[Music] there you go so when you've got this rolling around I'm assuming that you've got the guitar and you're playing this this is piano so I started on the piano someone playing it or were you playing it I was playing it do you play it for a while before you decide to realize where you're going to go with it yeah how long was this rolling around for you
about 20 minutes you're just going around on three of the most simple chords ever and you're just sitting there just playing them playing them playing them playing them and then there has to be a moment when you step off the ledge and you actually [Music] trying to figure out what type of Melody to do over something like that like exactly I could have been like I don't
know you know yeah it could go anywhere so I was trying to get it a bit life is like a board game summertime [Music] and then would you go from there and then you go minor D oh so it goes a minor D Minor D E minor d d [Music] and then F easy [Music] trying to think about piano D Minor there are some pretty songs on this record bro this one kills me thank
you very much yeah though that's a lovely one right there you could start a cult yeah yeah I've never seen you do this pull out the old geese on uh it's nice nice guitar it's a nice kind of guitar right I'll be taking that you see you sit there and you play that's it's such a pretty little little Peck and then the idea of a cult comes to mind you're a weird dude
I love that it's good to see you you too congrats on the new record thanks very much without a ticket for granted man you know every time an artist comes back with new songs a collection that you want to let go I don't think we I think we talk enough about the courage it takes to actually Let It Go execution is hard man yeah I think so I think the
the pandemic had a lot to do with the Letting Go apart I probably did more letting go in the last three years than I've ever done in my life there's very few people I could actually have this conversation with because most people most people you know we we built up to a certain pace of Life by the time quarantine hit and then yeah it took everyone by surprise we all had to adjust and
terrible tragedy and sadness so much sadness but there's a few people that I could talk about that time with while we're let's find a reflect on it I don't think we should never forget we can't just move on um where the pace of life was in such a short period of time you probably hadn't actually had a chance to look left right since you were a teenager literally I
don't think up until that point I had any time off of any sort of length for 10 years probably before I started yeah because people forgetting people forget now everybody's out at the gates that you moved quick like I'm moved at home when I was 16 and never moved back never moved back and also when the band went into and I need to use this word carefully because otherwise fans get
terribly upset when the band went into Hiatus um you again you just ran you hit the ground running I got songs yeah so you never actually stopped no I just got the head down I just had to when you leave something that says it's it you just have to trust in what you can already do yeah like I trusted that I could write a tune or two and I performed in front of a few
million people so I just trusted in that and just went with it God otherwise your confidence could have been so knocked right I mean you could have been sitting there just just just going around and around in circles trying to figure out what that means to to what you're about to do and in the end of the day it's like dude let's just go I just had to do what
naturally came to me as well I didn't want to like go and start finding a sound I wanted to just pick up the guitar and just keep your fingers crossed that it comes out the way you wanted to what was it like the first time you ever picked up a Guitar apart from hard these people don't talk about that I mean did it feel like did it sit in your hands and in
your arms with a sense of real Instinct and it was it nature yeah it felt like the right-handed stuff the Rhythm I had I somehow had naturally but you don't find that out until you pick up something there um but yeah I know I just it felt it felt right it was like a little Spanish guitar that was given to a pre gives given as a present to someone else and then I they
weren't using it so I was like I'll have that do you know how many people have learned their instruments by playing other people's gifts yeah so I'd say more more often than not it's always the way right because often we give things to people assuming that they want it but it's actually the people who stumble across it and make the decision themselves exactly man what what role
did music play in the house for you like from a parental point of view a sibling point of view it was huge um no one was musical but huge music fans like it was I grew up in with vinyl in the living room and it was all like my my parents weren't particularly like English 70s Rock Fans they were more the American stuff it was all very Laurel Canyon eh
um all of that stuff James Taylor all of it James Taylor and he met Johnny Mitchell The Crosby Stills the Eagles are number one yeah I went to my first concert when I was four it was an Eagles game amazing mine was Kiss okay there you go there's the two ends look at us not me uh I love that so yeah it was just grew up on that stuff and just instinctively I just always tend to head
back that way instead of like I just when I pick up something it just goes that way what is your relationship like with the song when you finish it when you're done with it and you know it's mixed and mastered and stuff can you listen to it and be a fan of it or do you move on to the next one yeah I found even more so on this record probably because
I'm more clear-minded but um I definitely like I'm still listening to the stuff which isn't it great which is a good thing isn't it cool to be a fan of yourself I guess so no but it's funny a lot of artists I think shy away from that acknowledgment I think I think some people feel like it's when you step over the line between being an artist and being self-indulgent and I actually
think like why would you make it if you didn't want it I know hear it I think it's more of what you're worried about what people think of you liking your own music you know isn't that weird it's so weird like it's like once you put it out it just belongs to us and you can't like it anymore it's so weird it's like you know I'm trying like to sit down and
write the best thing I can because I get anyone who I always say this is like anyone in their normal day job you're not sitting down to write the worst thesis or you're not sitting down to make the worst spreadsheet you possibly can to mess the numbers up but you're trying to do the best job you possibly can while you're sitting there doing it so there's no reason why I should like
it when you started this album did you know you started an album or were you just collecting songs that when we when I wrote that song I knew that I was that that was the start of it because I'd released an album March 2020. yeah I know the day we went into lockdown yeah exactly yeah and um and then it was just well I've just finished a record I'm not going on
tour I didn't get to go around the world and do the thing so now I'm just gonna sit still and I sat still for six months like everyone else and then towards the end of a back end of that year I sat down and wrote this so can I ask you can I go back to that that time for a second because I think it was too heady for us to really lean into what I would consider to be
some of the more sort of psychological impacts for you personally and this is taking into account that the whole globe went through this yeah very relatively yeah but I just want to focus on your experience which is why you're here um it wasn't like it happened overnight but it sort of felt like it happened overnight like we we knew parts of the
world were closing down I think everybody knew that it was a case of when not if everywhere would eventually stop your album is on track to being released you've put a lot into it and a lot of planning so you knew probably months in advance what the date was um what was that moment like when you because someone must have come to you and said and even suggested lightly
listen is this the right time should we just see what's going on should we hold tight I think people were so no one knew what to do people didn't even know whether to shake hands or fist bump at that point it was they were doing the elbow at that point I think so I don't think anyone knew even in regard to releasing music what was going to happen and I remember
I was sitting in James Corden I was doing a week on James Corden and I was sat in James's office and we were chatting between shows and on the TV they're saying you've got 24 hours this is the day my album's coming out you've got 24 hours to leave or stay and I would have had this whole plan we were going to New York we were doing the whole Plaza thing we were I was going
doing all that stuff heading up to Canada at all these things planned and then it was just like onto the travel agent let's go home and that was uh and I was trying I remember saying to the label can we it's no way of like pulling this and like maybe releasing it when the world's in a better shape and they were like it's already out in Australia New Zealand
oh yeah that's a last minute request I mean the store's turning the stores turned earlier down there obviously so um once that happened then it was it is what it is and you went home and how did you feel when you dumped your bag on the floor and you knew that you were still going to be there for the time being but your music was traveling it was great
like it was it was good to see it from a still perspective what was going on online just like see all the fans react to the songs and then then it was just they're yearning for wanting to see it live and I couldn't give it to them and then uh and then that's when I was like right okay I don't think we're going anywhere for a while I'll just sit still and take this
as still time for the first time by the way you know the amount of artists that I've spoken to throughout my life that get two three albums into what I consider to be a phase or an era who wish that they could just not get out and do the thing around the record just so they could make maybe two albums in Peace Taylor Swift yeah you know what I mean because she she got
it right she was like well I'm gonna make a few yeah right and and I think that um you know a lot of times it's like making out and go do the work making now I'm gonna do the work again it's great work so for you I suppose I I wonder whether that that was kind of a Moment of clarity for you realizing look if I can't go out there and support this previous album then
maybe I should take advantage of that and just kind of lean into my creative Spirit a little bit more in a little bit of this space yeah yeah I think I think you have to let it come though as as you know you can't just be like okay well I've got all this free time now the whole world has become a creative um that's so true the whole world had
become a career yeah and I was just like a bit of I was like still angry at the whole thing yeah yeah yeah and um I just was like no I'm just gonna sit still for a second and hopefully in my living room there's a piano there's a TV there's the couch there's the dining table hopefully I'll walk over to that piano one day and something will come and it took me
probably till August or September of that 2020 to to play that and the first line I wrote was life is like a board game some of the time I remember thinking oh okay I'm ready this makes sense I'm ready what's going on right now yeah the moves you make yeah the roller coaster of it all yeah um I was like this this sounds like the start of an album to me
which which doesn't come often I mean I wrote the first track of my you know one of the first songs I wrote in the first album was Slow Hands and I don't think that has the same sort of like lyrical sort of no but it's different no I understand okay the lyrical poignancy is different yeah but Slow Hands sounded if maybe not narrative wise to you to every one of us
I did at the time but but it sounded like I'm here now and it's me yeah just me and it felt like that when that song came out yeah I agree I just think of where where I'm at now it would take something like that to get the engine started um were you living on your own what was you yeah me and my cousin yeah the two of us just working out cooking
up till all hours you know when your body clock was all over the place but you didn't care because you'd know where to be yeah yeah yeah um yeah like at 11 o'clock at night just if he's gone to bed we've watched all the Netflix we can I'm gonna make some music in the dark with the one light on and just went bling so the piano played a huge role in this I can hear it yeah I
think across the board actually there was more written in the piano than there was on probably anything yeah so for people who don't know the difference from a writing point of view what is it about writing on a piano versus perhaps the guitar that you think elicits a a different kind of emotional response well I think it's like it reminds me of different types of guitars
that you pick up like I would probably sing a different Melody over my guitar versus if I picked up your Martin like or if I picked up a like a Les Paul or a strat or something something else would come out because they already automatically have different twangs to them and they feel different and they feel different or if you picked
up a Spanish guitar or and it's the same with the piano you sit down at the piano and it could be different types of pianos you might get like an old upright that sounds kind of luminairesy you're so right because if you know that's why when people sort of they tend to identify the heavier guitar sounds certainly in a classic rock level to a Les Paul because if you ever picked one
of those things up they are heavy they're Hefty they're Hefty that's like a workout and they don't have the three notches they don't basically all the time the same they don't okay yeah it's like you need to know how to play this at its rudimentary level and you also need to know how to hold it yeah you do they're heavy you have to have a strong neck slash isn't he
so yeah I think the piano does the same thing different types of pianos I just had an upright Yamaha in my house and I was just it was a new kind of half news a couple years old yeah and I just started playing that and yeah I was just trying to find different chord progressions that would make the ears perk up so you'll hear a lot of my stuff it it's a lot of minor major stuff
oh yeah I can um so I do a lot of that just to how could where would I go here to make this sound interesting um so I think that's where the things kicked off when I wrote the show I felt like right we're away this is we're out the gates and then it was about finding the sound of it and then it was about the World opening up and there were the
two factors you're sitting at a piano it's like one in the morning it's dark very little in the way of lighting the room you're searching for the music waiting for it to inspire you to tell a story or to express yourself is it an emotional experience fewer times um probably more so then yeah I would like the most emotional record I've made
I'd imagine because I had this massive period of reflection looking into the future a bit you know looking left and right more than I've ever done like when you're in the rap race you tend to just go with your identity is constantly being reflected back at you too yeah because you would nail to a few people and then you annard everybody very quickly yeah exactly very like
so when you're in as I said when you're on the roll you just kind of you go with it you do you don't do any thinking in your 17 to 20 something you just go you don't you don't there's no time for thinking just just having fun and yeah enjoying it but then when you come at the other end of it can I ask you a question I've never asked this of anyone before but
I'm I'm excited to ask it did you do therapy after One Direction I I didn't and I still haven't and it's something that um people are recommending and I feel like I I want to go and do it I I I'm a fan yeah you know it requires means and I resp and I respect that but there are lots of avenues for you that don't that allow you to be able to explore the thoughts that you can't
actually identify in in real time that's what it comes down to it's just it's it's giving you the space to be able to recognize there are things that you're carrying whether you don't quite know you yeah exactly yeah I would count myself as like a a good talker I've got no problem telling people how I feel but I feel like as you say that's just surface level yeah because it was so am
I and guess what I've worked out as I got older was that the talking I was distracting myself from the inner voice my outer voice was doing all the work Zain law was doing all the talking that's a problem I wasn't listening to myself when you started to kind of identify those experiences that you'd had during that kind of time of of Solace Did you sort of
like what you were do you like his did you like yourself did you like who you had had become at that time as you were making this album uh yeah I would think like you just it's more of a period of reflection and just looking back at like the achievements and the the you know the gratefulness and the just all the things just are I think
it's at the age I'm not too where you know I'm at the end of my 20s and it's you know I've done a lot in short space of time and there's there's a lot to look back at and look forward to and look left and right as I say so it's it's just taking it all in and then having you know your couple of outlooks on things and and that's where the show came from like the show being
the metaphor for all of this all of it yeah it's true there's a lot in the framework there's relatable you know song One Encore out yeah correct so correct but it is it is that there's especially in in what I've done in my life there's a there's you know there's you're always trying to be yourself like publicly you know wherever I can how much can you
truly be yeah that's the thing you know red light goes on in the camera you can only give so much like there's a there's a the shoulders go down and the the tension comes in there's yeah so like it's that's what I was it's all of that there's some level I wouldn't like I would like to say that I was known as a a guy who's pretty present and people can I feel like people can see that but
there are obviously has to be some well it doesn't have to be but there automatically is some level of facade I'd imagine yeah for sure for everyone we're all at it 100 we all know where the armor is yeah you know but but when you as this is the other thing about like doing the work as they say um and kind of doing some internal work people always talk talk about it in
relation to kind of um healing in it and it is important but what they actually what what doesn't get talked about enough is that role it plays on your future and how it actually creates space to fill with great things because you let some of the unnecessary things go yeah so it's actually about opening the door to the Future I want to get into the album in a second
but one more question on that level when people you said something before there was really poignant you said some people are suggesting that it's something you should do yeah what do you think that they are referring to when they say to you specifically you should talk someone um I I think it's just and I remember it was I remember having a chat with and I
hope it doesn't make me saying this James Bay yep love James and um and Sam Actually Sam Smith we were talking one night about um therapy and stuff like that I really hope they don't mind me saying this because it's an open form and by the way I've spoken to both of them at various points about this kind of stuff so and it was more like it was more the
experiences that we've all been through these were this is where famous people conversations are good for me you know I don't have many of them but they're good where you can we've all been through a similar thing where it's like an up in an upward trajectory and fast yeah and you don't realize what's what it's doing so it's more of it like based on
your experience and what you've been through to say I think this would be good not like not saying I think this would be good but the more I hear of it the more I'm like I think that actually might be a good idea for me creating a context that you can understand yeah correct honestly because if you hear it off yeah everyone yeah I I just understand it from their mouths more
than I would most people you know and here's the thing I really want to put in front of people from my perspective as a fan we need you to work things through and grow to give us the gift of music and it is a gift like we talk a lot about music in relation to numbers and business fine but it is if you ask anybody watching this right now who's a Nile Horan fan and millions of
people will see this and ask them what their life would be like without your music they'll give you a deep answer yeah yeah they're not going to sit there and go one less song on my playlist they're gonna sit there and go that music has changed my life and that happens all over the world hundreds of millions and times a day and so we need you
to figure it out over time well we don't get this no it's true it is it's so true you need like if you think about some of the biggest songs of all time they've all been from really deep places if you think about like you know Paul Simon to Johnny to bonifer like you could be here all day listen off some of the biggest songs of all time you know they come from a proper place
look at Ed look at it look where it's gone where it's gone it's gone like the the life experience that he had leading up to the first album gave him plus yeah I want to get the mats right here don't go down the road because then we'll get lost in the arithmetics yeah yeah just keep it a plus and then he's obviously had tough times and he's been able to write this kind of record and
it's but he but he of all people right now is first through the war bloodied and bruised in the nutrient in your generation of singer-songwriters because if anybody gets gets lumped with math it's it uh what do you got to complain about you've made hundreds of millions of dollars playing to millions of fans with billions of streams and math math math math math math and they're
forgetting the fact that he's just trying to find a way to communicate his life yeah and that's never been like a super public person anyways he's been public but he's not talk about someone who can talk talk his way out of the truth please tell the truth but I mean his internal truth he's like oh look at the puppet yeah yeah I'm Charming I'm funny
that's just the way it is yeah and I get it but he's he's so good at it and we get to hear more about him through his Tunes than we do them we could ever hope for in an interview you know what I mean although you got it over I'm just here for The Human Experience you know I've just been able to find a way to connect it to the music and not make it separate for me they they inform
each other yeah they do yeah these songs don't come out of it yeah I agree out of nowhere um you know I think I think about one of the songs on here that really moved me on this record Never Grow Up man did you nail that you nailed it I think when people find a relationship they realize they want to keep what we have to always remember is we've
got to keep it exciting and that's what you really leaned into on that which is the idea of not being afraid to stay in a place where naivety and stupidity and all those things as long as it hurt anybody it can be really valuable tools to a relationship yeah for sure it was definitely I was coming at it from that point of you know where I'm at looking at it again left
and right you know I look I look I come from a divorced family same so don't do that if I can help it um and you know I look at other couples and relationships who you know you you walk into a pub and you can clearly see a happily married couple that have been together for 50 years and are still just like drinking and fighting with each other and like I'll and having a laugh
and I love all that stuff so there's a kind of both verses give both sides of the story but yeah but it's what's fascinating about those people because that's hopefully I'll be one of those two people that's the plan is um the day before you know the fight was real or the disagreement was intense or whatever I mean you're always on the verge of
change in your life anyway all the time you just got to acknowledge it's inevitable and then you kind of give yourself the best tools to deal with it correct and you just double down in relationships that's all you're just doubling that experience yes I'd agree yeah you have to there's there's there's good and there's bad in everything but you're trying to find the good most most
of the time that's true can we talk a little bit about some of the people that you decide to work with on this record you keep your friends close yeah if it's not broke don't fix it right um I've always kind of when I'm in London I'm with Jamie Scott who have I've done everything you know all over the years I've done most things with um and we we always tend to you know he
gets me at an early stage in the record all the time so I've got like very clear vision and it always seems to set up the neck you know the rest of the record yeah and we've always kind of written well together and then John Ryan Julian benetta Tobias gesso Jr Amy Ryan hahaha um that's the Avengers right yeah but like they're just good friends
of mine it doesn't feel like I'm right with these big songwriters even though I can sit there all the time and go holy so do you ever ever worry at all and this is no disrespect to any of those people but purely out of the comfort zone of being around people that know you so well where the growth's gonna come from because I know that you're Restless too yeah yeah no no I
think I think it's about having a clear idea of what I want to do before I go into the record then I can picture to them and then it's not just sitting there aimlessly in the studio looking for something yeah we all have a good chat beforehand as to what's going to happen here is that when you're at your most honest probably yeah yeah I would
imagine so like trying to trying to get because and because I know them I can tell them exactly what I'm thinking you know sometimes I'll come with ideas and full courses and just stuff like that and then I'll need an Amy Allen to reach in and grab it out you know what I mean she's very good at that well what's the most common observation that you
would find if there is more of a through line than others they say Amy comes in is is the is the is the observation there's too much going on it simplifies the observation let's refine a little more like where do you see someone like that bringing your standards up um detail she's very good at like all right well if you tell me that story uh-huh and it's just a linear story
I need more detail what did the blanket feel like yeah exactly I need I'm gonna need more texture out here so just tell me the whole thing don't tell me the half thing and I find that Amy's always been really good at and same with John um you know he's really good at Dez boy Genius of the three Riders and boyges I mean geez I mean I joked about it with
them but I was deadly serious you know how long has this Chevy been on cinder blocks yeah I mean if you want to sum up what Suburban life feels like it's that that is so smart you made me feel like but I'm better than you and you should know that by now oh no he's breaking the studio again he's done I'm sure I've seen him do that a few times I made a noise when I heard
that lyric for the first time that was part cry part laugh yeah yeah because it was like and high pitched probably like it was like the noise I've never made sense that's you know I I hear you're writing on this record tonight and I hear what Amy's getting I hear more and more are you searching for those details right yeah I think that's I think they're the most important
um the most important part you could write linear storylines all the time but yeah I just have to do a bit of digging to get to get the good stuff um and then it was actually very early on I always knew I wanted to work with Joel little kiwi boy took you down to Auckland oh I mean he would you know New Zealand was the last country on the planet to open
to open its doors so yeah because I went down there for I went to the studio and hung out did you and he mentioned that he was working with you which obviously made me very happy but I'm good at keeping an industry secret he was saying to me man you know I just if I can just get an R come down here man I know the best time ever I'd love to but it was
more almost like a lifestyle suggestion rather than yeah I would have a great time yeah great golf down there um I get on famously which all apps you think he's amazing he's one of the nicest guys in the planet great laugh as well um I always knew I wanted to work with him and I kind of just made a piano version of the show and I said to my a r just someone reach out to Joe little and
if he said if and ask him would he make a demo of this if he doesn't want to work then fair enough yeah um and he sent I had a chat with him on the phone I gave him a few references gave him a fair idea of where I'd like it to go what kind of sounds and he sent back this like Pro Tools version and it was just like straight away I was like oh my God how
do we integrate this guy into into the whole thing and yeah then it was just he and John then stuck their heads together and became like co-producers of the record which is generous too I mean collaboration isn't a given no but I think that we Nick we kind of needed that as you say like to just kind of we're not trying if it's not broke don't fix it but it'd be nice
to throw a new set of ears on it and a guy that's kind of you know got different sounds and different ways of doing stuff do you do you do you find writing love songs hard um I find the ballads a lot easier to write I find them the Up Tempo stuff in I find I need Vibe around to get those kinds of Melodies around out with myself so when you sit down like this I don't know if
this was a piano one or not qatarity like your plan yeah yeah but like the idea of just absolute servitude and being full service to somebody in order to preserve the Union you sum it up really really well is it come from a subconscious place or do you take it almost from like a I studied this when I was listening to these songs as a kid I kind of know
where this goes you know um [Music] I was trying to make like as I said try and make a small feeling well now it's morphing it's quite a big feeling but make it sound even bigger like the fact that it's called you could start a cult such an interesting take and then like in the second verse like finding lines like you know it's where you you could start a war or two
such a great lyric Kingdom's fighting over you I think that like they're they're the ones that could have very easily been I like waking up beside you and yeah yeah you just have to go like I know what I'm trying to say I just need to go and find what's the what's the other version of what I'm trying to say Do you ever crack yourself up yeah so that one was funny
we were laughing at that this was the last song on the record that we wrote it is and it was why what was missing I felt like that was what I was missing like I didn't have that and I could have done what I did with the rest of the record and put bvs all over it and strings and and that was my plan and John just said to me keep it simple you're missing this this is what we're
missing we're missing this the Nile Horan moment of just acoustic guitar and me playing bad harmonica the harmonic is great yeah well they were like you know John can play harmonica and he was like no it needs to come from you like what's your version of this I was like well I can't play it he goes well that's what we want we want the honest yeah foreign
I always find found that like Dylan he had his you know bits where he would go off and big like solos effectively same with Bruce but a lot of it was very straight noted and haunting and you know playing Bob's way well the greats back then man it's like Neil's solos [Music] right there I swear that's a Neil Young solo and it's the sickest you've
ever heard when you pick up a Guitar what's your default what's your default kind of chordal where do you go where do the fingers naturally rest oh oh you go straight to bars you don't go open uh sometimes you are such a kid a Laurel Canyon it's unbelievable listen to that [Music] all those little just a little taps yeah or like that's where I go that's where I go
I don't know just yeah no it naturally comes in there like that's probably the first thing I do every time I pick up a Guitar yeah yeah the almost open G you could find yeah dude I always think when you have the ability to pick up an instrument and you know what's going to move you or you know where to start why would you ever spend your time doing
anything else than just searching for the perfect marriage right the Perfect Chemistry I thought yeah I just yeah you could spend your life searching if you want isn't that the point well yeah 100 but more from a storytelling um type of thing but it all for me it's always kind of just started here foreign [Music] Ed was telling me that he was like writing two songs a day before noon why
would he tell you that it's such a it's such a brilliant Ed thing to do it's like all right now how are you doing yeah it's like Elton would do that I bet you he'd call you up and just be like how are you so are you good all right darling well I've been doing this this this this this this what did you do today and you'd be like Elton John's running rings around me I made a
chicken salad and did how fast the workout he calls me up and he goes he'll go have you heard of Ricky random in the rockets and I go no and he goes well that's cause you're at your job here I am saving you once again play their record bishbosh I'm bar I'm gone goodbye like it's brilliant but yeah and it was just his other thing he said was like the four chords still
exist is that what he said to you yeah beautiful because were you going through some writer's block at the time I was just like yeah how do I how do I start the engine where do I go yeah and he said to you while I'm writing to and this is what you need to do yeah yeah he's a good dude he's great it's one of the greatest yeah we were talking about his new album
that's on boat yeah he really knows how to when he when Ed gets in there he knows how to pull on the old heartstrings doesn't he that bit at the end when you're like oh he could just stay here and then he's like but the waves well break my butt and he goes and he hit and he he pushes out he breaks out of that comfort zone of that song but uncomforts on it yeah he's so good
at the dynamic stuff in songs he did it in like Give Me Love you know where he starts real small and then before you know it's yeah you know last week there was a big case and no there's no winners oh you know it's great for songwriters it's great for it I get it but it's also there are people who genuinely felt like there was a legacy at stake and so you if you gotta
in order to understand and grow as people we have to we have to try to look at both sides as much as we possibly can so I just don't see there's any real winners in the long term the the sort of the Cats Out the bag now you're not gonna be able to get it back in songs are under scrutiny at all times does it change the way that you write because
there are only so many chords and you do have to trust your instincts to some degree otherwise would never get the music like as as Ed said nobody owns them they've been around there's only some like there's you know there's the four chords there's eight notes as he said you know paraphrasing obviously but um what about that line which was great which I
actually thought was was really succinctly summed it up from his perspective which was that um you know it's an unspoken agreement amongst artists that that these chords and these notes and what is available to you become available to you yeah so true they're there and they're I mean look at the look at the thing yeah it's got six rings on it and load of threats and for
all of those songwriters that sit in rooms every single day sometimes two sessions a day you know trying to make a living it's them you know the edge of the world you know that sit there and try and do the best there's no way that Amy why knowing what Ed Sheeran Jay Gosling Chris Leonard and Amy wedge are like yeah no one's phoning it in on someone else's lunch it's great I'm happy for Ed
I'm happy with the songwriting Community yeah I agree but that's because my personal philosophy is like unless it's absolutely overt just have it like and I know that I know that's easier to say when you when you've kind of you're paying your bills and whatnot and there are a lot of songwriters who feel like they work they deserve more out of their work than
they're getting so I do understand the nuances of it but I just think that um without the be without without that idea of inspiration forming a new identity I don't get a Beastie Boys I just don't get one because not like I don't listen to their Punk and go Bad Brains you know and it's like and Bad Brains were like cool yeah you know so I just I
don't know man it's it's a tough one you know because I had a conversation with my friend about the other day and man we were just at odds yeah oh really he just wasn't and he's a different creative he's in the visual arts he wasn't budging on it he was like nah man you know you'd be out accountable he's coming from such a different place and I was like it's just
not how artists think musicians at least think don't make this don't think that way no definitely not you have to be open-minded you have to be open-minded so good to have you back with new music how are you gonna man when you go out and play Live bro it's going to be an embarrassing of riches you'd be like doing Springsteen levels you've got two
albums to play I can't wait it's gonna be so good like that's that's where I feel the most comfortable um like on stage playing to play into the thousands do you ever doubt yourself before you go on um I think in the summer I will the festival the festival scene will make me nervous I think because the pit will be probably more than likely full of fans you know whereas the rest of it
it's just people there and then you're hoping that some you got the tunes mate hopefully you got the tunes and I'm I'm excited to just get out and play alive again it's been years I did a I did a a live stream from the Albert Hall during lockdown that's right but before you know apart from that I haven't played a full show since end of 2018.
I was five years almost didn't stop touring yeah so yeah yeah so I've been doing the festivals this year and then heading out and heading out in the road for my own deal afterwards I found myself more comfortable at my own gig because you know that everyone's you know they've they've waited for the tickets they've spent their well-earned money to come watch you well you've got
a sound check as well you got to get you know you took as many boxes as you possibly can and the uncontrollable environment of live music at least you've got the illusion of control yeah it's at a festival there's a team got zero no not zero you just you don't know what way it's gonna go but um just you have to give the best account to yourself and I hope you convert a few
people but I am I'm just excited to to get back in the room with my fans as well yeah you know they've been they've had an album in between that tour and they didn't get to hear it live we've got this new record they've got the old stuff and I just want them to you know just lose their minds in there are you have you drawn a line through One Direction in terms of how it relates
to your set list what do you mean will you play any one of these songs more than likely yeah um I'm not I've never been one to hide away from it fair enough um they're great songs yeah and you and you've definitely got more with your with with a stronger Gnar footprint on than perhaps the ones that felt like they were a band everyone was divided up into verses it's like there
are definitely songs that fit your repertoire in a big way yeah of course there's there's so many on there yeah um that that feel like my kind of stuff as well um yeah and it's good to like kind of make new versions of yeah as well you know people are like what's this and then you're like oh oh unrecognizable song yeah yeah it's like the it's like the lick I'm about to
prove this point but it's like the Legacy that it's a beautiful thing actually the legacy of that band is such a short period of time what you mean to people um it's gone beyond the Zeitgeist of that moment and and people can't let it go it's a great thing you know fans still hold out there's all this desire for the band to eventually come back
together while they've all got your hair is an important part of it I was looking at take that the other night at the Carnation thing they've got great hair gray hair yeah yeah I mean no one wants to see Oasis come back together if Liam is bald they're doing all right too in the hairfront it's really important they're looking good it's really important I'm just saying
keep an eye on it no you'll be fine you've got a strong Irish header head I'm just saying any of the other boys they're starting to go south you might want to have a quiet wood whenever I I um whenever it pops up in a feed and it's generally around you coming back or like most recently when James did his last show of course everyone's like is this going to be the reunion is this
going to be the big send-off for James in The Late Late Show James Corden when you see that knowing what you know and only the boys know and what we don't know because we're all making up you know no one's had that conversation there's a little part of you get excited by that or is a little party you get a little bit like oh God man like are they
talking like am I behind on that like what what do you think when you when people start talking about something as a possibility that the reality couldn't be further from that truth he just it's not like it's ever stopped you know like the Cordon one is just a a big moment and a long line of a long line of conversation yeah and it's in most
interviews I'll get I'll talk about it in yeah so it's not it's not like it's ever stopped it's just like the conversation hasn't happened does it suck the air out of the room like is this is this the kind of conversation conversation you don't want to have or do you like do you sort of look at it from a point of view like I suggest at the beginning which is like you know
what it's a beautiful Legacy yeah it's a great it's a great legacy to have now I don't think it sucks the Comfort they're the area of the room it's more the ants are still the same yeah like the conversation hasn't happened we speak regularly yeah but that conversation hasn't happened God knows what it it ends up being it could be like it could be like the Friends
reunion it could be a whole tour you don't you God knows what it is but it not it hasn't been spoken about so look at the end of the day right you get the Friendship yeah oh yeah well that's that's good that can't go anywhere like it's that's that that bond is there yeah so touring to be done this album you know to me what's when I listened to this album you talked a little bit about
growth early on and and it makes total sense to me that these songs emerged from a place of Solitude that it wasn't like hey I'm out of this big group let me find a new group make songs out of that group and then come and launch from that I hope take this the right way it's kind of my last observation it feels like your first proper sort of solo album to
me does that make sense I agree um I'm in agreement I think it's um God knows what the next one will be like because it might not be in the same spot you don't know but yeah that's a great greatest thing but for where I'm at right now I think it's the perfect representation um of where I'm at my head um there's some deep Dives in there there's some great fun stuff there's
some revealing things in here and uh and observations and yeah I would say across the board it's definitely the best it's the most mature sounding the most record feeling and I purposefully made it 10 songs as well vinyl Vibes just the in and out none of this like getting to track 15 and going when the is this going to end you know let's get to 10 and make people
want to get back to one that's dude it's it's a perfectly formed lesson is there a song on here that is a signpost for territory you've yet to travel a moment when you realize that when you come back to the piano or the guitar no matter how you feel that this will ultimately be a sign that I can go further and further every time I think the show is that song
and I think on a night like tonight are probably the two that that I would like to delve into to more like when I hear those two sounds I'm like I want to go I want to write them again yeah Super Moon watch it dance on your eyes my wildest of Dreams taken on your life if this if it's this good way down here then what's it like up there high in heaven it's good man
thank you um yeah there would be the two that I would like reach for again some of the sounds that are involved in both of them in two different ways they're kind of they're kind of related to each other in a way one's just a bit more synth-led um but yeah I'll search you for my guitar I gave it to you do you want the no it's cool it's better in your hands