#I owe everything to 1d and the space it created for me at such a formative age

[svidie]

i am a boyband girl at heart. there was not a boyband craze within my age group that i wasn't apart of. my friends and i each had our own favorite in every boyband. being in those fanbases were the first time that i felt like i had a hyperfeminine space where i was allowed to love things hard.

[louistomlinsoncouk]

Louis Tomlinson: ‘It took some real maturity to understand that One Direction wasn't real life’

I meet Louis Tomlinson at Simon Cowell's London office: a huge, two-room space befitting of a Bond villain at Sony Music’s HQ in High Street Kensington, on the floor occupied by his label, Syco. Cowell, to be clear, isn’t here, but he definitely feels present. A ten-foot portrait of the music mogul smirks down on all those who enter from the minimalist living room wall. Tomlinson, his publicist and I go straight through the frosted glass doors into the office-proper to do our interview, but before we can start the 27-year-old One Direction member turned solo artist needs a cigarette.

Within 30 seconds someone has brought Tomlinson a heavy orb-shaped black ashtray and a cup of tea. He lights up – smoking two more over the next half an hour – and visibly relaxes, leaning back in his chair. Tomlinson has the air of a comedic TV personality: warm, funny and self-effacing, he makes regular references to his hometown of Doncaster (“Donny”), has a loud, theatrical voice and swears like a trooper. “Simon won’t mind,” he says – and mind Cowell shouldn’t. One Direction, one of the most successful boy bands of all time, were Cowell’s cash cow after he brought them together on the X Factor in 2010. Since going on “hiatus” in 2016, all five boys (now men in their mid-twenties) launched solo careers, but only Tomlinson stuck with Syco. Now, Cowell's last vestige of the One Direction big bucks is gearing up to release a debut album, which, as anyone who knows anything about the fervour of the band's fans will be well aware, is already a guaranteed hit.

Tomlinson has, however, taken a big risk. Dressed in a vintage red football shirt, black tracksuit bottoms and black trainers, hair still styled into sweeping boy band perfection, he explains that this new music is “a statement of intent”. Gone are the saccharine, dance-tinged pop beats heard on his 2017 and 2018 collaborations with Bebe Rexha and Steve Aoki. Instead, his latest single “Kill My Mind” is a nineties rock-inspired anthem that sounds like an ode to Oasis. “I spent a long time treading water working out where I fit in the industry,“ he says. “I had to work out what it is I can actually get away with, and just how much I have to play for radio,” explaining that he did the aforementioned collaborations “because I felt like I had Tomlinson says that, unlike former bandmates Zayn Malik and Liam Payne, both of who have released music obviously influenced by hip-hop and R&B, “I can’t really relate to the urban-leaning sounds you hear on American radio”. Instead, he cites Catfish And The Bottlemen as an influence (“Lyrically, it’s conversational and honest”) and spends his time listening to Apple Music playlist “Kebab On The Night Bus”, which features bands such as The Arctic Monkeys, The Stone Roses, The Who and Idles . The result is a solo output that, finally, makes him feel “really excited and really proud. This is where I want to be.

So what does he want this new music to say about him, other than he likes guitar music? “I want people to look at me as a good and credible songwriter.” Overall, what I want from my lyrics is honesty,” he elaborates. “I want it to be real. I don’t want them to feel Hollywood or contrived.” Most of the album is “very autobiographical”, but he’s also taken care to keep it “exciting”, after listening to the earliest version of it and feeling that “A lot of it sounded quite sad.” Tomlinson, who lost his younger sister earlier this year, references the single before “Kill My Mind”, “Two Of Us”, which is about his late mother, Johannah Deakin, who passed away in 2016 after a battle with leukaemia. “That’s a very, very honest song, but it was also very emotionally heavy. I don’t want to be known as that guy.” What, the stereotypical mope with a guitar? “Yeah, exactly, I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. I want people to feel good when they listen to my music. That’s one of the amazing things we had with One Direction.”

Together with Liam Payne, Tomlinson did a lot of the writing for One Direction, which, on reflection, he thinks he was driven to do so that he might find his role in the band. “This isn’t a relatable statement,” he acknowledges, “but I imagine that anyone who’s been in a band or boyband will understand this feeling. There were definitely times in the band that I felt like I could do more or sing more, which is why I actively tried to get better as a writer, because I thought that would be my outlet.”

Now Tomlinson feels like he's found his writing groove, but is he worried the One Direction fans might not like his new music? “Yeah and that’s what creates a bit of a conundrum actually, because that’s very relevant for me,” he says. “I feel like, to a certain degree, we all owe them something. We are where we are because of them, it’s as simple as that.” As my colleagues here at GQ can attest – this 2013 interview with the band got us death threats – upsetting fervent One Direction fans is not an action to be taken lightly. He says that he’s “deliberately included songs on the album that feel a little bit transitional, so it won’t be too alienating towards the fans”. Lyrically, however, he feels like he still “writes what they want to hear, because it’s honest and it’s real and it’s me pouring my heart out”.

But with a ready-made audience come anxiety-inducing benchmarks. “Having the experience of being in 1D was incredible and it’s given me so much to work with, but it’s also hard in terms of expectation, because that was the pinnacle of what we were,” he says sombrely, referring back to the time spent mulling over how to balance making music that’s authentic with finding his place in the mainstream. “If I’d done this interview two years ago, I’d have said to you that if my album doesn’t get to No1 I’ll feel like I’ve failed. It embarrasses me saying that shit out loud now, but it took some real maturity to understand that One Direction wasn’t real life... Everything I’d been shaping my experiences around was something that wasn’t real life, even in the music industry.”

We laugh about those heady days, when he was 18-24, fresh out of Doncaster and making the kind of money 99.9 per cent of us can only ever dream about. “There was a solid time when I spent a long time looking at the most stupid, ridiculous things to spend money on,” he says when I ask him about his own crazy popstar purchases, having read that Liam Payne once bought the Ford Anglia from Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. “I’ve got a long list of random movie props that starts with the great opener of the leg braces that Tom Hanks wears in Forest Gump. Have I ever got them out? No. I looked at them when I bought them like, ‘Oh, this is amazing,’ but really, I’m not a showy person, I’m not going to have them on display in my house.” Also stored away (“I’ve got Hard Rock Cafe in one cupboard”) are the swords from Kill Bill.

[...]

Has he ever considered retiring out of the public eye? “I’ve thought about that loads of times. It’s only the fans, and the fact I have a point to prove to myself, that keep me getting up every day and getting on to do it,” he says. “When I’m 50, I’m going to go off and get my coaching badges and I’m going to manage some youth team and win the FA Youth Cup with them.” So with all the intense media scrutiny, the feeling that you owe millions of people around the world well, something, and a hugely successful stint as a musician already under his belt, what’s he’s still trying to prove with his solo career? “People and the press love to say, ‘Oh, A and B will do well, but the rest of the lads, they’re not going to do anything.’ So my point I’m trying to prove is that I’m still going to be here in ten years, I hope”.

[dailytomlinson]

I meet Louis Tomlinson at Simon Cowell's London office: a huge, two-room space befitting of a Bond villain at Sony Music’s HQ in High Street Kensington, on the floor occupied by his label, Syco. Cowell, to be clear, isn’t here, but he definitely feels present. A ten-foot portrait of the music mogul smirks down on all those who enter from the minimalist living room wall. Tomlinson, his publicist and I go straight through the frosted glass doors into the office-proper to do our interview, but before we can start the 27-year-old One Direction member turned solo artist needs a cigarette.

Within 30 seconds someone has brought Tomlinson a heavy orb-shaped black ashtray and a cup of tea. He lights up – smoking two more over the next half an hour – and visibly relaxes, leaning back in his chair. Tomlinson has the air of a comedic TV personality: warm, funny and self-effacing, he makes regular references to his hometown of Doncaster (“Donny”), has a loud, theatrical voice and swears like a trooper. “Simon won’t mind,” he says – and mind Cowell shouldn’t. One Direction, one of the most successful boy bands of all time, were Cowell’s cash cow after he brought them together on the X Factor in 2010. Since going on “hiatus” in 2016, all five boys (now men in their mid-twenties) launched solo careers, but only Tomlinson stuck with Syco. Now, Cowell's last vestige of the One Direction big bucks is gearing up to release a debut album, which, as anyone who knows anything about the fervour of the band's fans will be well aware, is already a guaranteed hit.

Tomlinson has, however, taken a big risk. Dressed in a vintage red football shirt, black tracksuit bottoms and black trainers, hair still styled into sweeping boy band perfection, he explains that this new music is “a statement of intent”. Gone are the saccharine, dance-tinged pop beats heard on his 2017 and 2018 collaborations with Bebe Rexha and Steve Aoki. Instead, his latest single “Kill My Mind” is a nineties rock-inspired anthem that sounds like an ode to Oasis. “I spent a long time treading water working out where I fit in the industry,“ he says. “I had to work out what it is I can actually get away with, and just how much I have to play for radio,” explaining that he did the aforementioned collaborations “because I felt like I had Tomlinson says that, unlike former bandmates Zayn Malik and Liam Payne, both of who have released music obviously influenced by hip-hop and R&B, “I can’t really relate to the urban-leaning sounds you hear on American radio”. Instead, he cites Catfish And The Bottlemen as an influence (“Lyrically, it’s conversational and honest”) and spends his time listening to Apple Music playlist “Kebab On The Night Bus”, which features bands such as The Arctic Monkeys, The Stone Roses, The Who and Idles . The result is a solo output that, finally, makes him feel “really excited and really proud. This is where I want to be.

Tomlinson has, however, taken a big risk. Dressed in a vintage red football shirt, black tracksuit bottoms and black trainers, hair still styled into sweeping boy band perfection, he explains that this new music is “a statement of intent”. Gone are the saccharine, dance-tinged pop beats heard on his 2017 and 2018 collaborations with Bebe Rexha and Steve Aoki. Instead, his latest single “Kill My Mind” is a Nineties rock-inspired anthem that sounds like an ode to Oasis. “I spent a long time treading water working out where I fit in the industry,“ he says. “I had to work out what it is I can actually get away with and just how much I have to play for radio,” explaining that he did the aforementioned collaborations “because I felt like I had to.”

Tomlinson says that, unlike former bandmates Zayn Malik and Liam Payne, both of who have released music obviously influenced by hip-hop and R&B, “I can’t really relate to the urban-leaning sounds you hear on American radio”. Instead, he cites Catfish And The Bottlemen as an influence (“Lyrically, it’s conversational and honest”) and spends his time listening to Apple Music playlist “Kebab On The Night Bus”, which features bands such as The Arctic Monkeys, The Stone Roses, The Who and Idles . The result is a solo output that, finally, makes him feel “really excited and really proud. This is where I want to be.”

So what does he want this new music to say about him, other than he likes guitar music? “I want people to look at me as a good and credible songwriter.” Overall, what I want from my lyrics is honesty,” he elaborates. “I want it to be real. I don’t want them to feel Hollywood or contrived.” Most of the album is “very autobiographical”, but he’s also taken care to keep it “exciting”, after listening to the earliest version of it and feeling that “A lot of it sounded quite sad.” Tomlinson, who lost his younger sister earlier this year, references the single before “Kill My Mind”, “Two Of Us”, which is about his late mother, Johannah Deakin, who passed away in 2016 after a battle with leukaemia. “That’s a very, very honest song, but it was also very emotionally heavy. I don’t want to be known as that guy.” What, the stereotypical mope with a guitar? “Yeah, exactly, I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. I want people to feel good when they listen to my music. That’s one of the amazing things we had with One Direction.”

Together with Liam Payne, Tomlinson did a lot of the writing for One Direction, which, on reflection, he thinks he was driven to do so that he might find his role in the band. “This isn’t a relatable statement,” he acknowledges, “but I imagine that anyone who’s been in a band or boyband will understand this feeling. There were definitely times in the band that I felt like I could do more or sing more, which is why I actively tried to get better as a writer, because I thought that would be my outlet.”

Now Tomlinson feels like he's found his writing groove, but is he worried the One Direction fans might not like his new music? “Yeah and that’s what creates a bit of a conundrum actually, because that’s very relevant for me,” he says. “I feel like, to a certain degree, we all owe them something. We are where we are because of them, it’s as simple as that.” As my colleagues here at GQ can attest – this 2013 interview with the band got us death threats – upsetting fervent One Direction fans is not an action to be taken lightly. He says that he’s “deliberately included songs on the album that feel a little bit transitional, so it won’t be too alienating towards the fans”. Lyrically, however, he feels like he still “writes what they want to hear, because it’s honest and it’s real and it’s me pouring my heart out”.

But with a ready-made audience come anxiety-inducing benchmarks. “Having the experience of being in 1D was incredible and it’s given me so much to work with, but it’s also hard in terms of expectation, because that was the pinnacle of what we were,” he says sombrely, referring back to the time spent mulling over how to balance making music that’s authentic with finding his place in the mainstream. “If I’d done this interview two years ago, I’d have said to you that if my album doesn’t get to No1 I’ll feel like I’ve failed. It embarrasses me saying that shit out loud now, but it took some real maturity to understand that One Direction wasn’t real life... Everything I’d been shaping my experiences around was something that wasn’t real life, even in the music industry.”

We laugh about those heady days, when he was 18-24, fresh out of Doncaster and making the kind of money 99.9 per cent of us can only ever dream about. “There was a solid time when I spent a long time looking at the most stupid, ridiculous things to spend money on,” he says when I ask him about his own crazy popstar purchases, having read that Liam Payne once bought the Ford Anglia from Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. “I’ve got a long list of random movie props that starts with the great opener of the leg braces that Tom Hanks wears in Forest Gump. Have I ever got them out? No. I looked at them when I bought them like, ‘Oh, this is amazing,’ but really, I’m not a showy person, I’m not going to have them on display in my house.” Also stored away (“I’ve got Hard Rock Cafe in one cupboard”) are the swords from Kill Bill.

Still three years shy of 30 and living between London and LA (where he shares a home with his best friend from Doncaster, Olly), Tomlinson seems to have finally found some balance. 

Has he ever considered retiring out of the public eye? “I’ve thought about that loads of times. It’s only the fans, and the fact I have a point to prove to myself, that keep me getting up every day and getting on to do it,” he says. “When I’m 50, I’m going to go off and get my coaching badges and I’m going to manage some youth team and win the FA Youth Cup with them.” So with all the intense media scrutiny, the feeling that you owe millions of people around the world well, something, and a hugely successful stint as a musician already under his belt, what’s he’s still trying to prove with his solo career? “People and the press love to say, ‘Oh, A and B will do well, but the rest of the lads, they’re not going to do anything.’ So my point I’m trying to prove is that I’m still going to be here in ten years, I hope”.

[1dcraftawards]

April Author of the Month

Drumroll please.... our author of the month for April is...... 

@harrysdodgyankles!

Congratulations! Check out her interview with us below! 

1.Did you start writing fanfiction for One Direction, or was there another fandom that you wrote fanfiction for before this?

One Direction is the one and only fandom I’ve ever written fanfiction for. It was my first foray into the fiction-writing world--I’ve been reading fic since 2012 and I initially started exchanging stories with one of my best friends from high school in this email chain we had. We never planned on letting those stories leave our inboxes, but one day I guess I felt driven enough to start publishing my stories on the 1DFF website--and here we are, six years later!

2.How old were you when you started writing fanfiction?

I started properly writing my own fanfiction in 2013, so I was 16/17 years old. It was a while before I published anything I thought was quality (at least, back then), but I wrote pretty consistently until my sophomore year of college. I took a bit of a break, mostly to focus on school and get through my last two years of undergrad, but I’ve found a new motivation for writing and this resurgence has been treating me well so far!

3.What’s been your favorite fic you’ve written to work on so far?

All of my fics are my favorites for lots of different reasons. I love writing Sit Back because of the amount of research I’ve had to do for all of the different historical periods. I know far too much about the fall of the Roman Empire than I’d ever thought I would. I loved writing my various fic exchange pieces because of my love for beginning stories in media res; these challenges are the perfect opportunities for me to create AU worlds from scratch. Each story has a really special place in my heart--I reminisce on my writing processes for them pretty often, especially when I’m looking for inspiration and drive to formulate new stories.

4. Is there a fic that you really wanted to write, but you just never did?

I have a fic I started and never finished. A League of Their Own--I started publishing it, gosh, probably back in 2014. It has such a special place in my heart, but with where my life was at the time and all of the other responsibilities I had, I couldn’t give the story the time and effort it deserved. It was my only OU story and I wanted to do its characters justice--one day I hope to come back to it, but for now it’s sitting in my drafts folder collecting dust.

5. What’s your favorite trope to write?

I’m allergic to angst, so I try to stay away from it (mostly out of self-preservation for my emotions). I love writing friends to lovers and established relationship fics. Dad!Harry, Husband!Harry--anything fluffy involving commitment. I’m really into that.

6. What’s your ideal space to write in?

In my bed, usually at night when the rest of my house is asleep. I like the quiet stillness of my house--it helps me clear my brain and focus on the content of my piece. It’s also because no one knows I write fic, so there’s less chance of them accidentally seeing something on my screen and asking questions.

7. What inspires you to write?

Honestly, telling stories for people who don’t often get their stories told. This was an important lesson that took me a while to learn. I didn’t used to do this, but now I make a point to write characters who are often underrepresented; for me, as a South Asian Muslim woman, I come from a very miniscule corner of representation in the One Direction fan community. It’s important to me that I try to give us a voice in any way possible. Lots of people don’t realize the impact seeing someone like yourself on a screen can have--it’s a little thing, but it says a lot. It makes sure we aren’t erased, that we aren’t cast aside. That’s why all my fics have characters of color, especially characters of South Asian descent. And when people resonate with that--that’s the biggest inspirational motivating factor for me.

8. Do you typically like to listen to music when you write? If so, what do you listen to?

If I listen to music, it’s music that I don’t know the lyrics to. If I know the lyrics, I’ll start singing them, then I’ll start typing them! I typically go for soft, slow, vibey music--Majid Jordan, Daniel Caesar, Miguel, 6LACK. Mostly hip-hop stuff.

9. Do you have any plans for any future fic ideas you’d like to pursue?

I do! I’m currently writing a post-doc Harry fic that I’m SO excited about. I also have plans for a rewrite of ALOTO and an orchestra AU.

10. Do you have any advice for other writers in the fandom?

I don’t know that I’m entirely qualified to give advice, but I will say this. The most important thing is to write for yourself. When you put your writing out into the world, you don’t owe anyone anything--especially in the fic community, where the vast majority of writers are putting hours of effort into content that they post with no expectation of compensation in return. Yeah, it gets pretty easy to get bogged down in the number of likes and reblogs or the number of asks you get after posting something. But in the end, you’re writing because you’ve found a story you want to tell, so focus on telling that story in the best way you can. Everything else will come later.

11. What is your writing process like?

I’m still trying to find what works best for me, honestly. I usually start with one big document that has all my notes, researching, outlines, etc. Then I’ll break a chapter/one-shot down into scenes--I’ll write specifics of what I want to include, bits of dialogue that have come to me that I’d like to incorporate, and the like. Then I’ll write a full first draft in that same document. Once that’s done, I move it to a separate document and start editing or I’ll send it to my betas. So a finished piece for me looks like one big planning/draft document plus individual docs for each part of a story.

12. What inspired you to write “Sit Back”? How did you come up with the story idea?

I saw a prompt on one of those AU posts that was something like “we’re an immortal couple who likes to kill each other for fun.” I thought it was brilliant. I cranked out the first chapter in less than a day because I was so excited about all the possibilities swirling around in my head. It’s been an exhilarating story to write because of all the different AUs I’ve essentially created in this one story--a Civil War AU, a Roman Empire AU, a 1900s AU. And the elements of mysticism sprinkled throughout have been the most fun--I didn’t think it’d be this enjoyable to create a fantasy world, but I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to doing it again. There’s still one part left, and it’s proving to be the most difficult to write mostly because I know it’s going to break me.

13. Tell us about your upcoming story, “All The Things Yet to Come”.

The idea popped into my head after I caught up with my old departmental advisor at my university. He got married last year to a doctoral student in the same department, and I’d often wondered how that relationship came to be. They’re both two fairly quiet, incredibly intelligent, charismatic people. I wanted to explore that a bit more--so ATTYTC was born. Also, I wanted to write something other than a Uni AU since I’ve written too many of those. Harry as an academic is so enthralling, and the Harry in this story is one of the more guarded versions of him that I’ve created. It’s definitely going to be a journey and I’m thrilled to share it with everyone.

14. What is one thing you wish you would’ve known before you started writing 1d fic?

I don’t think there’s anything I wish I’d known about the 1D community, but I do wish I’d known what my own personal limits were in terms of how much I could handle. I think I went into it with unrealistic expectations for the amount of content I could produce. I wish I’d known a little more about my writing process and how long it takes me to be satisfied with something. Probably would’ve saved me a lot of disappointment.

15. Who has been your favorite OFC to write? Why?

I think it has to be Sofia from ‘You’ve Woken Up My Heart.’ There are certain qualities about her that I admire so much--her drive, her wit, her diligence. She knows exactly what she wants and how to get it. Because I’m also pursuing medicine, it was also fun to channel some of what I hope to be my future into her life. (Except I definitely don’t want to be a pediatrician. Yikes.)

16. Would you ever consider writing for any of the other boys?

I’ve written for Niall and Zayn in the past. I think there might even be a Louis one-shot from 2013 floating around somewhere in my drafts. At this point, however, I’ve been writing for Harry for so long, I feel like I’m pretty comfortable here.