Harry about making the album:
“Of course I’m nervous. I mean, I’ve never done
this before. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m happy I found this band
and these musicians, where you can be vulnerable enough to put yourself out
there. I’m still learning … but it’s my favorite lesson. A lot of my
influences, and the stuff that I love, is older. So the thing I didn’t want to
do was, I didn’t want to put out my first album and be like, ‘He’s tried to
re-create the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties.’ Loads of amazing music
was written then, but I’m not saying I wish I lived back then. I wanted to do
something that sounds like me. I just keep pushing forward.”
Harry about "Sign of the Times":
“Sign of the Times’ came from ‘This isn’t the
first time we’ve been in a hard time, and it’s not going to be the last time.’
The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a
child and there’s a complication. The mother is told, ‘The child is fine, but
you’re not going to make it.’ The mother has five minutes to tell the child,
‘Go forth and conquer.’
Harry about writing for the album:
“I didn’t want to write
‘stories’, I wanted to write my stories, things that happened to me. The
number-one thing was I wanted to be honest. I hadn’t done that before.”
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| Harry in Jamaica |
Harry about inspiration:
“The more vulnerable the song, he learned, the
better. “The one subject that hits the hardest is love,” he says, “whether it’s
platonic, romantic, loving it, gaining it, losing it … it always hits you hardest.
I don’t think people want to hear me talk about going to bars, and how great
everything is. The champagne popping … who wants to hear about it? I don’t
want to hear my favorite artists talk about all the amazing shit they get to
do. I want to hear, ‘How did you feel when you were alone in that hotel room,
because you chose to be alone?’”
Harry about separating personal life and work:
“With an artist like Prince,
all you wanted to do was know more. And that mystery – it’s why those people
are so magical! Like, fuck, I don’t know what Prince eats for breakfast. That
mystery … it’s just what I like. More than ‘do you keep a mystery alive?’ –
it’s not that. I like to separate my personal life and work. It helps, I think,
for me to compartmentalize. It’s not about trying to make my career longer,
like I’m trying to be this ‘mysterious character,’ because I’m not. When I go
home, I feel like the same person I was at school. You can’t expect to keep
that if you show everything. There’s the work and the personal stuff, and going
between the two is my favorite shit. It’s amazing to me."
“This much is clear: The classic role of
tortured artist is not one he’ll be playing. “People romanticize places they
can’t get to themselves,” he says. “That’s why it’s fascinating when people go
dark – when Van Gogh cuts off his ear. You romanticize those people, sometimes
out of proportion. It’s the same with music. You want a piece of that darkness,
to feel their pain but also to step back into your own [safer] life. I can’t
say I had that. I had a really nice upbringing. I feel very lucky. I had a
great family and always felt loved. There’s nothing worse than an inauthentic
tortured person. ‘They took my allowance away, so I did heroin.’ It’s like –
that’s not how it works. I don’t even remember what the question was.”
“Styles leans forward and discusses his
social-media presence, or lack thereof. Styles and his phone have a
bittersweet, mature relationship – they spend a lot of time apart. He doesn’t
Google himself, and checks Twitter infrequently. ‘I’ll tell you about Twitter,’
he continues, discussing the volley of tweets, some good, some cynical, that
met his endorsement of the Women’s March on Washington earlier this year. ‘It’s
the most incredible way to communicate closely with people, but not as well as
in person.’ When the location of his London home was published a few years ago,
he was rattled. His friend James Corden offered him a motto coined by British
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: ‘Never complain, never explain.’
Harry quoting Paul Simonon on the album's working title "Pink":
"Pink is the only true rock & roll colour."
Harry talking about One Direction and the hiatus:
It was in a London studio in late
2014 that Styles first brought up the idea of One Direction taking a break. “I
didn’t want to exhaust our fan base,” he explains. “If you’re shortsighted, you
can think, ‘Let’s just keep touring,’ but we all thought too much of the group
than to let that happen. You realize you’re exhausted and you don’t want to
drain people’s belief in you.”
Styles counters that the One D
tours were more like “a Wes Anderson movie. Cut. Cut. New location. Quick cut.
New location. Cut. Cut. Show. Shower.
Hard cut. Sleep.”
“I didn’t want to exhaust our fan base. If
you’re shortsighted, you can think, ‘Let’s just keep touring,’ but we all
thought too much of the group than to let that happen. You realize you’re
exhausted and you don’t want to drain people’s belief in you. I love the band,
and would never rule out anything in the future. The band changed my life, gave
me everything. I wanted to step up. There were songs I wanted to write and
record, and not just have it be ‘Here’s a demo I wrote.’ Every decision I’ve
made since I was 16 was made in a democracy. I felt like it was time to make a
decision about the future … and maybe I shouldn’t rely on
others.”
Harry about their teenage audience:
Styles is aware that his largest audience so far
has been young – often teenage – women. Asked if he spends pressure-filled
evenings worried about proving credibility to an older crowd, Styles grows
animated. “Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for
popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy?
That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s
no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not
serious? How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our
future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world
going. Teenage-girl fans – they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there.
They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.”
Harry about Zayn:
Styles adjusts himself in his chair. “I think
it’s a shame he felt that way,” he says, threading the needle of diplomacy,
“but I never wish anything but luck to anyone doing what they love. If you’re
not enjoying something and need to do something else, you absolutely should do
that. I’m glad he’s doing what he likes, and good luck to him.”
Harry about relationships:
The relationship is a subject
he’s famously avoided discussing. “I gotta pee first. This might be a long
one,” he says. He rises to head to the bathroom, then adds, “Actually, you can
say, ‘He went for a pee and never came back.‘ ”
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