Performance-wise, I really enjoyed doing “Something About the Way You Look Tonight,” which I suggested as soon as we heard about the Elton John week. I love that song, and I think it worked really well. We met some amazing celebrities as well. Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole are absolute legends, and Jonathan Ross had us all laughing. Alan Carr and Russell Brand were really cool as well. I can’t believe we got to meet so many of our heroes.
I found the X Factor final very emotional. We had no idea whether or not we would win, and when we came in third it really hit me. I cried as soon as we got off stage, and then I stopped, took some deep breaths and was fine again. After that, when we got invited up to Simon’s office to discover our fate, I tried to stay as calm as possible, but on the inside I was terrified. As soon as Simon told us we had a record deal I started crying again and I sat there thinking, “Why am I crying? If this works out it’s going to totally change my life.” My life had already changed so much, but that was the moment that told me I didn’t have to go back to doing what I did before. At least not for a while.
Even though I’d always wanted to be in a band and sing on stage when I was growing up, I never imagined it would actually happen. Imagine being told you could do exactly what you want to do for a job. It’s one of those things you always want to hear, and then when you hear it you don’t know how to react.
I couldn’t wait to tell my family the news—in fact I wanted to shout it out to everyone—but of course we had to keep it quiet. I went back downstairs to the bar area because there was a little party going on down there, and I think my parents could tell from the look on my face what had happened. We all had a massive hug and all of us were unbelievably happy and excited.
A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER
I think we were all looking forward to having a break over Christmas. I missed the boys quite a lot, but at the same time it was great to just relax and see my family. Loads of my friends wanted to catch up, so things were quite busy, but I didn’t want people to think that I’d changed and I didn’t have time for them or whatever. Sometimes I’ll be speaking to my friends for a while and they’ll say, “It’s so weird, you haven’t changed at all,” and that always makes me feel so relieved. Sometimes I stop myself from talking too much about stuff I’ve been doing, because even though it’s my job I don’t want to seem like I’m showing off or name-dropping.
I would hate anyone to think that I was trying to impress them. I don’t need to; they’re my oldest friends.
All of my friends have been so supportive of everything I’ve been doing. It was frustrating for me, because sometimes during the show I’d get a text and I’d want to reply straight away but I’d be whisked away—then everything would go out of my head, which meant I sometimes forgot to reply to people. But all of my friends were so good about it and so understanding when things suddenly became crazy busy. They knew that even if I didn’t get to reply I liked the fact that they were still texting me and they were there for me. One of the great things about being on the tour was that we knew where we would be and when, so friends could come and visit us and we could catch up. It was much easier to organize seeing each other.
A lot of my friends are genuinely happy about how well things have gone so far and they like asking me questions. That’s how I know who is a genuine friend and who isn’t. I have come across some jealousy, and some people have made comments and distanced themselves from me without actually letting me know. I’ve tried to talk to them as I always would and they’re a bit cold with me. When you’ve been close to someone it’s hard when they start acting that way towards you. I’m not going to chase after people and beg them to be my friend, but I wouldn’t want them to think I don’t care, because I do. So while some people assume or think I’ve changed, it’s actually them who have changed.
There are times when I would like to go home and just be normal and see my friends again and go to all of the old places. I enjoy spoiling my family, and there are times when I would love to treat my friends as well, and I know that my true friends won’t think anything of it. I’m not just talking about money. It’s also nice to be able to help people in other ways. For instance, my friend Ben is really talented musically and wanted to get some work experience, so I managed to get him some on the tour and he loved it. I would never have had the opportunity to do something like that before, but I’ll help my friends out in any way that I can.
I’m trying my best to stay as down to earth as possible, so I don’t want people doing things for me that I could do myself. Sometimes people think they should get me a bottle of water or some lunch, but I’m capable of picking up my own water, so why should they have to do it? It’s nice that people offer, and I understand that if we’re really busy and we don’t have time to get lunch, or we’re rehearsing on stage and we can’t grab a drink, someone may get it for us, but if a bottle of water is in a fridge two feet away from me I can walk over and get it.
My mom would never let me get away with that sort of thing. If I was at home and I asked her to get me a drink she’d be like “You know where the glasses are.” At the same time it’s funny when I go home now because I’m so used to doing everything myself, but my mom still likes to look after me in a lot of ways, so I feel like a proper kid again when I’m back with my family.
A lot of people say nice things about the band and we get a lot of praise. Obviously it’s lovely to hear and it always puts a smile on your face when someone tells you that you’re good at what you do, but I want to keep my feet on the ground as much as possible. I would never want to get big-headed. It’s such an unattractive trait and I can’t imagine myself ever being like that. I always want to be aware of staying true to myself.
I spent Christmas mainly at home with my family. That was the most important thing to me. That, and seeing my friends, which I managed to do a few times. Things had been so busy that all I wanted to do was have a break, watch TV and eat and sleep. I had such a nice time, doing the same family things we do every year.
One thing that was different was that some fans came to my house over Christmas, and it was so cold that I felt really bad about them being outside. I did go out and see them as much as possible if I was there, but I felt terrible that they were standing in the freezing cold because of me. As a band we’ve always said that we’ll never complain about people coming to see us or wanting autographs or photos. They’re the reason we’re doing all of this.
We appreciate the support so much. It’s great to know that people like what we’re doing. Some days I read 100 great Twitter comments and there may be one from someone saying they don’t like me. If I’m having a bad day for some reason, that’s the one I remember and it can make me feel a bit down. Then I’ll go back and read the nice messages again and they’ll lift me. They mean a lot to all of us.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
The New Year meant getting back to work, and we knew it was going to be busy. We had the tour coming up, so we had rehearsals for that, and we also had quite a lot of meetings and gigs, so things were pretty nonstop. But we’d all had a good break and we were ready to get back into it.
One of the first things we did was go to LA. When we got told we were going there my mouth literally fell open. I love going abroad but I’d never been to LA and had always wanted to. I’d seen and read so much about it, so I was looking forward to seeing how much of it was true.
LA is something else. Everyone you see looks like they’re famous, but I really liked it as a place. It was really hot there, so we were wearing shorts and t-shirts most of the time, and we got to chill out quite a bit as the hotel we stayed in, the W, had a pool.
What I found weird was that the people over there are so polite. When you get your breakfast brought to you in a hotel in England they’ll drop it off and barely say a word, but over there they’re so cheerful you want to invite them in to share it with you. This one woman who dropped off my food was like “Good morning, sir, how’s your day going? Where do you wa
nt me to put this good stuff?” They literally couldn’t do enough for you.
We did some recording in this really cool complex where there were loads of different things going on. In one studio they were recording the backing vocals for Glee, and then Randy Jackson’s office was 100 meters away, so we went and met him and he was an amazing guy. He was so friendly.
We got some time off to go shopping too, so I literally raided Abercrombie & Fitch. Louis reckons I bought every single t-shirt they had in there, but I think he’s exaggerating. I did get quite a few, though…
I wish we’d had more time in LA, but we did really enjoy the five days we spent there. It was like I expected it to be, with the sun and the glamorous people, and it’s definitely somewhere I’d like to go back to. I really want to go to Venice Beach and see what that’s like.
We were all quite tired when we landed back in London, but we were soon woken up by the sight of hundreds of fans. It’s become a bit of a legendary story now about us being mobbed and the police being called and everything. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life. We’d seen loads of fans at The X Factor, but usually they were either outside behind a gate or in the audience. And when we meet fans at hotels or outside gigs they’re usually in small groups. Well this was definitely not a small group!
I was really shocked by the whole experience of having to run through the crowd, but I made myself enjoy it instead of being scared of it, because I knew it was something special. When we were in the police van afterwards we all sat there going “What the hell?” It was almost as if it hadn’t happened, it was so surreal, but looking back on it now it was an amazing moment.
When tour rehearsals came around we were well aware that we would have to work really hard. We wanted to put on an amazing show and we had a lot of new stuff to learn, including dance routines. We were taught things like how to put more energy into moving around, which is hard when you’re in an empty warehouse performing to no one.
We also had to practice putting talking bits in between songs, which also felt weird because we’d be talking to an audience of six crew members, and even they didn’t respond.
Getting to put everything we’d learned into practice was the ultimate payoff for all the hard work we’d done. I can’t even begin to describe what it was like when we all stood on the stage together for the first night of the tour in Birmingham. Looking out and seeing all the banners and hearing thousands of people shouting your name… It really doesn’t get much better than that. We’d performed on The X Factor and we’d done gigs, but nothing compared to this. I had to stand there for a moment just to take it all in, but as soon as we started singing we were off.
I think even that first arena performance in Birmingham was different to anything else we’d ever done in terms of how much energy we put into it and how much we moved around the stage. It felt almost natural being there, even though it was also completely and utterly surreal. There were several times when we all looked at each other and I could tell we were all thinking the same thing—“This is incredible!”
The rush you get being on stage in front of so many people is indescribable. I wish everyone could have that feeling. I can be so tired and feeling like I’m in a bad mood, then I get on stage and I feel amazing. I’m so hyped up when I come off stage that I shout a lot and jump around. There’s no feeling like it.
I loved the tour so much I never wanted it to stop. I didn’t even get homesick, because we were so busy we didn’t get time to think about it, but I actually felt really guilty about that. All in all we were pretty well behaved on the tour, but we had our moments, like the fruit fight. At least we didn’t throw any TVs out of windows or anything…but there’s still time.
The wrap party at the end of the tour was good, but we all felt sad saying goodbye to everyone. I was up until about five in the morning so I was a bit tired the next day, but we had a day off to chill out so it didn’t matter too much.
When the tour was over, Louis, his mate Stan, my friend Johnny and I all went off on a skiing holiday together. I’d never been skiing before and I was desperate to give it a go. We had a brilliant laugh in Courchevel and I’d love to go back again.
We worked really hard on the album to find the right songs. They needed to be perfect. We wanted our first single to be a big summer song. For instance, when the Black Eyed Peas single “I Gotta Feeling” came out in 2009 it was the song of the summer. When everyone heard it, it reminded them of all the good times they’d had. We wanted our first single to be like that and be the song that everyone would remember.
The people we got to work with on the album were incredible. Steve Robson is very, very talented and has worked with James Morrison and Take That and all sorts of people. Working with RedOne and Rami was very cool too because they’re legendary. It feels so odd to be working in all of these studios that we would never have even dreamed of walking into before we were in the band. It was quite surreal.
Having our first book, Forever Young, go to number one in the UK book charts was also pretty unbelievable. We were excited about it being out there and hoped that some fans would buy it, but we didn’t realize just how many would get it. It was a complete shock and really exciting. The fans that came along to the book signings were incredible. I was given a lot of turtles because I once said I liked them, and it’s so cool when people remember little things you’ve said and chat to you about them.
We’ve done so many brilliant things this year. Filming the documentary was an interesting experience, but we are used to the cameras now so we all felt pretty chilled out about it. Photo shoots are always cool too. Even though we’ve done them before, each time it feels like a new experience.
Going on the Alan Titchmarsh show was a good laugh, because it’s one of those shows that everyone has seen. And he was a really nice guy. That was the first proper TV thing we did after The X Factor, so it’s one that we’ll always remember.
SIGNING COPIES OF OUR FIRST BOOK, FOREVER YOUNG
LOOKING FORWARD
One of the surprising things about being in the band is how committed fans are to us. Some of them came to loads of dates on the tour. People still don’t expect you to recognize them, though. There was a girl who was in our hotel one day who had been on loads of the tour, and she was really shocked that we’d remembered her name and knew who she was—but of course we do. We remember people just like anyone else would, and it’s nice to have the chance to get to know them properly.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to the press attention. It still feels very strange when I pick up a newspaper and something has been written about me. It sometimes feels like I’m reading about someone else. But as long as people carry on writing nice things about us I don’t mind.
As a band, we’re having the absolute best time ever. We’ve become better friends than I could ever have imagined and it’s so nice to have four other guys to share this experience with. If ever one of us is down the others pick him up, and we’ve got really good at coming up with ideas and putting things into practice as a group. I think we’re going to get tighter and tighter as time goes on.
Out of all the things that we have coming up, what we’re most excited about is getting out on the One Direction tour. We can see a lot more of the fans and they can see us performing our songs. It’s down to us to show what we’re all about, and we’re looking forward to doing exactly that.
We’ve got a lot of big dreams. We want to have number ones, travel a lot, go back to America and have as much fun as possible. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
QUICKFIRE
DOB: 2/1/1994
STAR SIGN: Aquarius
favorite…
FILM: Love Actually, The Notebook, Titanic—there are so many (but I tell everyone it’s Fight Club)
BODY PART: My hands, because I’ve always been told that they’re soft
FOOD: I love sweetcorn
ALBUM: 21 by Adele
FRIEND: Louis To
mlinson
CELEBRITY LADY: Frankie Sandford
SHOP: Selfridges
DRINK: I’ve been trying to just drink water but I love apple juice
COLOR: Orange
TV SHOW: Family Guy
AFTERSHAVE: Blue by Chanel
PERFUME: Alien by Thierry Mugler
COMPUTER GAME: Fifa
IPHONE APP: Texts From Last Night, where people send in texts that people have sent them when they’re drunk. My friend Ali and I send good ones to each other and some of them are so funny
WAY TO SPEND A SUNDAY: Asleep or chilling out
DATE VENUE: Restaurant
COUNTRY: England
RESTAURANT: TGI Fridays
WAY TO RELAX: I love getting massages because I’ve always had a really bad back
MODE OF TRANSPORT: Dog sleigh
NIGHT OUT: Going for dinner with all of my friends
BAND: The Beatles, Queen
WHAT COLOR IS YOUR DUVET COVER? Brown or pink and blue
WHAT KIND OF UNDERWEAR DO YOU WEAR? Boxer shorts. I like Calvin Klein
FIRST PET: A dog called Max
DO YOU LIKE YOUR OWN COMPANY OR OTHER PEOPLE’S? The company of people. I like being around friends and family