Louis Tomlinson on starting a career after the huge success One Direction: "Yeah. Well, you've got and also, you know, it's the age, you know, I'm the oldest in the band, but we were 16 to 18. And of course, we all had opinions of who we were, but there was also an element of, you know, people kind of telling us who we were going to be. And we never really accepted that. But that was, that was years of, you know, kind of been put in a certain kind of box. And even with One Direction, you, there's only there's only so far that you can break outside of that box just because people see those things for what they are. So, I think for me it was like a a two front attack. I think it felt really brave for me to show who I was musically, but in hindsight, you know, that's utterly predictable and it's also very common, from when people come from something that's more pop to, you know, show who they are. And I I realized that with this record, the the bravest thing, the most confident thing I could do is really embrace the pop. Um, and and you know, I'm a huge fan of pop music. Um, so you know, and I've built up, I've built up all this success in that world. So I think I was, I was too preoccupied with trying to prove a point to maybe to myself as well. But this record, yeah, it comes from a slightly different place. That's why I said this is the record that I feel like I, I was always supposed to make. I deserve to make. Um, but I had to get there in my confidence, in my development, and also the tour shows, you know, that was like the secret source that proved to me that I could do what I wanted to do with the level that I wanted to do it at. Yeah. Um, that I suppose the difference with this record and previous ones is I had the confidence of however many years of touring on my own. Um, but the experience of One Direction is so bespoke, you know, it's so that you, even to be in another band would be so drastically different. The whole rise was so quick. We didn't even know each other before we were put in a band. You, was all very very unique. Um, so I think the hardest thing was coming out of that band and just accepting that that experience is okay, relevant. Um, but not, it didn't necessarily make anything easier. It actually, it almost I almost found myself butting heads a little bit more as I said because you kind of get put in this box. Um, and it was important to me to kind of show who I was musically." via Rolling Stone Uncut