why did you connect with California so many of my close friends I'd say since I left home I have I've never really had the place that feels like that's my home I had never been to London before I moved there it was like this is a new challenge the whole thing seemed to me
to just be a new challenge it was crazy watching it kind of from a distance and one of my favorite memories when we'd just been formed as a band there was like a picture of us that had been taken from when we were at the show like someone's mom had taken it we'd heard
this picture was being put in the paper the five of us like walked like left this little bungalow and walk down to the news agents and got the paper and then came back passing around the paper we're like let me see it get let me see that first real piece of like wiki
mission yeah cuz we were watching x-factor at my cousin's house the day that my audition went on-air and then we're driving home I'm in the petrol station this guy goes were you just on x-factor and I was like yes I love fast-forward to the end of it and having
some independence for the first time really to kind of do whatever you want how'd that feel pretty amazing actually I didn't really have a plan for like when I wanted to make a record I knew I wanted to start writing the best way I've ever heard songwriting described as like it's kind
of like surfing you can prep this gang up on the board and sometimes the wave just doesn't come or the wave comes but you haven't practice getting up on the board enough every now and again you've practiced enough and the wave comes and that's when you write that song
in the band if I'd ever written stuff that that was just with a friend or something it was kind of like well I'm not gonna release any music but what would it sound like if I was to write a song that was for me I knew that like maybe one day I'd want to do it but I
wasn't like I can't wait to get out of this thing so I can go make my own record yeah you know so did the end of it creep up on you the last year of it we all kind of knew we were going to stop at the end of that year there was a part of me all of the decisions I've made as an adult
had been made as a group I felt like I need to make some decisions that just affect me Zain already did that and he bounced out mid-tour I mean it was it was hard we were sad obviously that someone had left but also sad that he was not enjoying it so much that he had to leave when he
started to started on this on this new album random fineline had your opinion changed about your self-titled debut I can hear all the places where I feel like I was playing it safe because I just didn't want to get it wrong I guess a big part of going into this album was
I want to work out how to make all of this feel really fun I was kind of trying to redefine what success meant to me and one of my friends kind of said if you're happy doing what you're doing then nobody can tell you you're not successful and also I guess when I was
in the band the last three records we made on the road in hand I had friends who are musicians who I knew would like they would tour and then they would take six months off to go me I bet yeah into a person I used to be like what's you're just like that's all you're doing room
67 you're just making at the Marriott in Hong Kong so remember like all four mattresses one over the top it's the exactly on the last two tours as well we bought this like old surveillance van and converted it into a studio so it would follow the tour around so like at
the venue you'd go into this tiny little surveillance route that had no air conditioning what you're one direction we're going back we've recorded songs in the back of a van on the road it's funny to record it like that it's just a totally different process the album
starts with the golden which is like he said before the vulnerability is the way to great friendship and I feel like that song establishes that gold or not we wrote on day two and immediately as soon as we'd done it it was like oh this is this is track 1 II knew it right cuz I
always end up with track 1 and the last track Ryan you're like okay let's see your new fine line would be the trap yes do you know was the album title as well no I heard that the first person you played the full album to was Liam Gallagher we were working in a studio in
London and he was in the studio next door can I just ended up in the listing which was crazy you know I was a massive voices fan of us I'd imagine what a melon sugar would have been a standout for him none of that stuff was finished I don't think they had horns on it Yeah right
lights up adore you treat people yeah those three I think well all hadn't been done yet they were all like the last week what a melon sugar which at this point is out and everyone's kind of figured out what it's about the joys of you know mutually appreciated oral
pleasure look what it's about is it always leave it open to interpretation of course but it's something that just seems to kind of followed you around that idea of you not just being a sex symbol but that you a lot of your music isn't so I guess I guess the thing with
like sex it used to feel so much more taboo even just like coming into this record I wanted to feel a little less like guarded with stuff I wanted to feel a lot freer and just more joyful and like honest and it feels to me this album in part it feels like a breakup recorded song called sherry which is
cutting right to it you know I don't like to kind of explain songs with this record it's so much more open yeah that it's like but you've told us yeah yeah like it tells you what it is a thing that I like about kind of definitely where this record went
it feels like I just start writing some songs so then I can be as honest as possible and then the time when you get to decide if you think it's too honest is when you're putting it out I wanted to be true to the moment that I wrote it and how I was feeling then the feeling
in not great okay I think there's something with cherry where it's like the night that I wrote it everyone had left the studio it was me Tyler and Sammy who's our engineer you know I have all these ideas about records that I want to make I want to make this record in five years
I want to make this record in ten years and Tyler just said to me you just have to make the record that you want to make right now so then we stayed up and wrote cherry that night who's this who's speaking at the end what's the vocal at the end that was my ex-girlfriend cuz it
got added in later on and it felt so part of the song is a song called falling on the recorder tom was telling me that that came super fast I was showering and he was like playing on the piano and as I came after shower he was playing like good then and and and and
and in there I went and stood next to him a piano just in a towel we just kind of wrote the whole thing it was really hot how long did it take probably 20 minutes what do you think you were saying in that song listen it back to us now the chorus says like what am i now
am i someone I don't want around it was kind of like it was a big moment or I was kind of asking myself like Who am I like what am i doing yeah I kind of started to feel like threads of where I could see myself becoming someone I didn't want to be and who helps you at
those moments does your mum still play a really important role my father like I'm so lucky with my family they've always just been really supportive she's like the kindest woman I know she just I just don't think she has like a bad bone it's amazing she's burst who do you miss the most
hoodie wish was still around stepdad passed away a couple years ago and what have you learned sort of going through life now is you kind of experiencing loss because we all have to cross that bridge and yeah what are the things that come into focus for you now friendships
probably just the most important thing to me like you keep going oh yes yes keep that Lea great and and I think part of the thing was like the mushrooms thing for me is that when I was in the band I was like I'm not gonna be the guy who messes up so I was like I'm not
gonna do any of that stuff making this record I just felt so much more joyous and I was with my friends and we were in Malibu saying it was like yeah I felt so safe and that's where you're at now I guess as you redefine to success and you had fun making this album is that you're
just trying to realist I'm just trying to go through life being a little less worried if you get to make stuff that you're passionate about then you're happy and I'll conclude I'm successful which is great that's the redefinition to success my man thanks for time bro thank you