Liam Payne has been in the public eye from a young age. He made his debut on British television’s The X Factor in 2008, only to be eliminated. He returned two years later and was made part of a quintet that became boy-band sensation One Direction. Five smash albums, world tours and stratospheric success later, they broke up. Payne has since forged a solo career – he’s about to drop a new album – and had a son with his partner, singer Cheryl Cole. He’s still mastering the art of fatherhood, and tells us of his passion for acting when we meet and shoot him in London. Watch this space, love.
Congratulations on the new single, “Familiar”. What is the song about?
A lot of my songs situate things that you go through when you’re younger. This song is about the idea of the chase, where you see somebody that you really like and you just want to get to know them more.
How has the reaction been?
It’s been great so far. You know, every song is different. At the moment, everyone is trying to t into this new age of technology and you’ve got so many artists doing so many different things. It was a great week to release it because there were so many great songs out. I think this one is a slow burner – I see longevity within this song. With some tracks, you hear it first and you think, “This is great!” But this one, the first time I heard it, I was really unsure – and then I heard it a second time and was like, “Actually, damn, I was wrong!”
This is the fourth single from the upcoming album – all the tracks are distinct. What can we expect from the full album? Do you have a drop date?
I wish I did, because I want it out as well! The track list is completely finished, I believe. So we’re two-thirds of the way; we’re just finishing it o . I think from this album, there’s a little bit of me almost finding my feet within the music world – where I think I’m supposed to be, what people think of me and how much I love making different styles of music. It’s very collaborative and different. Everything is quite hitty, bouncy and a lot more singy-rap than anything else. I’m actually trying to put more of the ballads on, because I know people want to hear me sing a ballad as well. So it’s a really mixed bag – very eclectic.
You’ve said the album is like your Spotify playlist – an amalgam of everything you like. Who are your inspirations for it?
Not to be too cliché, but I love Post Malone. I think it’s so great the way he’s put everything together and he’s a very funny guy as well, actually – I got a message from him the other day that just said “DAD!!!!!!!!!” and that’s all it was! Charlie Puth makes a good pop song and I like Lauv, he’s made some great stuff too. In terms of hip-hop, I like Migos – I like the fun-ness of it. There have been some great writers I’ve been able to get through as well, so I hear a lot of songs that no one else gets to hear. Sometimes they come out later, sometimes they don’t. That’s another part of my playlist, this secret kind of song thing. I got one from Justin Tranter the other day – he’s one of my favourite writers and works a lot with Julia Michaels; they recently did “Sorry” for Justin Bieber.
You were in the world’s biggest group while just a child. How do you top that?
I think the only way we can top that is by being accepted and being great ourselves. One Direction was all concerts and big songs, with longer choruses and things people want to shout out. It was a bit of a teenage rebellion kind of thing, in a sense. The only way we could get any bigger is to throw one massive concert where it’s basically all of us versus each other, but we’re still in a band. So, if we all went like, “Hang on a minute boys, just going to throw this in” and bang, on comes [Niall Horan’s] “Slow Hands” and we’re all just popping along – that would be the most fun sh*t ever.
So would this be like a friendly competition?
Yeah, in a sense. We’re like brothers – so, a brotherly competition. Seeing everybody come out with different sounds has been really exciting. I went to Louis [Tomlinson]’s house the other day and the first thing we were talking about was like, “Did you really realise how big what we just did was?” And we kind of both just sat there – there was nothing really said, but you could tell we were both thinking, “That was some mad sh*t, dude.” And it was! You don’t even realise until you come out of it and look back. The success we saw was how many people would turn up at a concert. And then seeing other people selling out these venues, select groups of people, and we played there so many times – like the Rose Bowl three times in a row. That’s nuts! But even when you read it in the paper, like “the world’s biggest boy band” – we did something that was “the world’s biggest”. It doesn’t really matter what it was. Like, if I made the world’s biggest orange, I’d be quite happy about that, you know what I mean? You can’t top that.
Congratulations on the new single, “Familiar”. What is the song about?
A lot of my songs situate things that you go through when you’re younger. This song is about the idea of the chase, where you see somebody that you really like and you just want to get to know them more.
How has the reaction been?
It’s been great so far. You know, every song is different. At the moment, everyone is trying to t into this new age of technology and you’ve got so many artists doing so many different things. It was a great week to release it because there were so many great songs out. I think this one is a slow burner – I see longevity within this song. With some tracks, you hear it first and you think, “This is great!” But this one, the first time I heard it, I was really unsure – and then I heard it a second time and was like, “Actually, damn, I was wrong!”
This is the fourth single from the upcoming album – all the tracks are distinct. What can we expect from the full album? Do you have a drop date?
I wish I did, because I want it out as well! The track list is completely finished, I believe. So we’re two-thirds of the way; we’re just finishing it o . I think from this album, there’s a little bit of me almost finding my feet within the music world – where I think I’m supposed to be, what people think of me and how much I love making different styles of music. It’s very collaborative and different. Everything is quite hitty, bouncy and a lot more singy-rap than anything else. I’m actually trying to put more of the ballads on, because I know people want to hear me sing a ballad as well. So it’s a really mixed bag – very eclectic.
You’ve said the album is like your Spotify playlist – an amalgam of everything you like. Who are your inspirations for it?
Not to be too cliché, but I love Post Malone. I think it’s so great the way he’s put everything together and he’s a very funny guy as well, actually – I got a message from him the other day that just said “DAD!!!!!!!!!” and that’s all it was! Charlie Puth makes a good pop song and I like Lauv, he’s made some great stuff too. In terms of hip-hop, I like Migos – I like the fun-ness of it. There have been some great writers I’ve been able to get through as well, so I hear a lot of songs that no one else gets to hear. Sometimes they come out later, sometimes they don’t. That’s another part of my playlist, this secret kind of song thing. I got one from Justin Tranter the other day – he’s one of my favourite writers and works a lot with Julia Michaels; they recently did “Sorry” for Justin Bieber.
You were in the world’s biggest group while just a child. How do you top that?
I think the only way we can top that is by being accepted and being great ourselves. One Direction was all concerts and big songs, with longer choruses and things people want to shout out. It was a bit of a teenage rebellion kind of thing, in a sense. The only way we could get any bigger is to throw one massive concert where it’s basically all of us versus each other, but we’re still in a band. So, if we all went like, “Hang on a minute boys, just going to throw this in” and bang, on comes [Niall Horan’s] “Slow Hands” and we’re all just popping along – that would be the most fun sh*t ever.
So would this be like a friendly competition?
Yeah, in a sense. We’re like brothers – so, a brotherly competition. Seeing everybody come out with different sounds has been really exciting. I went to Louis [Tomlinson]’s house the other day and the first thing we were talking about was like, “Did you really realise how big what we just did was?” And we kind of both just sat there – there was nothing really said, but you could tell we were both thinking, “That was some mad sh*t, dude.” And it was! You don’t even realise until you come out of it and look back. The success we saw was how many people would turn up at a concert. And then seeing other people selling out these venues, select groups of people, and we played there so many times – like the Rose Bowl three times in a row. That’s nuts! But even when you read it in the paper, like “the world’s biggest boy band” – we did something that was “the world’s biggest”. It doesn’t really matter what it was. Like, if I made the world’s biggest orange, I’d be quite happy about that, you know what I mean? You can’t top that.
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