a lyric became but the more emotionally evolved i got i got better like actually just putting pen to paper and there's the irish thing again and actually spilling it out but for a long time it was more like melody and kind of mumbles but um yeah i got there in the end but a bit of pushing and shoving from especially from john and julian in uh would when when did you start playing songs around the house where people were like hey he's pretty good yeah i probably your parents got divorced when you were young yeah when i was young yeah so i spent a lot of time in between the houses but still kind of a very social family everyone was around all the time and i just remember like singing like early like shania twain stuff and garth brooks and things like that in the car and people would be like oh he's pretty good or whatever or like i had a teacher at school that really like took me under her wing and like put me in choirs and gave me solo parts at christmas carols and i played all of her when i was a kid in like a school play and i would just kind of please sir please sir i can have some more it's pretty good you still got a shot i could still do it it could still do it cast me yeah um and yeah i just kind of just always had a love for it and love for like performing and being a show off and um did you growing up in musical theater is uh like being just doing any of these performances to me i found that to be incredibly influential and being able to move different genres and and performing in front of people and and also hearing the greats like the best songs ever god some of the music in them do you think you'll write a musical i would love to i've often thought about that when i seen max martin doing doing that musical a while ago or yeah or julia did it and julia julia did something and i was like oh that'd be such a cool thing to like cast some you know put some time aside to actually dig in for six months and try and write to something but i haven't got the offer yet would you perform in one oh never thought about that yeah i would if it was the right thing of course and at the right time um and depending on who was doing it obviously but yeah it would be like do you have a desire to to do that kind of singing slash acting um i don't know if i've got the patience for full acting like even a music video is a slog for me the waiting around like the between shots stuff i would i don't have the patience for that um but uh no i don't think i would again if it was the right thing at the right time and like just said someone came to me and was like right we've got this great music we've got this idea for a show i would i would have to have a strong think about it but i do like what i do i love like making records and going on tour and making records and going on tours and i kind of like that cycle and it's something that i've gotten used to for so long so it would have to be something that i was really into to break that you know yeah i want to talk about the um you know the abridged version of the the 1d journey and how it affected your songwriting specifically around that you've done a lot of conversations about the band obviously so it's i think what's interesting is you the front row seat to the best songwriters in the world and and seeing that so you know starting with this segment which is what would sovin kotecha ask now horn on and the writer is sovin would like to know um he says uh now you're a veteran artist uh what's it feel what do you feel is the most challenging thing to deal with as things have moved into this streaming tiktok era having come from x factor when twitter was brand new that is the most sovin question of all time and a great one because he always asks great questions um i love sovin by the way what a legend um some of my earliest memories have even been in the studio with him he was a vocal coach on the x factor at the time and like he was my like our first industry person that we we dealt with uh and obviously gave us what makes you beautiful and some of the the crackers from that first record um uh what what would his answer to that question i think what i've been proud of is that i've stuck to my guns on things i could have easily like followed suit and a lot of like when music changed i could have went with it just to have you know the big moment or the big viral song or whatever and i've always just kind of stuck to what i think i do best and you know whether that be like the folkier side of me or like at the time i released this town or slow hands it was a big edm time or i mean it's what makes you so special like when i said that in the intro let's take other people that are in successful bands that tried to do it whether it's you know uh like the the biggest bands of all time people did solo albums and very just very few and i'm not talking about i'm not talking about boy bands i'm talking all bands it is so hard to have a solo career it happens to you that you got that you guys each have had moments but to have like a career means that you stuck to your guns like the whole time like who gives you the confidence to stick to your guns in an era where everyone's like more more more and you could be this and you could be that yeah aren't there times where you feel like i don't know maybe i should go do that edm record yeah i like i just kind of i don't think i'd be able to sell it like i don't think i'd be able to sell something else that doesn't like naturally come from me like yeah like when i pick up a guitar i sing a certain way like a certain type of melody comes out i don't know if i could ever try and sell that to people i think people could see through that like that it's not authentic um you know i think that's very obvious when you see it when did you know that when did you know that what your authenticity is as a singer as a as an artist as a songwriter well i think i gained that confidence from going from not really knowing to honestly a lot of this comes down to john and julian because like julian's first thing when we write is he gives me one of these we play some and i think he just gives me the mic to the first melody pass is always coming from me no matter what we're doing because it has to feel like it it comes out of my mouth um and i and i gained so much confidence from from that and that's where i think you you just you evolve and you you know what happens when you pick up a guitar what chords you play what type of melody what cadence you go for what the first thought that comes to your head when you hear a groove or the chord progression like and and i think that's the first thing that comes to your head when you hear a groove or i think i learned a lot from that and then you just go and then you that's happening subconsciously and then consciously you go all right that's me so i and then of the success of this town in slow hands you kind of go well that that worked yeah so if it's not broke don't fix it yeah and yeah i don't know if really know if i'm answering your question but well i think well it's going you know through that journey of like now you're you're sort of cast in a position where these are the songs you're you know these are some songs that you're going to record so you're learning the business you're learning like this is what you guys sound like and kind of like you know that was unique and in and of itself but the journey started becoming you know the the sonic stuff started moving as a band into this this world that made sense for you to go and do the your solo thing the way you were doing it yeah when in the journey did you start you know how how did the band evolve from you know what makes you beautiful into story of my life like to me i feel like that's that's where you start seeing this this move sonically that is left a left turn for a band that's coming out of x factor yeah um i do think again the boys have had a big part of that and and i think we were just getting that little bit older we weren't we'd gone from being 18 19 to wanting to be we're getting older and want to be seen to be i guess we wanted music to match our age and what we listen to and i think that was a big turning point for songs like night changes the story of my life and deep cuts like fireproof and like if i could fly that you were involved in and like it it started to get to feel older around that time as we aged as we slowly age from being teenagers to being young men if you like um yeah and then when i when it came to my own stuff then it just felt like a natural evolution obviously i was involved in a lot of those more so in a lot of those later albums and i guess my influence was being pushed on on the songs a little bit more so when the transition happened then it was easier for me to translate that i remember people saying you know in the business like i i you know i worked with harry and i yeah and i worked with a few of you guys in some capacity during the time but a lot of people were saying in in the best way like that your influence on on where the band's going it's like you want to talk to now like he's got he's like he's pushing he's pushing the boundary of where the band can go sonically yeah and it was really an interesting thing to be like oh well that's that was some of the lore within the songwriting business was that this is this guy and like where you and harry were pushing some of the songwriting stuff and where that was going did you feel like you were encouraged to be a songwriter during that era did you feel like there was push back from the label when were you getting encouragement to be a voice of the songwriting but i think at the start we just were kind of happy to be to be doing it and people were you know salvin was throwing songs at us and rami and carl and rami rami yakub and carl falk and we're in and out of sweden all the time and like it just it was just so exciting to be in the studio recording songs and then once it kind of kicked off then we realized oh no we want to do this too like we we want to be be involved in like let's set up sessions and harry and i would work together a bit and lou and lean would do a little bit and it was kind of like we'd i'd go off and write with someone else and harry would do a bit and they were kind of just we were just slowly learning that we've what we wanted to write about what we like what we were going to sound like and it just a kind of slow slow evolution of us getting involved more and more as the as the years went on i just i was just always like pushing playing people music that i loved and slowly trying to infiltrate their minds and stuff that i that i was loving and listening to and felt like the band could could lean towards i suppose and kind of more subconscious really than like really pushing it like i'm not saying i was it wasn't manipulating it's not like i was in or in the band but you know like i was they knew that that's the kind of stuff that i was into and i'd go into a room with john and julian and we'd jam and then all of a sudden you'd have a different type of song and you know i don't know it's kind of you can't really put my finger on exactly what it was but we just kind of slowly migrated towards this kind of older mature mature 70s kind of sound yeah nice so the rumors were true were you scared to go solo um was there ever fear i guess you're just like my fear was like oh god well i hope it's just oh my stomach is rumbling here um i guess the fear was uh just hoping that this wasn't the end of my like 23 or 4 or whatever it was just hoping like by the way it'd be it'd be nice legacy you know to have the last five years but like just hoping that i can still keep doing it and just loving what i was doing and just wanted to keep doing it and trusting that if when push came to show if i picked up a guitar and given the chance to work with the boys again uh john and julian you know the trust that something would come of it and you just obviously we never know you write so many songs but and just still wanting to be to be doing it was my biggest fear and not just like all right now i'll go back to my normal life again and after having what i had i didn't want that just to be the end you know you know we were just talking about uh uh somebody that that we interviewed earlier who felt who used competition with some of his friends in a in in an insane way to become you know um to to become successful and you weren't the first to release a single at that point you weren't the first to write songs out of the band for yourself how was it watching the beginning of the other guys releasing music and their success how did their how did the how did your bandmate success influence you as an artist it definitely like um it definitely got me like fired up to even want to do it more you know like kind of in like a oh i really want to do what they're doing type thing um you know being in being back in the charts and selling out gigs and stuff like that and i just didn't want to miss out you know i didn't want to be part of that too but i do think we it's a kind of a cliche thing but and we say it all the time but if we were making the same type of music if we were making the same type of music if we were making the same type of we'd all like kind of just jump down the same lane i think it would have been it probably would have been more competitive you know what i mean but they we actually like completely stayed away from each other sonically really um and i was just just more i was wanted to be a part of it knew we were making different music and was actually genuinely like happy for them and that's not even like i'm not bullshitting like it was delighted for them like because i knew they'd be thinking the same thing as me like i hope that what we've done in the last few years is not just the end of it and we all get to you know grow and evolve again was it a surprise when people would release their albums or did you guys share demos before they came out no the first the first couple were a shock i remember i remember speaking to louis about he i'd heard a couple of his things that he was doing and um i knew how he was you know just hearing it we don't really like talk about music too much because we've like we more talk about the memories and like the that kind of stuff it's less about like oh when you're releasing when you're releasing we don't kind of don't really have like a music industry style relationship sure um where it's just talking about like with the next release or the next date or the next show or the blah blah um so no not really didn't really know too much to be honest so you go into the studio with john and julian and you know tobias and a bunch of other people along the way and it starts to become like the new era the solo the solo era and and before we begin that in this segment that we'll call what would julian bonetta ask now on and the writer is he says if you had a magic wand describe what nile's life is in another 10 years well i hope i'm still making music with julian first of all i'm first of all um um wow i can't believe it's been 10 years since i've started my own thing it's feels like a different life in a way um so god knows um i'm getting into that period now where i'm settling down uh you know from a home point of view um but i just like and julian knows this like julian knows how much i love like what what we do like he he probably gets an energy off me as well like that that i genuinely like really love being in the studio with the lads writing songs and then getting out and doing shows and like i when i say that i genuinely mean it and julian knows that about me and i just i just i'm always one of those people that like i just try and like take it in as i'm going and i if you'd had told me 10 years ago that i was going to be putting another album four out like my fourth album out and another arena tour i would have laughed in your face like i wouldn't have you can't foresee that stuff um and i just hope that i'm having the same conversation with you in 10 years and i'm still doing the exact same thing and i get i'm i'm excited about where the music can go like it's just been a slow evolution over the the past four albums and i feel like i'm just starting to get there and get really starting to get there now like in terms of i used to go like we would go through a period where i would like chase down slow hands again and then grew up and realized that you just can't that was that that way you can't do that and i heard john talking about on this like you can't you can't just go and write slow hands again it happened let's try something else you can't just like chase down and let's find like the next 80s lick and gate another vocal and you know you can't do that it is what it is um and the less i've done that the more of the more i've enjoyed what what i do um you've done such a good job at evolving each album and each you know i always think of albums as movies you know and each song is a scene in the movie and the movies are different yeah and you guys have done a really good job at being in that movie for this and maybe it's the aesthetic the whole thing but like when you really go into it you're like this feels like i'm in this world right now yeah it doesn't feel like i'm in an you know you know like you're repeating the same world i would say especially on this album i think like one one to twelve i think this is like the most cohesive sounding thing um i think in the second album it intentionally we went into like all right we're just going to write that song and whatever that song tells us how to produce it we're going to produce it that way you know we didn't really overthink it was like going into a pitch session or something we just kind of just went for it we didn't really like create the worlds as well as we had in the last two probably but i think in this in this album it feels like they're from the same they're all from the same planet and yeah uh come from the same movie and not the sequel when you released this town was it a relief yeah do you know what i wasn't even planning on like i was just kind of it was more of like a telling the fans that i'm still doing music kind of release it wasn't like a big that's crazy it's nuts like we just i took a polaroid picture as the single cover and i knew i was going to make music because i was signing with capital records and steve barnett who was who had ran columbia with rob stringer when we were when we were at with with 1d and then steve came over to look after capital records and he wanted to sign me and i just knew i knew i was going to be making music and i just went in with jamie scott who uh lives near me to big shout to jamie we love jamie i've written some of my favorite songs with jamie and uh yeah i'd had this idea for a song on a beach and i just went in and i just went in and i just went in and i just went in and i just went in and i just had this idea for for the song and uh i went to jamie with it and we we just wrote this song and i was like i didn't really i probably had two or three others and i was like i need to just tell people that i'm doing something so i just like put it out there and then all of a sudden it's like now it's got like a billion streams not like a billion streams it has over a billion streams it's great it's just nuts um makes you want to go backpack again yeah i think maybe not write the same song again but go are you recognized throughout the whole world like when you're backpacking through southeast asia are those people like this yeah in places i do a good job of you know keeping my head down and you know keeping quiet but uh no i was getting noticed but we were hanging out in like we were staying in hostels and like with people who are traveling the world for the next three years uh who's we me and my sister and my sister and my sister and my sister and my sister and my two cousins and um we just traveled around southeast asia for like 12 weeks and stayed in hostels and stuff and people would notice me but you know they come up and they'd be like you know fair play you you're doing what everyone else is doing here like we'll we'll leave you we're obviously going to leave you alone and people were really good about it and it was great and we had the best time ever literally a red rucksack and a pair of flip-flops and don't think i wore a shirt for about 10 weeks just kind of flying around different islands in the philippines and vietnam and cambodia and thailand and stuff it was great were you at all influenced by the music that you came across out there yeah no i was just more of the the free spiritness of it like sitting around people sitting around with guitars and singing songs back and forth to each other and i just love like it felt all very relaxed and i think it freed me up it relaxed me because i and that's i had that plan that obviously i knew the band was coming at the end of that year i knew it was coming to to a pause there so i was like i need to do something normal now because i've traveled the world now for years on private jets and stayed in five-star hotels and like i've done that side of things i kind of want a bit of the the other side of the aisle and i knew that was coming and i teed it up to help to to parachute myself back why are you so grounded that's so i don't know anybody else who's traveling doing private jets and five-star hotels is not thinking how now what i need to do is get dirty i know i don't know it's sort of like i want to buy my own jet and that hotel like nobody's thinking the opposite i don't know i just felt like we needed it is this something that your parents instilled in you i think there's probably an irishness to it yeah there's definitely a a grounding i mean you can't really sound very humble by calling yourself humble but uh you know what i mean there's nobody more humble than me i'm the best at being humble uh but there's definitely like an irishness to to that kind of thing yeah nmpa is our lead sponsor yet again what is the national music publishers association what do publishers have to do with songwriters anyway well unlike artists who can be unsigned artists there is no such thing as an unsigned writer you can be a self-published a co-publisher a published writer publishers only make money if songwriters make money so nmpa goes and fights for you they go to congress they go and support the community they fight dsps to get you paid more that's what they do they fight for you and they fight for this podcast so thank you for fighting for songwriters nmpa thank you for fighting for us too so this time comes out it's it's a big song and over time it's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger yeah which is kind of amazing it's crazy yeah um slow hands is like a whole other rocket ship yeah you know it's a uh it goes number one everywhere yeah you know did did that resolve any issues for you or did it create more issues for you it did a bowl it did a bit of both i think like getting like getting that kind of commercial success was kind of like and it's the smallest way it's like still got it still got it you know like right we're still we're still here uh more so like that more like all right i'm still people still want to hear from me and what i liked about slow hands was it took a while for it to get to number one i think it was like took like 20 weeks or something like that and and which i liked actually i would have loved the big first week number one you know but i actually like the slow build of it and the slow build of it since like it only it got to a billion streams it only got a billion it got to a billion streams only last year uh after a long after a long time but i've kind of enjoyed and that's what i hope for the rest of my career that there's a bit of longevity in it and songs become part of the the furniture if you like um and i hope that we can still keep doing that for a very long time even economically it it's always better for a song to take longer to go to number one because you get to enjoy the bumps along the way and you enjoy the longer the longer road up to number one means the longer drop off from number one too um both those things become true it's just if you if you launch at number one you know it can stay there for a minute um but a lot of songs go number one and disappear because of whatever like buzz thing that gets there it definitely falls under the category of songs i wish i wrote and i was uh i was annoyed i didn't write that song really i'm so annoyed i didn't write that song we get we get like i hear that quite a lot from that i'd go into sessions then afterwards and people would just talk about slow hands and like the gated vocal and it was just something that we just fell upon like yeah it's so good everyone everyone would talk about it afterwards and stuff well because also we were um you know it falls in that list of like uh we want something that's sort of like slow hands like it falls it like there you've if you look at what uh who's looking list kind of thing you know that song is on that list i think i have like a song maybe two that have landed on some lists like that but like slow hands is like is like it's it's it's often like uh something that's kind of like i think it's because as i was saying earlier at the time it was nothing it was so stand out yeah i think timing is obviously a big part of that as we know um and there was nothing like it in the chart and i think that's what kind of kept people going what's that um kind of had like an 80s lick but it was a pop song and it was like kind of bluesy groovy kind of i don't know what's going on there but i remember like not really like being crazy into it when we wrote it what yeah we wrote two songs that day we wrote another song called on the loose um that was on the first record too and tobias was just screaming and shouting like tobias does and uh i just remember just right let's we're writing a second idea now you know the way like you just kind of write a bit and then move on to the next thing and i didn't really think about it for like weeks afterwards and yeah and then it just blew my mind what happened next but at the like at that very moment it's not like the whole room was gone we've just broken the world here it goes we've got smash hit we was kind of like it happened and then yeah wait so how does that happen i i know when when there's momentum after a session and the artist is walking around being like i think this is my next thing and then like the manager's like are you sure okay i'm backing you and the label's like i guess so like i see that journey i've seen that journey i know that's how that works but when an artist is like yeah that was cool i don't know like how does slow hands become a hit i don't know everyone was into it like you know like a few days later whenever like it starts getting sent around and then it became a big thing but like in the exact moment i go like that this is like and when did you know slow hands was a hit um about 25 weeks later no i uh i a couple of weeks in i was like just looking at what's going on around it what types of songs are in the area at the time and just seeing its slow progression i was like this could hang around um and then i became like obviously like at the closer to the release it became to love it but i remember at the time like with the date like the very moment we wrote i never i never remember going none of us did um i mean tobias was coming off the back of like when we were young you know what i mean and uh julie and i were just in a period of just writing a lot you know so it was just song after song after song and tobias was kind of in for that day and ruthann came in and helped us write the bridge um but yeah at that exact moment i never you never do though do you really i get excited i've been excited for songs that didn't even do anything what's a song that you were excited about that did nothing there's this song i have called black and white it's on my second album it's like a four on the floor kind of uh tune and i wrote it with with teddy and um teddy geiger and explicit in a in the we did a camp in the bahamas one time which was pretty sweet and uh i remember being in that in the room for that like a four on the floor stumper everyone is up and i was just like in my head i'm going this is gonna be huge no why do you think it wasn't a hit i don't know i really i don't know you can never put your finger on why why it wasn't we can always put our finger on why it why it was you know like i don't really know um but uh the fans like it's now a complete fan favorite and when i go when i play shows like when when i when i go they're just like the crowd goes nuts and they're up and jumping and singing along but uh do you laugh maniacally like i told you none of you believed it they're like we're here for you man why are you why are you yelling at us the fans the fans love it but obviously for it to be it needs to be a wider thing but it's funny like it is funny that in i have a video from in that room that day and we were just going nuts and you get that every now and i had that with with heaven as well and and um so you know that's something that heaven was yeah yeah yeah that's like that's that that's still a hit it's a slow burner yeah and uh but just you know sometimes you're in the studio and you just get that feeling and we had you were right about that though i mean i think that shows that sometimes you're right yeah maybe yeah i'm an overthinker anyway i'm an overthinker when it comes to that stuff um i just i definitely have learned to like just enjoy the moment for what it is and if it's a hit it's a hit and if it's not it's not that's just fine it also helps once you have some songs that are out that give you the base to feel that way yeah exactly you know when you need it because you're like i have no i you know it's hard if you were doing an arena tour but you didn't have any of those songs it'd be really hard it'd be a very lonely tour but as we were saying you can you'd be playing wonderwall which by the way they're probably in love for like a great cover no you can you can chase those forever but yeah i definitely got to a point where when i stopped and i definitely enjoyed the writing process and the releasing process and the touring process a lot more when do you do you think of yourself as a songwriter or an artist first um i think over the years um i've gained a lot of confidence in in the songwriting sphere like there was a period where i wouldn't have done a lot i probably could have done it but shied away from it because in my head i didn't think i was good at it but then when i went started doing it i was like oh actually maybe i'm good at it and someone in the room would go well that's great or like that melody's great or that lyric's good and then you just start slowly gaining confidence to be fair like i know we keep i keep bringing them up but john and julian are huge to this like like i wasn't a great guitar player but like you spend enough time with john ryan and you like a very intuitive like brain i'll be watching i'll be like seeing what they're doing like learning how to use pro tools and like just watching how you do things and like you know songwriting tips and tricks that i've picked up off amy or amy allen or steph jones or you know just like things that gave me confidence and um and then you just then i fully committed to the bit i guess and yeah do you think after flicker comes out which is like you know it's a number one album on billboard 200 you know at that point are you like oh yeah i'm a songwriter songwriter yeah yeah i i don't think you're saying like you're not something else well like at that point like you you know the whole idea is to become a household name and have a bit of longevity is that the whole idea to me longevity and like being around for for a long time and not just being like a flash in the pan like i i just want to do this forever and that's the the goal for me is to do that are you a household name now i don't know that's but well from your perspective are you a household name i don't i think people know my name uh and i would be a household name to certain people i guess um but i think the minute you think you're a household name it's it's it's game over really like you take the the foot off the pedal you take your foot off the pedal and you believe your own shit and then it's it's probably is do you think the voice helps that or do you think the voice was sort of not to jump ahead but do you think that that you know is that part of the the overall branding of like making sure you understand that this guy's got a sense of humor this guy knows what he's doing he's giving good advice he's doing like does that help that um potentially yeah i think it definitely opened the audience up um like when i played my shows i couldn't believe the difference in the crowd from one season of the voice to the next crazy like crazy like a lot of like a lot of older people older couples groups of groups of older dudes groups of people like guys my age turning up like which would have been completely unexpected uh at the time and just like being and i think the voice played a huge part in that it opened my audience it also gave me a lot of confidence on like camera and being able to like completely like try and be myself on camera so effectively on the voice you're hosting a tv show yeah you know once that once though you press the big red button and the chair spins you're hosting the show and i think i got a lot of confidence from that and were you nervous that you say you gained confidence were you nervous when that show started yeah well i'd never really don't ever say anything like that i'd been on a tv show on the other side of it but it's a completely different deal um yeah and just trying to like being yourself on camera you know having a bit of banter between the coaches is something that i would have never have done before so literally at that first audition i was like oh crap this could go one of two ways did it affect you did being on the voice affect your songwriting or your artistry in any way it made me dig into other influences because i was picking songs for for different styles of artists and it made me like have a proper dig into stuff that i used to listen to that i don't listen to anymore or new stuff or yeah just it made me like spend more time looking for songs and i think then you go oh yeah sick drum sound or i love that tremolo on that guitar or like that era was so good that decade was amazing what other bands were in that decade what other art you know like things like that i think it helped me with yeah you're kind of like you're kind of like only as good as your app you know your diet that you take in yeah yeah and so if it forces an appetite where you're listening to a lot of stuff that explains why the evolution of how each album slash movie keeps evolving is because like you're being introduced to so much music even if you're forced to be like oh wow i never thought to steal that or yeah because like i i would historically have just listened to a lot of the same stuff all the time just in the house you know you put on vinyl and i'd listen to a lot of the same stuff but like doing a show like that it does force you into like looking into yeah look properly looking into stuff um and it like for instance like uh i would use radiohead as a big reference on the show and like radiohead has informed so many things like i'm sure i'm sure if billy and phineas were here i'm sure they'd mention radiohead like to me that feels radioheady the way they yeah we had this we were talking to marcus mumford a couple episodes ago because his that's it's i mean for anybody who was ever in a band like that's just the they're just the greatest you know um i was saying the bends is there you know is one of the greatest song albums ever what version of radiohead do you uh influence you most oh god um what's the name of the song that i did on uh i had one of the girls on my show or on the voice do um karma police karma police i think is just you know genius like the it's just hooky throughout um and i just love i love how he always takes his time in the verses and elongates and not doesn't try to cram so many words into a sentence and like i just love the way he thinks um and how you always think you're getting one song but you get another song and yeah just the way he does things is really appealing on the ear when you pitch songs so much of it it's like you know and maybe it's changed a little bit but there's always this need to do something slightly r&b slightly like urban slightly hip-hop something in there like everybody always like tries to do that in a pitch record and sometimes it's like you you listen to those songs that we're talking about those laurel canyon stuff it's like those songs are great and you listen to radiohead those songs are great a month for the sense those songs are great there's no hip-hop in it there's no r&b in it it's not everything has to be that and that's the pushing against the grain a little bit of being like yeah i'm just going to be myself in it and having the the confidence to be like no i'm i'm just me and that's okay that you pop music can be many things yeah no 100 and i'm the biggest pop music fan but i'm like also hugely influenced by that type of music and like i love hip-hop and r&b but i just don't think that i could i could sell it like i don't think i could sing that way i don't like i don't i can't riff or i can't you know like i just don't think i can i can sell that to you what's a great song do you want me to name some or sure i was gonna like i was thinking more composition um now i'm curious about the other question but we'll start with that compositionally what makes a great song um obviously a bit of a bit of a hook is always helpful um that's a good question like what made you walk away being like this the song with teddy and explicit why why did you feel feeling you know feeling just pure feeling like i didn't think it was going to break the world with like the lyric or whatever i just it just when you get that goosebump feeling and every time you hear it it's like oh my god i'm gonna break the world you hear it you feel the same like i like i still listen to old by damien rice and that album just whatever way he's delivering it how is record i don't know whatever it is and i just i just get that when you get that feeling i think that makes it a great song and um is that one of your island albums yeah yeah 100 what else would fit what are five albums that you would take with you yeah i would take rumors for sure i think it's one of the best first of all it's the best mixed album of all time without shadow up there uh i take pet sounds has to go with it um i love hotel california actually the eagles greatest hits yeah because you can all get them off and it's very much i think the eagles like the eagles greatest hits is okay it's the biggest album of all time yeah it's bigger than thriller that's which is nuts yeah um uh we take all by damien rice um oh i have one of the johnny ones maybe yeah johnny album not sure which one and heartbreak weather that's how we transition to heartbreak weather so um see how i did that what was so nice about nice to meet you coming out and sort of uh leading the way was that it was again like it felt like a a risk yeah you know it felt like it was dangerous and as you need to do that um did you feel did you feel that or was that just me as like a a fan feeling like oh yeah that's that's a cool move yeah or were you nervous releasing that um i was nervous releasing but i i like the risk in a way it might it might not work in my favor it might i don't know but i i do like well it's not the most so much the risk it's more i want to be i want to be the standout song in the in the chart at that time if it for the good or the bad i don't know we don't know we're yet to find out but i like i like it when when it comes out and it just it doesn't sound like anything else and i think that's that's again the same thing with nice to meet you it didn't sound like anything else it was very different um and i felt like that in the studio like i started i started playing the riff and ruth and started just going nice to meet you and it just became a thing like it was just yeah but i just i like the and i i just like being the one the one that stands out i don't know why what are your expectations when you release an album first of all that the fact like my core group of friends love it and and can connect to the music lyrically and sonically and then the rest of it's a bonus because nothing you know the big hitty stuff is not none of it's guaranteed actually any of it's guaranteed none of it's guaranteed but that big hitty stuff is definitely not guaranteed um and i just really want to like the the core group of fans to to grab hold of it and make it make it their own versus it being a big commercial smash do you feel like you know on that album you have multiple songs that are again over 300 million 350 million 600 million it's like it's so crazy it's mind-blowing to me um what is a hit in this era to you like what would be like a like how do you define a hit in in this era versus like when you first started the world was very different place oh it's very clear um what makes you beautiful was a hit yeah it's a different time i suppose wasn't it totally i mean nice to meet you is a hit it has over 600 million streams i didn't even know that yeah it's a lot i'm not a number a number you're not just you're not just staring at your numbers all day yeah funnily enough no i honestly i got those spotify plaques last year i actually couldn't believe it when they arrived at the house i was like what i didn't think that that was even a thing for me but um what is a hit these days i don't know uh well the good thing about it is what i like about whatever way and shape form people are listening to music i always think that the good the good songs are still the winner yeah yeah um you know you have big songs online that kind of come and go sometimes but like a great song is like i mean look what look what what somber did online yeah it's not like he created that world and you know probably got signed off the back of being the guy you know on tiktok and stuff like that but also guess what had absolutely genius songwriting in his bedroom and had unbelievable songs or like uh like alex warren like ordinary like these are still ridiculously good songs so songs are the winner always and put a little love on me it's one of those songs it's just it's such a good song how did that song get written i was playing the the piano thing and i wrote the the chorus at home um and and brought it to to jamie because if i get stuck somewhere but if i'm writing my the bits of songs and it's if it's piano related it's always jamie that first come first comes to my mind and and jamie doesn't live too far from me so i was able to go and see him and the two of us just had like a real real moment writing that song actually it felt like a real the two of us were sat playing the same piano and it it felt special at the time you know when you're sitting down and the two of us were just completely on the same page about what we were writing the song about and i don't really know how to put my finger on it but i just i remember writing that chorus and just thinking i hope this i hope people really connect with this because this feels really really special to me um it was just the two of us in a room and i had i came with the chorus it's something about you british people who can do this like there's that story where uh dan wilson said the same thing where adele walked in and she was like i have these two choruses and like this one was rolling in the deep and this was someone like you and he's like i'll do this someone like you want if you don't mind do you know what i mean like it's like you come in and you're like oh i just happen to have this chorus it's like yeah dude i live like four minutes from you man next time you have that okay i'll come down here what are you doing like yeah no uh kind of angry at you but also i understand you're out you were in the you were in your other house i don't um yeah i don't come up with like full choruses i come up have more melody but this one i actually had a chorus so that was helpful i usually have a good concept in a verse well come with me with the chorus no i'll take the good concept when you write a song do you start from a concept um um i'll start with generally music first that gives me the that provokes a thought because i find it very hard to like match something like i love you you love me to like you know what i mean like it would be i love you you love me that's what it would end up sounding like we just oh my god we just written a hit um but uh yeah i know it takes that yeah makes it inside you love me yeah that's uh 33 33 and you know you guys can split your 30 good luck with that yeah but yeah no i would definitely like pick up play a progression of some sort and allow it to tell me what the fate what what i'm writing about next uh the show you know comes out and it's like i feel like you now finishing the third album and this one is again like you keep leveling up the maturity and the skill it really sounds like it sounds like you've continued when you're saying now you're defining who you are as an artist it really feels really clear around this moment especially heaven as a song just like man that that's like one of those songs that probably could have lived forever before you know tell me about writing heaven we were in uh joshua tree we rented a an airbnb and it was me john and amy came for a couple of days and she left and tobias came out and um yeah we're just it was like a that was like a 1am-er having like been at it all day and just digging huge holes and i was just going and we started to slowly crack the code and i was like but then it ran it then it ran its course for a second i said i'm going to bed john because you know i don't know if you've ever been to a writing camp with john yeah that guy would stay up for a week for one day by the way there you go yeah that guy would stay up for a week like if it meant and he just goes no stick with this like he was looking at me dead deadly serious uh and finally he to be fair he just went god only knows and straight away when he did that i was like all of a sudden i'm pouring coffee i'm here i'm with you you know when you just hear that one little that one little melody that it makes you stay and uh and we just stuck with it and we were up until five or six in the morning just like trying to nail this thing and it just felt like it happened because we were just stuck in the same and it felt like we could sing anything over it and i was just started singing the verses i was going like all mumbled for hours and hours and then we just started to get into beach boys mode and yeah starting with god only knows and then having those harmonies in the record you're like it felt like a a a proper homage we didn't like we didn't uh he just said god only knows the beach boys thing was like a an afterthought but we did use the the reverb in east west on the on the harms that's which which is so say and i walked into john's studio yesterday uh we're doing a we're doing a fantasy event this week and me and john are just playing the songs some of the some of the new stuff and i walked into his studio and he's got like he's got a whole new taped thing in the corner where he's running reverb through uh but that all kind of came from heaven and uh yeah that song um it's just a yeah it's a major fan favorite and it's one it's one of my favorites it's like one of those melodies that you just can't get out your head um i'm like i'm just bigging up my own stuff here but like no but i mean where else to do it yeah where else to do than this um you know you go on tour and it's like it's a worldwide tour and now you have three albums to support this and it's also at this point like you're the whole brand of niles and individuals pretty like household don't you think oh i just never want to think that way i don't know like i'm still blown away but like i'm just trying to get you to take your foot off the panel so i'm not taking my foot off the panel so i'm not taking my foot off the panel off the pedal ross i want to catch up i won't do it no i like for instance like i was getting like ticket sales pre-sale numbers this morning from like for my next tour i was still just like oh my god what is going on like it's just an amazing feeling and it's i i love that it's shocking me i love that i'm blown away by it you're talking about how this next phase personally is is you know you guys are that you're trying to seems like move on with with your with your personal life like that you're you're you're growing up are you uh going to a family i would like i like the idea of course yeah are you able to you know leaving what is leaving home like going on tour right now is it hard yeah i i uh i definitely like to be at home more like i've become a homebody whereas late teens at 20s i was just wherever i bring the suitcase drag it around with me go to a party bring a suitcase with me i'm flying somewhere after this um and that was just the way my life was and then yeah you meet that person and you start to put roots down and you just when you want to be in that place like as much as possible and i think what what i've really gotten into is like striking that balance of like so how i schedule my life now you know being able to make right making a record is one thing because i'm like you know we can be anywhere doing that and we that's how we made this this latest record was kind of bounced around the world renting houses in the middle of nowhere and like doing it that way and i was able to be wherever but um yeah the the touring thing at the start you just kind of have to get into a bit of a rhythm you know she does a completely she's not in our industry at all so it's a it's a different story for her and just trying to get like a an understanding between each other and how it's going to work and i think we did a pretty good job on the last tour i know how long how how long away is too long and you just over the years i remember we used to do like five six shows a week and then be away for 10 years and then come back so insane and then but you just kind of but that was great and it was fun at the time and but you're just like if you want to have some sort of a work-life balance work golf balance work golf life balance um you know you have to do a bit of scheduling shifting and stuff like that and i just yeah i enjoy it in a different way now um and i just yeah i get excited for going on the road and i get excited for making an album and i get excited for being at home and i've just figured out a way as i've gotten older just through pure experience that how to fit all of those things into one spot during the last tour it was shortly after one of your shows that liam passed away yeah um how has that affected touring or affected you is like even just how i i can't imagine it's you know losing a brother yeah obviously um extremely shocking and tough someone just someone that you know so well can be you know and that is only a couple of weeks older than you is just like no longer with us is just it's just a surreal thing to even think about um but it does it it fires me up because i know that liam loved being on stage and stuff like that that would that would make me excited to get get on tour and and do do it for the fans because i know that he he loved it as much as i did um yeah did you did you write it all about it for this next album yeah i kind of danced around it for a while and me and john had this song called um end of an era that was uh we'd wrote myself john and julian started the album by being in julian's place in nashville and literally set up the band scenario and just started singing and I was just singing this singing all these melodies and had this idea for like kind of a song that was like leaving your past behind but kind of with nostalgia while being excited for the future and not overthinking either and then i just like the more we spoke about it and the more we kept getting it wrong me and julian or julian actually said it he'd be like this is this song is about liam we just don't know it yet and we're kind of dancing we're dancing around it subconsciously but this song is about liam and and then this song was written in five minutes and so that's what sometimes you have to do when you're writing a song is just get to the point and once you've gotten to the point you can write the point and um yeah now the song is a completely different thing and it's a song of loss and fear of loss and the end of an era and it kind of has a it's sad one versus sad and one versus nostalgic and they are two of the feelings i have when i think of liam is sadness that he's not with us anymore but also looking back and i just got goosebumps right there um looking back at the the good times of growing up together and doing all the things that we've spoke about for the last hour of making records together and growing up together in a mad industry and being all over the world and traveling and all the small moments that we had in hotel rooms and you know and being on stage and looking at each other on stage and like all of those things come flooding back in in this song along with the sadness but yeah it's kind of it's touching on both feelings about it it literally took julian to go this are we like are we blind what what are we doing feels like we're trying to write something that and julian's very good at this like what is wrong with everyone well are we not seeing what's right in front of us and once he said that honestly he was working on the drums inside and me and john went outside and we wrote the song in five minutes and it just makes so much sense now do you allow yourself to reflect on the 1d days oh yeah i have a great i've got a good memory so i remember like i remember a lot of places we were where we were hotels we stayed in certain gigs like it was amazing like it was just it was so good we were 17 18 19 20 21 whatever just running around the world and normal dudes just had this as we always said like normal guys just had an abnormal job and it was we were like school kids the whole time we just haven't having a great laugh do you guys have a text chain that's active not not completely active like some of the whatsapp groups i'm in but but yeah no there is definitely like we're good at like checking in uh on each other and see how everyone's doing because we're like that's that's the only thing about what we do is anyone could be anywhere at any time like you get to la and you'll be like i've just arrived and they said well i left last night but like there's a lot of you know ships in the night stuff so but yeah i definitely speak to them all you know every couple of weeks when you uh when you talk about you not like some active uh active whatsapp chains what's your most active whatsapp chain obviously a couple of the boys from home is a big one but there's a wild one with like after hours in in frenzy you know andrew has john julian has the strangest algorithm of all time he's just sending all sorts of weird stuff in uh jamie scott and just kind of looking back at like photos and we were doing it this week just looking back at like photos that were taken of like trips that we went on to make this album and we would like rent houses in like went rented one outside of london and we rented uh we stayed in a hotel in soho one time and we were like when we stayed in this house in the countryside in the uk we like made up our own golf course i know john's watching this laughing but we like put like pots like flower pots in places and made our own golf course and like with chip balls around and just like looking back at the photos from that it was just so funny um so i would say that's a that's a pretty active one actually that one this is crazy because he texted at 152 it's the longest thing that i i can't even read it oh well i do you know what is john john texts in voice note and i can never understand it it's just and you know what he just talked about in it was that he literally says like it goes like i'm just like trying to read it while like like but i'm like i can't that focus i'm like what does that mean set up an 18 hole golf course like the first over a hole over a pond of water and got hit like literally what you just described is what he wrote so you know we did this all over the world we make up our own little golf course in the backyard of wherever we're staying and we do more of that than we do songwriting it's funny actually on that trip we were at dinner party but after around the golf of course uh but i'm excited i'm excited to hear i mean like obviously dinner party comes out the album comes out and in two months yeah you know so it's pretty exciting man i can't wait like i just want to get it out now because as you know you spend so much time and you just want it and you just want it out and people to hear it and i just as i said i'll i'm at that point where i just want to make records get on the road make records get on the road and and uh it excites me the prospect of getting back out on the road and seeing the fans again and because in there and you know obviously we know what it's like behind the scenes making records and probably you know handing it in the marketing plans and mapping a tour and things like that but the fans have been waiting for three years like three years is a long time in the in the eye of a music fan let's go with some rapid fire cool i've enjoyed this this is fun are you happy yeah we should do this again what's the lowest part of your career lowest part yeah when when we released put a little love on me what why is it the lowest part because i i was convinced that it was going to be a big one i honestly did yeah yeah and i i yeah i was actually genuinely upset about that but how did you get past it over there just keep playing it live and let and the crowd would sing it of course but i remember at the time just being like oh i thought that was it i thought that was i thought that was my someone you loved i mean you also you know you mentioned rumors rumors was their ninth album that's crazy like when people say that i can't believe that it's just like one of those things like you have you're just saying you're on your fourth solo album and you have like a slew of hits yeah nuts but i uh just that i remember like actually being because most of the time i'm kind of like it is what it is like but i remember writing that song and just going this is it had myself convinced what is something you learned about songwriting from those early days writing on a bus can be done anywhere and doesn't need to be in a big studio and i can an idea can come from anywhere and just get the idea down when you get it when it comes to mind just get it all down and even if it comes in the middle and i just do it i think that was a big one i'd usually leave it and then forget it but i've learned that if it if it comes you just have to do it do you listen to music on a golf course always what do you listen to one of those daily mixes usually like i know i like to like the i think the music i grew up on is good for playing golf you're not making too much noise with it yeah you know what i mean there's no one on the next hole going turn your fucking music down you're listening to i love you 33 33 call my lawyer okay that's not really how it works this feels weird now people are like is that how it works you have to call his lawyer what's advice you'd give somebody who is about to audition for a show right now do it and it's the biggest cliche thing of all time is be yourself but you'd be surprised like i well be yourself and enjoy it because as i noticed on the voice um obviously the level of singer on the voice is just through the roof like some of the best singers you've ever heard like technically gifted singers i've seen on that show but there's a level of seriousness that comes with technicality that people when they come on the show they kind of can't drop like they they take it so seriously because they're so technically gifted and if you try and relax into it you become your authentic self and you sing the way you sing the song and don't try and over flip and trick it do your somersaults across it just be yourself enjoy the process and sing the song would be my would be my main advice well thanks for doing this podcast i know uh the people that you surround yourself with they're such good humans and those the good you know good humans attract each other and so it's exciting to see where what you've done you know i know you've played golf at like the nmpa tournament and uh you know that's like it's hard to get artists to do advocacy for songwriters oh yeah i'm huge on that and um so on behalf of the songwriting community thank you for not being silent absolutely uh and showing up literally to those events but you know man i'm just i'm i'm proud to see this growth that you've done and it's this is only your first interview we'll we'll get it we'll do it again but man hell yeah i'm so excited to hear the new album congrats i'll send it to you thanks very much bud there you go © transcript Emily Beynon