Niall Horan

Heartbreak Weather and his upcoming tour with Louis Capaldi. I met up with Nile at his rehearsal space, where I heard him and his band run through some pinpoint harmonies for the excellent new song Everywhere, which is about being haunted by the memory of an X, you know, seeing that face everywhere you go. Except Everywhere doesn't sound haunted. It's up tempo and full of guitars that are headed

straight towards the rafters. Nile has said heartbreak Weather has some sad songs dressed up as happy songs, and Everywhere sounds like one of those. As Nile told me when we sat down to talk, heartbreak Weather is sort of a concept album. It charts the course of a relationship. So it starts with three totally over the top love songs. I mean, one of them imagines looking back on a marriage from age six, and it ends with two songs about holding onto feelings for someone who's no longer there.

In between comes some songs about hookups, like small Talk and Nice to Meet You, and some about breakups like put a Little Love on Me. Nil wanted to make a breakup album, but a different kind of breakup album, one that had shifting points of views. Where most breakup albums can be selfish, they're always kind of like I'm sitting at home You've made me so sad, And there is songs on the album which are like that. Now.

I have a song called Arms of a Stranger on there that is literally like you left me with nothing, now I'm laying in the arms with a stranger. And then there's also songs that I've written from different sides of it, where it's about them. It might sound like it's about me, but I've written about them. Heartbreak Weather is nile second album. His first, Flicker, came out in but at twenty six, he's already been a pop star

for a full decade. That's how long it's been since he tried out for X Factor UK, didn't make the cut as a solo artist, but got put in a group with four other guys. That group, of course, was One Direction, and for six years and five albums, One Direction was pop music's jugg or Not. Their first four albums debuted at number one one on the Billboard two hundred. No other group had done that before, and they put fourteen songs in the top ten of the Hot one chart,

four of which went to number one. When the group went on hiatus and the One D guys started putting out solo albums saying malick In, Harry Styles and Nile,

and those went to number one two. You can pick your completely inappropriate comparison point, but it's hard to think of a group that spawned this kind of solo success outside of the Beatles or n W A, neither of whom ever, sang a chart topping mash up of Blondie's One Way or Another and the Undertones Teenage Kicks, as that should have made clear One Direction we're closer to

a power pop group than a pure pop product. Except One D was pegged as a boy band by a world that is not long on respect for super catchy music made by boys who rose to fame through television Shout out to the Monkeys, and especially is not long on respect when you can barely hear that music over the screams of stadiums full of young women. But whether you liked them or not, and I did one direction where something special. Think of them as the Pixar of

pop music. Both assembled by teams of professional fundmakers working together to invent new tricks for an established medium, both relying on state of the art techniques, charged up by a combination of super smarts and super heightened emotions, happy and sad, both packed with bright colors and humor that dazzles kids, but also full of bits aimed at the parents. I mean, that's how I always heard the classic rock riffs embedded in one D songs the Who's Baba O'Reilly

in Best Song Ever? Or the clashes should I Stay or should I Go? And while We're young or deaf leopards, pour some sugar on me in Midnight Memories, journeys faithfully and steal my girl queens. We will rock you in rock me Or at least that's how I heard them before. Harry Styles and Nile released their first albums, both of which were heavily indebted to the classic rock California singer songwriter sound of the nineteen seventies, albeit in very different ways.

Harry came off more like a Nielsen weirdo, studio obsessive, and Nile more like James Taylor heartbroken trying to get over it, although both of them sounded like they'd crashed a Fleetwood Mac recording session. Nile has said he's known how he wanted that first album to sound since he was a kid playing Bob Dylan and Beatles covers in

Irish pubs for older patrons. But for the new Heartbreak Weather, he was a little more free with the process and the sound, a little less worried about its sounding like something that came before, so maybe it ended up sounding a little more like him. A song like No Judgment started out with him playing around with a riff that reminded him of an old John Mayer's song Neon, but it became something different once he put a groove under it.

Now talked with me about starting writing while he was recovering from sinus surgery and also getting over a breakup, about recording at a studio in the Bahamas that has a champagne bottle vending machine, and about what it's like to stand in front of fifteen thousand people and sing about your feelings. Here's what else he had to say. Now, welcome to inside the studio, very very welcome to London, youwre and thank for having me on your podcast. So

let's start with the album title. What is heartbreak Weather? Where did the phrase come from? What does it mean? And and how does the weather change? It's been randing hare for about two weeks, so it doesn't change that often. Um, heartbreak Weather kind of came from I wanted to write like a breakup album, but not very selfishly. When you write breakup albums, they all tend to be very selfish, sounding like very you know all about you and how

sad you are instead of thinking about other people. So I when I was writing down ideas for it, I was just kind of thinking, how do I how do I write all the different feelings because it's not always like sad or there's happy days as well. When you go through a breakup and there's feelings that you shut and feel you know and you do you Do It

and Heartbreak Weather. It was something I wrote down, and the minute I wrote down, I was like, this has now become a concept and concept album because now I can write different feelings and relate them to different weather patterns. So it was like, you know, if it's a sunny song, it's going to be a little bit more egotistical, and if it's a ballad, it's going to be a little bit stormy and rainy. And that kind of helped me stick with the con scept. So from minute one, the

album was always going to be called Heartbreak Weather. And when you say breakup albums can be selfish, do you mean only from one point of view? You're not thinking about the other person in a way? Yeah, they're always kind of like I'm sitting at home, You've made me so sad, And there is songs on the album which are like that. Now. I have a song called Arms of a Stranger on there that is literally like you left me with nothing, now I'm laying in the arms

with a stranger. And then there's also songs that I've written from different sides of it, where you know, there's it's about them, it might sound like it's about me. But I've written about them, you know, or so even though you're speaking from the first person, you might actually be coming from the other point of view. Yeah, so sometimes it might sound like I'm saying something, but I've actually just in terms of the heartbreak weather concept, i

was writing from a different point of view. There's just different songs for different angles, and I'll probably have to explain it at some point to put just once you know that every song is not about me and how selfish I am, then it will help. You talked about the different moods to the first songs we heard, Nice to Meet you put a Little Love on Me. Those are very different moods. One's very interior and one's really

about going out on the town. Yeah, literally, that that was That's kind of the heartbreak weather thing again, you know, the egotistical one and nice to Meet it comes out and makes a load of noise and good talks about going around London on the tear and then put the Love of Me is the piano ballad, you know, written with the rain bashing against the window and you know

in the hills of Hollywood. It's kind of like, you know, it's a there are two contrasting things, and that's kind of the theme across the across the album, and of course Heartbreak Weather it's off the title track. You're really singing about being on the other side of the heartbreak weather, right, you know, the sun's come up, it's I mean, it's

a love song, right, yeah, yeah. No. In terms of the track listing of the album, I wanted to tell the story from the start of the relationship, through the relationship, the feelings you might have within the relationship, and then out the back and how you feel um. And you'll see that if you listen to the album throughout Heartbreak Weather, it's kind of like what it was. It was all sleepwalk living, and it's been hardship, it's been heartbreak Weather.

It's been sleepwalk living up until this point, and now I met you. That's how the album kicks off. Black and White was one for me where I was kind of like trying to go nostalgic and be thinking, like when I was fifteen and got my first girlfriend, was like, that's it marrying you, you know, And that's why I was trying. I had the title black and White, and I was thinking, how do I make it different and that's what happens when you first get with someone and

you're in that honeymoon period. It's black and white, it's crystal clear. The whole world is black and white to you. It's it's this or that and that. This in that song is I'm completely in love. You're imagining at one point when you're sixty five years old and the two of you were together. Yeah, it just kind of like was thinking how I had the title and I was just running with it, and I was thinking, how do

you change this? And I was kind of thinking like when you were a kid and the first person you meet, you're like, I'm going to marry you. And then it was kind of like, you know, thinking of a wedding scenario and the black being the suit and the white being the drawers. So the top of the wedding kick, Yeah, room in black and white. I see us, and you know, I see us in black and white, crystal clear and the starlet night. And it's kind of like very nostalgic thinking.

And you know that honeymoon period when you first get with someone and it's like this is it. You hear the first few songs you've released, particularly put a Little Love on me, and you think about the album title heartbreak Weather. People may get the impression that this is a sad breakup album. But those first three songs, they're about falling in love. And the third one we talked about the first two. The third one, dear Patients, you the singer or you were telling yourself, slow down, let's

let's try. Let's try not to get to the altar before we've gotten to the bedroom, almost, because they're all these are all the things that go on in your head, like when you're when you start a relationship, you're like, I really, I really like you. This is probably gonna work. But if I slow down a bit and be a bit more patient, will probably make the best of it.

So that's where their patients came from. And it's kind of like literally writing a letter to patients, the feeling of patients, and like telling yourself, all right, this time, don't eff it up and just be patient with it, because it could be really good if you let How did the process, the songwriting recording process change between the first record Flicker. In the second record, this one was a bit more I found a bit more off the cuff,

like um in terms of the recording. Like I last the last album, I was in with full band in the room, playing everything completely live and then doing overdubs and stuff. But this album I found like I was just kind of I just said I'd gone right songs

so I could they could happen anywhere, you know. I was just writing songs of some of them are written at home, and some of them are written in the studio, and then we'd kind of play instruments as we were going, And a lot of this album is kind of done at home really, to be honest, written because my idea was that I would just write songs and then dress them up. However, I feel production wise later on, just

write the song first. And because before I kind of pigeonholed myself a touch, you know, I was straight away I was noodling away, playing and like fingerpicky type stuff, which straight away sends you down the alley of Okay, now we're writing a folk song. And that's what I

kind of did to myself on the first album. I mean, in hindsight, the album did really well, so I can't complain, but you know, I know I need to do next time, and this time I just wanted to just go in write the song, and then whatever happens afterwards, we'll make a decision do that later. The first album is it all fingerpicking folk songs. It's it's got some big pop songs on it. But this one I heard, unafraid of pop, unafraid of R and B, unafraid of rock and roll.

I listened to this one and I thought, oh, yeah, he's he's got a swagger back. Yeah. No, I just like with the success honestly, with the success of sloans Um, I thought, well, if an eighties well, I think it's like an eighties blues jam meets pop music can do well in on the charts of R and B and hip hop. Well, you know, and it did well. It stood because it stood out. You know. I was thinking, well,

maybe I can just take a few more chances. And that's why I was thinking, right, just let's go and write the song, and the dressing up can can be done afterwards. But the success of Slohan's made me walk into the room they sim and think about things differently. Let's talk about how this record happened. You you finished the Flicker tour eighty one shows around the world. That was September eighteen, You're done? What happened? Then I went

back to where do they go? Went straight back to London for a few weeks, and then I went back to l A. And I went back to London for like ten days. They went back to l A and I had to have sinus surgery. Sinus surgery. Yeah, it just it was like there was like some sort of drip from me, Like I would get in sinus infections all the time, and it would like drip onto my

vocal cords and kind of burned them. So when I would lay down at night, you know, when I wake up in the morning, I would be barely able to talk because like all the drip would like dry out my throat m over the course of the night. So that's not great for a singer. Um. So I've been talking about getting it done for a while, but then

the schedule got in the way. So I had that done and then I was in kind of he was The doctor told me to kind of stay at home for like ten days two weeks, so that's what I did, and it was just kind of bored. And then I wasn't planning on writing for a while. I was going to take a bit of time. Obviously, I lasted like three weeks off the back of the tour, sat down at the piano one day and started writing the first and the chorus for Love on Me, and then I

was just gone. So the first thing you wrote through this album was put a little over. Yeah, I had those cords just when I sat down and played those cards and just kind of went man and and and then from there that's where the album started. And once you, once you start, it's the best book you've ever had. It's like you just you just keep going and you can't stop. Next day, next week, I wrote No Judgment

and it's just off. But you were just a few weeks off tour and and I recovering from sinus surgery. I shouldn't have been doing anything. Well, I mean, you didn't exactly take a vacation, did you. To be honest, I'm not very like. Actually, I went to a friend's wedding first week of October in Spain. That's why I

went back to the UK after my tour. Then when we met up in London and then we went to a wedding in Spain and talk about a week off basically, and then went back to the States and just started writing what do you do to recharge? Then I'm not I'm not like I sit on the beach type holiday person. Also, a lot of my friends have like nine to five jobs, so it's not like I can be just like, come on, guys, do you want to just come for two weeks with

me somewhere? And they're like no, because we've got a job. I couldn't do that, And so I just kind of play a lot of golf, you know, like, yeah, I don't know, I just go back to Ireland for a bit. Yeah, just kind of general chilling stuff. I don't I'm not like a on the beach type person. But you did record some of this record on the beach, because you did record it Sanctuary Studios in the Bahamas, where I've

read a little about this place. The live room overlooks a marina that's full of yachts, and I believe it has one of three vending machines in the entire world that dispenses split bottles of Moette champagne. This sounds like a place the Stones would have recorded in the seventies. What what was it like? I mean, it was the

best ten days I've ever had. Um, yeah, a friend of mine lives in the Bahamas, so I was down there anyway, and um um, all the you know, all my writing partners came down for ten days and we just went into the studio. I mean the studio. It sounds ridiculous, it sounds ball or if you like, I mean there's the daves, like the way they've built a building. You can always see boats in the marina. It's like the windows are like in a slad and you can see that. You can see you like two dat pulling

in and all sorts. It is a bit obnoxious. Um, but we do you know what, surprisingly because we're not in l A or we're not in London and people have lives to go back to at the end of the day. It doesn't feel like it didn't feel like we were you know if like, if we're in l A, we're going to the studio eleven and we leave at six or seven, and that's just like it's more of

like a job, like a working hours job. Um. Whereas you know, because people have to bring kids to school or pick scoo kids up from school, or go home and make dinners or something like that. Um. Whereas if we set a time to go away, and that's all we have to do is write songs. We don't even have to, like if we don't want to sleep without to sleep. You know. It's kind of like we actually wrote a lot more than I thought we would. You see your songwriting collaborators who are down there with you,

Who who came down through this trip. Julian Bonetta, John Ryan, who I always work with very closely, and they're like my two of my best best best friends, and we've known each other for a long time. You've been working with them since the One Direction there, Yeah, we did. They did it basically last three or three one day albums effectively. UM and we Yeah, we worked really close together. And then it was Tobias s So Jr. Who we wrote Meet Shelf and Julian wrote Slow Hands with um.

So we've worked well together before and we were we had we had written No Judgment before we went to the Bahamas. UM, so that went well. He's a greatest guy in the world. Teddy Geiger and Scott Harris, who are obviously super famous for all their for their Shawn

Mendez stuff. It was also a good friend of mine and explicit who famous Miami writer Um wrote the famous hit work from Home by Fifth Harmony, but also a good friend of mine, So it was kind of like friends go on holiday and write songs at the same time,

and everybody was down there at the same time. Yeah, we would split off into groups, so like I would it was like a writing camp, almost writing camp being sort of where where different songwriting teams come in and write songs, but it was your writing camps, like my own writing camp, and I would like, I have loads of ideas and concepts and stuff like that, and stuff that I want to write about, and would all would have like a verse or a chorus or something already

prepped a while before the trip, and then I would like walk into the room, would say Teddy and Scotland say right, I've got this concept and there's this first and then they would kick it off and then I would go in and start another one with like me and Julian and then go back to them every like twenty minutes and like this is all happening at the same time. But that's what they were like we were talking about. We all went for dinner in l A a a few weeks ago, and it was just like I was.

I was so busy in the Bahamas that like, I think I got sick when I got when I came back, because I was just running around the place from room to room with a massive studio and I was all

over the place. Um, because then you really have no chill, you you you you just went like song to song, not even a day to work on one song or one project like and then there were some songs we hadn't finished, like the nice to Meet you didn't have a bridge, And so me, Tobias and um Julian went into the studio one day and finished off you know, I sung in something and then we wrote lyrics to it are no judgment didn't have a verse or second verse or something, and we were doing that as well.

So we're writing new songs and finishing old ones. Which did you even use the vending machine that spits out the champaioge did? Yeah. They had these like gold coins, you know, like slot coins, and they were you could like have so many a day or whatever. It's part of your studio bill. But it was good at the studio had like a hot top in it. The studio had a hot time. It's a joke, it's like insane. I mean, it's too entice the rich and famous then,

you know, to use the studio. And so this was like prep for that SNL skit where you got to be in this hot with Scarlett your hands. Yeah Scarlett weirdly enough of us in our at our writing session in the Bahamas. But um but yeah, the whole the studio. Is this a joke? But it was. I just couldn't believe how much work we've got done. We we would go down to the beach at sunset every day just for like fifteen minutes, just to be like, we need to get out of this room. And we ended up

writing everywhere on the beach one day. I mean a few of us the song everywhere we were on the beach, and I mean, I think the opening versity even has a line that says, you know, it feels like the world's locked us in an island, an island without waves, as the waves are breaking and the and the tides going out with pretty sides coming in. It's pretty. Um Yeah.

It was just a great way, great which such a good time because we were just all that we were there for one reason and one reason only was to write tunes and hang out and it was good fun. Wait a great time. You mentioned nice to meet you. I want to start with one thing i'd heard you say previously that when you were working on this song with two Bias Jesse Jr. You said I'd probably written fifty songs. Now, what what does that mean? I always hear people say that, But does that mean you've written,

like you finished fifty songs, you recorded fifty songs. You you wrote fifty one line versus like bits of verses down what? No, probably were written fifty Like I'd say, if I was to guess, I'd say fifty three or four songs for the whole album written. Bear in mind, that's horrendous, you know what I mean? Like you have days where it's just like what we even doing? Um?

And you will you know, yeah, maybe like fifty verses and like twenty verses and choruses and then fifty like thirty full of songs and like you know, there's kind of like it's a bit of dribs and drops, but you can see, like if I've got a verse in the chorus, I know that I can pretty much match that on the other side, and I use it like a symmetrical like first verse, pre chorus, take a break, start the next part, but kind of dribs and drops. But I would say, like a good solid forty odd songs,

full songs. How does it happen for you? How many of those were ideas that you might have flashed on while you were touring or before you even started the songwriting process for this record, things like no Judgment, I already had the riff. I wrote the riff in I think it was in Chicago or something on tour, like six months previous to writing it, So it was in Chicago, and like July or August, and then yeah, July maybe did you say you wrote the riff? Where you were

you playing around on guitar and peple. We're sitting on the bus just in the middle of the day between making great or something and just in the show and just like just start going, and before you know, I've just got a really good riff and didn't really know what to do with it, and then tried to match it up to a concept that I thought sounded texting. Therefore, Blaine, you can stay with me tonight. You don't have to change. Men come around you, So go ahead and say what

song your mind on your mind when you meet. You can get that anyone. Yes, you don't have super you can just be yourself when you meet. The song was a bit more kind of like John Mayrish, kind of like Neon, the kind of continuum type era, and then they developed because we put that groove underneath. It kind of turned into a pop song. But subconsciously, you know, you're on tour in Chicago, it's in between a meat and green, You're playing around. You have this riff, So

do you get out your phone and record it? What do you how do you capture? Yeah? I take it out on the phone. And what I was doing last year a lot of time was we would jam on stage as part of our sound check and just get the front of house guy to record like bits and then like record ten minutes of it and then send an email me it's straight away, so then I have like an actual recording of us sound checking. Did anything from those sound checks end up on the record and

one nearly did? Yeah, there was a song there was a song that I ended up righting with Tobias that that nearly did. Yeah. I almost trying to find that. Yeah, like bits and pieces, not much. It was more like you're just trying to think of ideas two to be a catalist for when you go into the studio, because you know, there's a lot of If I just turned up on the studio on day one and don't know what I'm gonna write about it, it's gonna be a

lot of harder album to be heck. You know you mentioned you were playing around with the riff for No Judgment and that the song was coming together and it was a little more John May I ish were there were there any artists? Were there anything that you turned to for inspiration that you were listening to or thinking of when you're making this record. I know when you made Flicker, you you talked a little bit about Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles and whether the record sounded like

that or not. That really stuck to that record. Yeah, now that that and that definitely like helped me as I went. As I went on this one, I was kind of like it was a bit of everything, different

songs for productions for different songs. So like in my head across your mind was kind of like you know, you use songs as references, you know, like going and absolutely rubbed the place blind, but you know, like Walking on the Drain by Empire the Sun was kind of like a nice reference for Across your Mind because Across your Mind actually started as a piano ballad and I actually have a video on my phone of me, of

me right across your Mind. It was the demo was a piano ballad of singing me, really singing slow and love the way me and it doesn't even rushing. And then before but every time I played it on the piano, I kept like tapping my foot like like faster and faster every time I played it, and I was like, no, this needs to be this needs to be a jam. And then it turned into effectively an Empire the Sun meets Fleetwood Mac Thrive and Tune. Yeah. I mean when you sing it now, I hear the way it is finished.

I can't imagine it is a slow and sad piano because it's got that, it's got a groove, I mean, and and the group that could go in a lot of different directions. You could be an R and B song, it can be what you know, I mean, it can be with the song it ended up as. But this album has that strong pop bounced to it. I always try and do like pop with my twist on it. You know, I like, I absolutely love pop music and kind of but I don't want to sound like everyone else,

if you know what I mean. So I try and do me on a little twist on it. And I mean, bringing Fleetwood Mac into a pop song is you know, it's something to behold, I suppose, and like, I try and do things differently, and I guess maybe it sounds like you're bringing that into the pop world now, into that machine tooled, computerized pop sound. But remember Fleetwood Mac. We're the biggest pop band in the world in their moment.

But that's that's the thing. Like I remember Julian Vanetta said to me, he got like, I'm always trying to like find different older drum sounds when I when we play, when we put grooves on stuff. And Julian said to me, he goes, you know all those bands that you love, like the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, do you think that they were looking for old drums? Said they were looking for the drum sounds that were big at their time. They were writing songs around the grooves. And then from

then on, I was like, you're so right. I was doing that for a while where I was like chasing down old seventies tunes and eights tunes for a drum groove or a sound or a snare or sound, because I'm like so particular about stuff like that. But I just remembered I'm a twenty four century pop back, you know what I mean, Like I have to play it

to it too. You know. Well, we were just talking about Crush your Mind starting as a sad piano ballad, So let's talk about the sad piano back put a Little Love on Me, which just the title sounds a bit like a Rod Stewart come on from the seventies or something, but that's not what it is. So tell me about how this song came about just a thought sign of surgery. Time just sat at the piano and

just went bum bum bum bum bum bum. To me, it sounded quite like Altony the way I played it, like the dancing bam bam bam bam, And in my head I was thinking, like, what would Elton do now? So I even like go to minor records and like at the end of the chorus and stuff like that. Literally, in my head the whole time, I was was thinking about

what Eldon do now. So I just started saying along and I had a concept for it that it was like one of the first things that I wanted to write, because I've just gone through a breakup and there certain things that I needed to say straight away, like the first first just flew out of my mouth and the pre um, and then I went in. When I came back, I was like, I'm going to leave this because I

know someone that can help me with this. And then with Jamie Scott, who had written this Town and too Much to ask with and he had written story in my Life in one Direction and stuff like that, and he's a very good friend of mine, and we were planning on going into the studio anyway, so I was like, Jamie will be really good at this, and he's an

unbelievable piano player. And we went in and he loved it, and we kept playing and playing and got to the end and he played the first pass of the piano and I went in and recorded the vocal, like the two takes of the vocal or something like that. I just loved the vocal and loved like the rawness of the song and didn't kind of was thinking that I don't really want to overproduce this. But then the longer I went on, I was like, no, I want to

produce it now. And we gave it. You know, I gave it a couple of shots and differ with different producers and had produced a few times, and I just kept coming back to the first past of the piano in the first vocal. So what we hear now is literally just the day one demo when we finished the song, which is rare. I mean, those productions could be amazing, and they were both. You just have a feeling deep down.

So knowing that this is the first thing that you recorded, the first thing you wrote, and knowing that you were just a few weeks off tour. Now I think I understand a bit the little bit of the Easter Egg, the lyric on this song that connects to a lyric from a song on Flicker too much to ask. In that song, your your shadow is dancing on its own for the first time. In this one, shadows come up again. But now the lights are up and there are no

shadows dancing. Yeah. No, I I just thought would be nice to reflect it back to another song that myself and Jamie had written and we were taught he was going, but shadows the ton of it like he was doing that, and I was like, oh, it's up there for a second, we can we can actually push this back to put this back on too much to ask and literally do what you said, you know, in the In the previous song, the shadows were, you know, done and without you for

the first time, and then this song now there's no shadows done because no one's done with right, So yeah, I just thought it was a cool, like a cool little nod to the and the Funds picked up in a straight way like they were like, oh, this song has this a lyric that's just amazingly plain spoken. Watch the sun coming up? Don't it feel fucked up? We're not in love? And then put a Little Love on Me has a song that is also super point spoken, Is it wrong? I still wonder where you are? Is

it wrong? I still don't know my heart? You know? And then and Ben the Rules On this album, there's a moment where you're talking about, you know, when somebody makes you laugh but you won't say what it's about. And I really felt that that's a real moment. We have those moments like where you're watching someone you love kind of spark to something else and you're wondering, what the hell is that about? Is that about? Yeah, but you don't want to be needy and and say it

out loud or for yourself. But these kind of brutally honest lyrics are really shaping up to be a specialty of yours. Yeah, I hope they're connected um people, because I don't know, Like I just those ballads, like they all come from that same sit down at the piano and just say sometimes like when I'm writing a ballad, I'll actually speak instead of saying, and like we nearly write like an out loud poem to music and and

do what you've just done. They're just like, is it wrong that I still don't know the art and then try and sing melody around that or whatever. Yeah, just like I don't know, probably I hopefully get the credit, the credit for the nice lyrics at some you know, at some point in the line, hopefully lets say what happens. Well, I mean, you know, look, all of us have used music when we're sad. We've used it as a form of therapy. Songwriting sounds like it's a form of therapy

for you. You sit down and you just talk the lyrics out. It seems like you should be paying the piano a therapist. Yeah, I have a little like collection box on the top of the piano and pay the fee every time I sit down. When those lyrics do that brutally, plain spoken and honest, Do you ever worry about being that vulnerable? No, I don't um at all. Actually I probably When I was younger, it used to be like I wouldn't say stuff in interviews, or I wouldn't put a lyric in a song because they didn't

want people to be talking about it. But what I've realized is when you're vulnerable, people want to know who it's about for about two seconds, and then tabloids make a story out of it, and the online websites make a story out of it for ten minutes, and those stories only over last day, and then after that people actually connect with the lyrics, like you have no idea what the songs are about, but you've made them a connection to yourself, as you said, And that's what I

love about what we do, because the flash of the pan stories over, and then I go on tour and I look at the crowd and I'll see three or four girls in the first ten roles, crying their eyes out, and that's the best part because they don't know who the song is about. They've just connected it to something in their life. And I think the older I've got, the more I've realized the power of actually writing lyrics. And I think that's why I like to write ballads more,

because you get that feeling out with people. Because when the lyrics, like I'm very good at like dressing a sad song up as a happy song. So but if you're dancing at a concert, you don't necessarily listen to the lyrics. You're just singing out and you're screaming at the top of your lungs. But if you're listening to a ballad, you're a bit more like tentative and like listening and breaking the lyrics down in your head. And

that's what makes you emotional, I suppose. But you know who these songs are about, you know what these songs are about, and you're gonna go out and sing them every night, and that never that that's not a trigger for you, that never makes you feel vulnerable in that way. I mean, sometimes you know, like I liked when I write a song once I've like released it. I'd like to think of it as not kind of not mine anymore.

The audience now now it's now it's up to them to decide what they do it and and those girls in the front row who are borrowing their eyes out, that's what's for them, and it becomes their story as well. Yeah, exactly, because if they can connect with it, like too much to Ask or the shadows dancing line or the line you said him bend the rules, like, if they can do that, then that's what it's about. Because I've already

my therapy side. If it came when I was shouting the lyrics at the piano, you know what I mean, that's where I got my bit out of it. And obviously if there is times when you're thinking back, like there's been times where like on the first tour where I like had a wobbly bottom lip, you know, because I was singing like Flicker or something and thinking old juice.

You know, when you have a day we're like, oh I miss her, you know what I mean, And then there's nothing more of a catalyst and standing in front of fifteen thousand people thinking about your feelings. But you do, and it happens every now and then. But yeah, I mean after a while, it's like anything. Time is the hailer, I suppose, and then by the time I get out

and tour of can a half healed. But it also stands the way in which the audience can make this their own stories, They put their own feelings into it makes it more of a shared experience than just your experience. Yeah, I mean, like I have fans, so I mean I'm not always like self Stue writing for myself. You know, you write lyrics, You're right, Like, That's why I like story teller. The storytellers always have done well over the years in terms of the lyricists because people the storyteller.

That's why country music is so big, because it's just storytelling. It's relatable storytelling that everyone can connect with it. And all over the years, the greatest artists of all time have always been the storytellers. Bruce Springsteen, he always says, I've made a full career. He said it in the show on Broadway. I've made a full career of writing about something I've never done, which is working a factory

or have a normal ninety job. But he said, all he's ever been is a musician, right, Yeah, he he didn't really ever have the day job, but he connected. He wrote about factories and car factories and blah blah blah blah. His first band was called Steel Mill exactly didn't work in one, never worked and self admittedly, but he connected with the people Elton, John Simon and Garfuncle, Bob the greatest of all time, Bob Dylan. Like they're

the storytellers and they've always done well. Taylor Swift massive tell stories in the most relatable, nostalgic way. Edge here in the same when I was six years old, I broke my leg Castle on the Hill, you know, like that. People just relate to that stuff. So to find that, yeah, that's why I do it. I think everywhere on the new album really striking song. It's about a feeling of seeing someone you're trying to forget. Everywhere you go, I see your face and people I don't know that. That's

another lyric I heard that. I felt that I was because I've had that experience. The music has some sense of desperation in it, but it's also really triumphant, right, and yet you were mentioning you're good at writing a turning a sad song into a happy stay and that kind of feels like one, yeah, this is it. Because it's four on the floor. It gives you that I'm going to roll in my windows down our stand in the stadium type fail. It's guitarists are soaring, almost like

you two style. Yeah, that's the idea. Stick a lot of reverb on the guitars and just lay into it and and the story them and kind of leave it all out there. And well that's why I do. You'll find that in a lot of my songs. The production in the verse is very simple, so like in Everywhere, it's just going booming and then when the chorus hits, just like because you like to get into desperation in the verse and then have a triumphant course and I

tried to do that quite a lot um Everywhere. Yeah, as you say, it's like literally I felt like when I broken up for my last relationship, I felt I honestly felt like I was seeing the person everywhere, um for different reasons, but I was also literally seeing I remember when Teddy said that when I when we were writing Everywhere, and Teddy said, I see your face. Some people that don't know I was like, that is genius because that sums up this song. There's always a line

that wraps the song up. And yeah, he just could. You can't feel like you just couldn't get away from it, Like because when you break up someone, you're either one of two things. You want them back or you're trying to run from them, but you can't when you see them everywhere you go, you can't help it. I don't think I've ever really thought of Instagram is the everywhere you might see someone but you've been there. Yeah, exactly,

it has to happen. It's this is a this is funny, funny now, but but I'm just used to, oh, that's somebody who has the same haircut or the same same color hair that. But again, I hadn't thought of it that way. I'm just thinking of my perspective. Just seeing somebody you know on the block who literally reminds you of that person who you you know, You get that sudden it's almost like a chemical reaction, like you think

you're actually seeing that person. It's crazy, but you're not. Yeah, honestly, it's like it's it's and I think that's just part of it, isn't It Like he can't help. But you're not seeing them at all. It's like, I don't know, it's like fucking believing in the parent armor or something like that. It's just that they're not there. But you know what I mean, you just kind of you keep saying them everywhere you go. It's we were talking about this a little bit. People will want to know who

these songs are about. But they were asking the same questions about songs on Flicker. Does that bother you? Does it matter? No? Um, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't like it doesn't matter at all, because they'll connect. As I said earlier, they connected with the songs in their own way. Um, the flash in Japan story is what people are just asking the question for and it won't really make a different difference in the long run.

We were talking about the great songwriters. I mean, there's there's a whole parlor game of trying to guess which Bob Dylan song is about yeah yeah, or which Steph Nick's songs about Lindsay and At or about make or you know, like it's just kind of like another time honored tradition exactly pop culture. That's what it is. And and now We're just we're in that period now where people are just going to ask and like it's not like I'm writing songs to stop someone in the back

or anything. It's just kind of like it doesn't really matter or about you know, I'm not I'm not like going after. If I was going after someone, then yeah, people want to know who it is. But it's fine. I don't mind. It's all good, right, But it's not a rap battle. We're not. You're not coming after M and M on this No, no fifties, not getting a fifty cent is not not coming after The Nice to Meet You tour with Louis Capaldi starts in April. You'll

be playing Arenas, which is both a return and something new. Yeah, exactly how does it feel and how are you preparing? Well, we're as you know, We're we're in rehearsals right now. Um. I'm very excited about it. Um. Playing an hour and a half show one album last year the last time was tough, trying to stretch things out at in covers and bits and piece of which was great. I only

get to do it once. But the idea of playing two out is now in Arenas, going back to arenas like it was with the Lads, um putting on an arena show, designing that stage, designing the screen content, situating the band, the lighting. Um, it's just that feeling I've been wrapped in an arena and still trying to make an intimate show. Um, I love all of this. This is what it's about. This, this touring aspect of what we do is the best part of what we do.

What should fancy expect? I mean, you talked about trying to make an intimate show in an arena. How do you go about doing that? Well? Set listen, there's a

big one. You know. I'm lucky that I've got intimate songs and I've also got now got some mad ones and which as a blend will make for a nice show because you can have roller coaster moments, you know, start with a bang and then dip down for a little bit and come back up and dip down again, and you know, you have to bring people on a journey across the hour and a half or whatever it is. I'm looking at probably an hour and thirty five or something like that I think we're at and which is great.

You know, we're playing more more songs than an arena show would usually of pending on playing twenty two or three m and having though like bringing the lighting down at certain points, or you know, I've got a B stage, so I'll be doing some ballads out on the B stage and making the arena feel smaller than it is, because those arenas are huge. Should we expect any collaborative moments between you and Lewis? Or Lewis is on his own tour at the moment, so I need to get

in with him. But yeah, the idea would be too for me and Lewis to do something at some point. I mean, we can't sell the tour as myself and Lewis and then do nothing about it. Um. But yeah, I mean it's it's natural whatever happens. You know, we'll do a cover, we could do something we've written together. I don't know, you know, whatever that is we'll have, We'll have to have a moment. Yeah, Lewis, this is

well known that that you came across his music early on. Yeah, you got in touch with him, You invited him to open a show of yours in Glasgow. So that makes me ask, what are you listening to these days? Who's your next discovery. Well, okay, there's I mean, there's so much stuff going on at the mo moment. I've been listening to a lot of singer songwritersh vibes at the moment, and there's a girl and bringing on my tour in

the UK and Europe, English girl called Mazie Peters. If you haven't heard of her in the States, you should wrap your ears around that because her voice is beautiful, she's real talent. She's coming and told me in the UK and Ireland she'd be kind of my next I'm I'm not saying I discovered her, but she would be like if I was spread that to the world, I

think Mazy Peters is my next thing. Um. But Lewis, Yeah, just like my cousin has this knack of finding artists who have gone on to do unbelievable things when they've had like minimal views or listens or remember he played me the like that Tones and I song and the one who went on to take over the world about two years ago because it was like he was living in Australia at the time. He was like, this is going to be a smash worldwide and he was right,

or he found remember he playing. He played me James Bay. When James Bay first very entered. I've seen him in a pub somewhere are And what is your cousin do with with sports? Is a sports patient. It just has the amazingly not an in our perpect And I've been trying to tell the people, but he has this knack. It's again and Lewis he showed me Lewis and Lewis had like two d views on like this vivo video of him singing a cappella in an old house. Um and it was like the first thing that they brought

down for Lewis and he played me this video. I was like, WHOA. So I just wrote to Lewis. I was like, dude, I love this song. I love these songs. I love your voice because his voice is like quite captivate and you very early hear that much gravel with that much range. And I just wrote to him and said, yeah, do you want to come and play if if we're about And we went met up for a few beers in Glasgow when we were there over a rugby game.

And then you come up the next day and played a few tunes and basically I am the reason why you suck successful. No, but he's I mean, if you have that much talent, that much wit and can write songs like that, I'm just happy that songs are back. Yeah. No, Lewis's success is quite amazing. And you mentioned songs are back, but not every great songwere. Do you hear so many of them that every great songwriter goes on did that kind of monster success? No, And it's just a lot

of the big tunes are just fluke. He said. He was just sitting at home on playing the minimal piano that he can play like we like most songwriters like I can't play much piano, but I can play enough to write a tune on it. And Louis said, he said, that's why, that's why they the part of the piano part on Someone You loved. This so simple, it's just going better U And he said he just oaut there and just started singing. And you just have to cross your fingers every time you open your mouth to do

a melody. That it's a good one. And he bumped into it and had a concept and now it's the biggest song on the planet. And sometimes those limitations are really useful, like when you don't know how to do it, you discover either something new about your own approach to it or an approach to it in general. You can have I mean that it proves it. You can have. You can have days where you're just absolutely useless and nothing comes out, and then you have days of absolute magic.

I find that like a lot of my better ideas, like my better songs, have come from Like early in the process I wrote put All the Love of Me and No Judgment. In the first week and last album, I wrote This Town and Too Much to Ask two days in a row. You know what I mean. It's just because your ideas are fresh. You knew what you were going to write about before you walked in the room. You had a piano part for that, you had a riff.

You're well prepared. The longer it goes on and the ideas start to dwindle out, you know, they're harder becomes and you get writer's block more often. Keep you see good thing. It's time we will find ourselves again. Everyone speed.

I remember running into a corner and just calling my manager and be like, listen, cancel all the sessions we've got for the next two three weeks because I need I'm just running into a corner here and I feel like I'm just writing crap and I just need more time to just you know, reconfigure everything, get my concepts back in line, you know, think about other angles for this heartbreak, whether the thing, and then reconvene um. And that's what happened, because the reconvene part can when I

got to the Bahamas. So what did you do for those two weeks when you when you run your stuff into the corner? How did you get out? But had a lot of golf on my own. I find playing golf of my own is a great one because you get to listen to like I'll put a speaker in the golf cart, listen to stuff that I'm into, and then like I'll hear a line in the song and it'll sparking idea, and then I'll write that down and then you know, before you know, I've got like a

show you here. This is in the last I haven't pulling up my notes on my phone. Where is this from? This one started on It's funny eighth of February, And these are just stuff I just wrote right down. So you're jatting all this down in the golf cart while here. Yeah, like just kind of like this is like and this

is right up until the present day. Like how at the moon House of Pain a song about like I wrote down the word strange and the idea of like when you break up with someone and now they're just a stranger to you when they were a stranger beforehand as well. You know, I just kind of write random stuff down, random little stories that happened to me just right. I'm just look, I mean that's yeah, that's quite quite a few things there. But that's stuff is happening all

the time. I might see something on the street or see a couple and like the look of it, or you know, like just random a little bit and just write something. And it sounds quite creepy, but um it helps you know. When you were playing golf, where were you golfing? But I got in l A. I kind of play on the public golf courses and then here come on, yeah you got It's hard. It's hard to play golf in l A. You have to be like you have to be well connected, and you have to

know a member of some place or something something. You don't know people who can get you on a good golf and l A. The hardest thing to do is come on, boys, that's go and play golf, because you have to go and play with the sea, oh of this, or you know it's a private club or um. So I just go to the public spots and nice and cheap and cheerful, and I just love getting out. I

don't care where I play. Um. And then here in London, I'm a member of a place called Wentworth, which is beautiful and kind of just literally getting the golf cart on a Sunday day, go around in my own listen to a few tunes, make a few notes and does it have to be a sunny day? Or you one of those crazy rainer shine golfers. I grew up in Ireland, where raised rains for about three hundred and sixty days of the year. So I am now a fair weather golfer.

I live in Los Angeles. It's twenty five degrees every day, or seventy every day, thank you for the conversion from something it's probably about twenty four, but seventy four. But yeah, I just become a bit of a fairweather golfer these days. So yeah, when it's sunny, I do a lot more of my golfing on tour because I'm you know, I don't have much to do until about four in the afternoon. Well it's a healthy occupation, I suppose, compared to some of the other things where you could get up to

on tour. Exactly. Know, I've been trying to love do less less boozing, if you like um, because trying to sing for an hour and a half every night at the level that I have to be at for people to spend hundred dollars for a ticket or whatever it is. You can't give value for money if you're drinking every night. So I'm not gonna be doing that, and I'm going to play more golf. So you were saying that. On the Flicker tour, you you were breaking out some coveries.

You did quite a few classic rock covers. You did Springsteen, Tom Petty, the Eagles. Sometimes there were nods to hometown heroes. You were in Dublin. You did Ben Lizzie's right, did you too? Yep? Did Billy Joel song when you played Long Island. That's right. Yeah. So the tours opening in Nashville, are you are you getting her Garth brook song? Ready? No?

But if he was talking to Marion Morris. I have a song with Marion Mars from my last album see Him Blind, and the whole idea that UM like if she hasn't had her baby, or if she's already had the baby, and once to an open door for her to come into the arena and things say I'm blind with me. If that's that is baby permitting. UM. But that would be fun if we could do UM. Because it's the first night of the tour. It's actually shame

that it's a Nashville because you want to announce. The fans are waiting online to see what the set list is. But if it's like if I'm in Nashville and everything, you want to bring loads of my country friends up on stage. I kind of broken that because you spend a fair amount of time in Nashville on the West record. Yeah, oh yeah. I love Nashville. Honestly, I talk about like getting a place there for a while because it's such a like it's exactly the way I'd like to live

in my life. It's so chilled out. People just write songs. It's like for fun. There's the people who are just great down there. I love. I'm just really getting into country music. I've got a lot of friends and country music, and there's just no place I've been in the world where music is taken more seriously, but but not in an overly serious way like it it's just it's so much a part of the culture. Yeah, it's just a

it's a passion thing. It's a cultural thing. Like it's like, I mean, it's called music city, you know what I mean. Like it's like it's just their life. Like you go into a bar and random pub in Nashville, you'll probably hear one of the best guitarist players you've ever heard. Like it's just you go for a sandwich, right, I mean literally anywhere you're in the airport there's a guy playing the guitar and he's unbelievable. He's not just like

you know Joe Shmok. He's like he's really good. And Yeah, I just love it here in a way. I'm happy opening the tour there, but it's also a city that makes me nervous, Like it's like playing Yeah, you're it's like playing your hometown shore. When I play in London, I get nervous when I play in l A get nervous when I play in Dublin. I get nervous when I play in Nashville. I get nervous because you know that there's very talented musicians in the crowd, even if

you know they're not. So since we're talking just a little bit about covers, I want to ask you one thing. I heard you say recently that when you were a kid, you're thirteen years old, you're playing in pubs, and so you needed to no songs for an older crowd, so you'd be playing Dylan McCartney. What was your dyling song? God, I'm like, you're kind of remember I played lots of McCarry play a lot, a lot of Beatles. I love playing Yesterday because people could sing along to it. Hey, jew,

it was always a good one for a pub. And when I first started like making my like my own musical decisions, because I was brought up on like the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and then at a certain point I was like, oh, actually I can go looking for

music myself. With Tin Lizzy was a big one for me because, like they were, I was getting into my first bands in school and you know, being you know, standing my friends garage playing tunes and I remember hearing the song Dancing in the Moonlight within Lizzy and I remember thinking that has got a bit of everything. You know, I love Bruce Springsteen, so it's got the brass section. I loved that, the bass, the bass players, the lead singer,

you know. I love tone of his voice and how energy some of the songs are, like Whiskey in the Jar and um, the Boys are Back in Town and like that summed up Ireland, and you know, I think that another one was like the idea of like a black musician being a you know, a black, powerful Irish musician was huge for me as well. I remember, like, you know, I was kind of relating black culture and

music too to America, um and stuff like that. But having an Irish you know, black frontman was unbelievable for for me, and and discovering music at that level was was amazing. So having the thin Lizzy and McCartney and and people like that, it was just it was great. I'm just so lucky that I was up in that

type of music. And when you were growing up and starting to play at that time, was it music of the past that you were watching onto or was there contemporary stuff that you were listening to as well, yeah, it was all the old stuff, all the stuff that we've mentioned, and then there was like, um, my mother was a big fan of Schneia Twain and Garreth Brooks, so I had that kind of country thing already, the Irish music thing and the country music things you can't

do friends and little places. I love Guard Brooks when I was a kid. He was like when I was a kid, he was playing like stadiums in Ireland. He was huge. Um yeah, and then I was like, well I supposed to listen to at the time kind of

went like when I got into my teenagers. Then I had like more of a emo kind of punk rock and Green Day followup boy, my Chemical Romance, Um you know Dashboard Confessional no no, no, no no. You just kind of kind of what was in the charts at the time when when punk cat it's kind of big moment there. Hopefully that comes back around a big brilliant um uh. That kind of stuff was going to a

lot of gigs. Then I was like into the English rock scene, which is like the Cooks, the Fritelli's, the raisor Light Arctic Monkeys that very like North of England punk, like Oaysis. Remember going to watch a gig at slain Castle in Ireland and it was Kasabian open up for the Prodigy opening up for Oasis, and it was like the best night in my life. I think. Um, a lot of underheage drinking happened at night, drink responsibly. Um, you know what I mean. And that's the kind of

stuff that was in massive in my teens. Um. So when when people say when I've played, nice to meet you now, and people are like, oh, it sounds very like the Arctide Monkeys, Yes, because I was a teenager once when they were big, and that's the kind of stuff that I listened to and then naturally kind of play when I pick up a guitar and write riff.

I was always very guitar driven, like none of Like I love pop music and I remember like I auditioned for the X Factor, work like a Neo song or something, and I love the R and B era of like Chris Brown, Neo Jordan's Sparks, carry Hilton Kanye when he was at his in his prime. I loved all that stuff, but I always kind of kept going back to either like singer songwriter vibes, like because I was brought up in like Damian Rice as well. He was huge when I was a kid in the album Oh Change My Life.

But I always found myself going back to like the rocky guitar driven stuff. And when you hear my music now it all starts to make sense. I think it does, indeed. And uh no, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for signing all the way from from America. Oh that was the easy part, to be honest. It's walking around in London that was terrifying to me. Well, because you know, I'm from New York, so the cars are coming from the wrong place, and New York is scary

enough cities it is. You don't need the cards coming cars coming from the opposite direction. But I appreciate you coming over and doing this because it's a big trick to make for an interview. So I appreciate now complete pleasure. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Inside the Studio is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.