Niall Horan FaceTimes Zane Lowe on Apple Music from his living room to chat about his songwriting inspirations, being inspired by Ed Sheeran’s daily songwriting challenge, releasing an album in this climate, why he considers Taylor Swift one of the greatest songwriters of our generation, why Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” is “arguably the best pop song of the last 20 years”, and more. He also reflects on having to inform his touring crew of his cancelled live dates and how it was one of the hardest emails he’s had to write in his career.
On Why Taylor Swift is One Of The Greatest Songwriters of Our Generation and How She Informs His Songwriting...
She was always very honest, very sweet … And then she's got the bad side to her, she's got Bad Blood and some of the other tunes that she's done over the years. She's just one of the greatest songwriters of her generation. I sometimes will sit here and I'll play some chords and then I'll go, "What would Taylor do right now?" I actually said it to Taylor. It was her birthday and I sent her an email and I was like, "There's very few artists around now that you could say that, when you're sitting writing a song, you're like, 'What chord would Taylor choose now? Would she go minor? Would she stay it a bit straighter?'" Taylor Swift is one of those and she deserves everything she gets. The most successful of all time have been no beating around the bush with the lyric. It's been Paul Simon, it's been Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, Don Henley, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift. It's just poetic, it's storytelling, it's straight down the middle stuff and just, yeah, you can literally just see the picture being painted in front of you, which is something to behold and something I'm sometimes jealous of.
On Songwriting During Quarantine and Inspiration From Ed Sheeran...
I'm feeling good, man. This is my living room. You can't see because the sun is shining in, but I basically do everything in it, from eating my food to watching TV to playing the piano. So I have found it, up until now, hard to get writing, but we figured out a way, and I've got some sort of a little studio set up here with a mic and an interface and stuff. So they keep me busy and keep that boredom off. I was one of those people that was like, "Oh, I've got loads of time now. I'm going to write a song a day and it's going to be the best stuff I've ever written because I've got loads of time to think about it." And then I just found myself just sitting down to write and just coming up with a load of crap. And then the other day I was speaking to Ed Sheeran and I was asking him what he was doing and was he writing any bits? And he was like, "Yeah, I've kind of like set myself a challenge. I'm going to try and write song a day before lunch." And he said, "If I can come out with one big song out of this quarantine period, then I've won.” I really agree with him. He's unbelievable that he can do that. I mean, all of us are not that gifted, but I've come up with bits and pieces, like nice little verses and some good choruses and stuff. And if I can just record them in some shape or form or I come out with something half decent at the end of it, I'll be happy. But it's just something to kind of keep ticking over.
On Reaching Out To Family and Friends Like Shawn Mendes and Lewis Capaldi…
No, I'm fine on my own. Obviously, calling people and just seeing how everyone is, and talking to people I haven't spoke to in a while, and checking in at home and all that stuff. Obviously, the family and parents and my grandmother. Got my 89 grandmother using FaceTime now, which is impressive. I've been keeping in touch with Lewis a bit. One of the teams that we've both worked with, TMS, writing and production crew out of London. They obviously had that massive hit there recently with Lewis and Someone You Loved, but we get on really well with those guys. Based on what we have, they've sorted out some sort of studio process for myself and Lewis, and them boys are going to write tomorrow, potentially tonight, just for a couple of hours, just get something off the ground. Apart from that, I've just been keeping... Spoke to Shawn, Shanny Mendez, a couple of times, but he's madly in love elsewhere.
On His Thoughts on Fandemonium and Billie Eilish…
When I see phenomenons like that happen, I just hope that she's okay. You hear horror stories and we've seen Justin talking about his experiences recently too. I understood Justin's side of things, but I also had the other boys to keep me sane too. And I understand Justin's difficulties and we speak about it on a regular basis; just kind of like we have a lot in common in terms of the fandemonium, if you'd like to call it. Because I think people just think, Oh, give them money, their life is going to be better forever. And that's a very easy way to look at it from the outside. But if you're in it, and you've got money, you've got fame and you've got whatever, things can go wrong too. And we got to see that. I'm sure... I mean, I think she still lives at home with her family. I'm sure she's doing great. Her and Finneas seem like lovely people. I met them briefly at the Brits. But, yeah, I just hope she's great. They're the most talented jewel. They made an absolute Grammy-winning masterpiece from their bedroom. Just hope she can keep it going and I'm sure that's what she's thinking, she's like, "Listen, we've had this amount of success. We need to... Let's do it again." And I'm sure she's fired up to get gone.
On How Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” is “Arguably The Best Pop Song of the Last 20 Years”…
In my eyes, Teenage Dream is arguably the best pop song of the last 20 years. I absolutely think it's genius. Just from the construction of the riff to the verse pre-chorus, the Swedish verse pre-chorus, verse pre-chorus, middle it, breakdown
On How He Thinks Great Songs Will Come Out Of This Moment...
I think there's going to be some great songs out of the back of this, anyway. I think there's going to be some great songs out of the back of this anyway just because you're just have so much time alone with your thoughts. You've got nothing else to do apart from go to the store or go for a run workout for a half an hour. Apart from that you're spending all of your time with your thoughts. When you lay in bed, when you're sitting on the sofa, there's going to be a lot more deep thinking and a lot more to write about.
On What It Was Like To Release an Album In This Climate...
As you know, I released an album as this thing kicked off and I'd spent 15 months making an album and then it releases on the day that Donald Trump announces that borders are closed and this is a real pandemic and it's all kicking off. So in turn, like it did well and stuff, but I would have obviously preferred a better launch. And then after that I had to make the decision to cancel my tour completely.
On Notifying His Touring Crew of Cancelled Dates Was One Of The Hardest Emails He’s Had To Write In His Career...
No, that was actually the hardest part. I knew obviously the fans had bought tickets and that's like, that's an amazing thing to know that there was people willing to come and watch my shows. And the only problem was I was told it was going to be a world tour that lasted from mid September to mid December. And I was just like, "Well I might as well just pause it and then we'll can go back next year and hopefully those people can have their refunded money and they'll save that money for when the ticket comes around. But the hardest part was sending, I sent an email to the crew to 100 people that work with me and my band and who probably expected some sort of movement of shows and stuff like that, but probably didn't expect to be out of a job and that was a tough one because I know that I can get in the studio and I can make tunes and maybe further my career in that sense where I might come up with a smash at the back end of this and I don't know.And I'm okay to be just sitting here and playing music and then tour next year. Whereas the crew, it's not like the crew have another tour to jump on. They live tour by tour. They come off the tour, they go home for a week to see their families, then they go again and they live on a bus and just travel around the world for the year to make money for their family. And that was the hardest email. I think that was one of the harder decisions and emails I've ever had to write my career, to be honest.
On How Damien Rice Influenced His Generation of Songwriters…
And all of the singer songwriters from my and Ed's generation, we all have Damien Rice to thank for sure. There's the people from the '70s the '80s and stuff like that, but when it comes to the beautiful... You know what I find great about what Ed does in relation to Damien Rice? If there's a creak in a vocal or a dodgy... you can hear a scrape on a guitar string or just something happened in the recording of the song; Ed leaves it in. Because sometimes the most natural, little mistakes are the best parts about the song. And Damien Rice is the absolute king of that. One of his greatest songs, the Blower's Daughter, is one I've picked here. He scratches a few times in his vocal, but that's what the best part of the song is for me: those little imperfections that make that one of my favorite albums of all time. And that's what Ed does very well as well.
On Thinking Longterm and His Future Plans…
Obviously I would love to be a musician for the rest of my life, which will be once I'm still be able to produce songs at the level I do and once I can still play to thousands and people want to hear me then I'll be doing that. Obviously I do worry that it might not work out or whatever but if you spend your time worrying you've already dug yourself a hole. And you just can't do that.I'm 26. I've had extraordinary success with the boys and been lucky that I've trusted my ability with the first album and had the success with Slow Hands and This Town and just the record itself and then been able to write a second record and play different types of tunes and have somewhat success with that. I don't think I've ever been so driven. When you hear of people going, "He's got money and he's got fame and he's just going to take the foot of the gas now. He doesn't need it." I definitely do. I need it for myself. I don't care how much money you've got or how much whatever. I'll always have that drive. I was born with it.
