Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
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www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
FIRST EDITION
© 1D Media Limited 2014
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
One Direction assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work
Design: Martin Topping
One Direction’s official photographer is Calvin Aurand. Calvin Aurand is a music industry executive turned live music filmmaker and photographer. For the past 30 months he has toured with One Direction, using his unique perspective and behind-the-scenes access to document the band's travels around the globe.
For more information visit www.krop.com/calvinaurand.
All photographs © Calvin Aurand, with the exception of childhood images and Instagram images courtesy of Modest Management! and One Direction; and texture backgrounds and borders © shutterstock.com.
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Jacket photographs © Matt Irwin
One Direction are represented exclusively by Richard Griffiths, Harry Magee and Will Bloomfield for Modest Management.
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Source ISBN: 9780007577316
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007577330
Version 2014-08-15
Thank you!
We’d also like to thank our family and friends for being there every step of the way, and also to mention the following people for helping us create this book: Natalie Jerome, Emily Barrett, Rachel Kenny, Martin Topping, James Empringham, Monica Green, Alan Cracknell, Simon Gerratt and everyone at HarperCollins; Simon, Sonny and all at Syco; the team at Modest!, including Richard, Harry, Will, Marco, Kim, Katie, Sheema and Jane; Roma Martyniuk and Matt Irwin. And a very special thank you to Martin Roach for helping us tell our story.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Liam
Niall
Harry
Zayn
Louis
The boys
Also by One Direction
About the Publisher
So much happens to One Direction all the time that we barely get a chance to catch our breath. It’s been like that since the X Factor days and it’s still like that now. Everything goes so fast it can be hard to comprehend or take it all in. Even now, as we write this book and play the first shows of our stadium world tour, it’s still difficult to register everything that’s taken place. Writing this book has given us all a chance to press ‘pause’ for a moment, to reflect on what’s happened, to look back and really enjoy it all. And because so much goes on all the time, there seems to be so much we want to talk about.
There are quite a few consequences of the fact that, from day one, our fans have been absolutely instrumental in our success. We all know that without you guys on social media, things might have been very different for this band. Another key consequence is that all of our fans know pretty much every detail of our lives, what we’re doing on a particular day, who we’re hanging out with, where we’re recording or travelling to, all that stuff, instantly. You also know our back story. Previous books, thousands of magazine and radio interviews, TV shows, documentaries – even our own film – have told you the tale. There’s so much that you already know about us. You already know our dates of birth, how many siblings we have, where we recorded, who with, when we toured, all our charts positions – all the specific details of being in One Direction. So in one sense it’s quite a challenge to write a book that you’ll find revealing or an eye-opener.
Because of all this we have not used this book to list every award, every gig, every chart position and statistic in our career. There’s no point doing that. Instead, what we’ve tried to do is explain how we feel. We want you to get an insight into what our emotions and thoughts were at various stages along the way. To expand a little on how this journey has felt for us five lads, from inside the crazy world of One Direction. Liam often hears about band news and goes, ‘How mad is that?!’ That’s his genuine reaction. Well, hopefully this book will tell you a little more about how we all react to the events that make up life in One Direction.
We’ve also tried to be honest with our feelings, so when we’ve had a difficult time we’ve said exactly that. Fortunately One Direction are a band that has enjoyed a large amount of success, but this doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when one of us might be struggling a little. That’s particularly true on tour when we’re thousands of miles from home and maybe weeks away from being able to go back to our fantastically supportive family and friends. That can be hard – it would be ridiculous to pretend otherwise. One Direction are not some perfect pop bubble. We do argue sometimes. Things don’t always go to plan. However, being in One Direction has brought so many positives to all of our lives, and we can only feel fortunate and grateful for the opportunities this band has given us.
We started the band with a very naïve and essentially innocent view of the music business – and also of life in general. We make no apologies for that. We were just a bunch of kids who thought it would be a good idea to stand in a queue for a famous TV show and see where it took each of us. Looking back, that naïvety actually fuelled us through the completely mad first few months of this band. We were just throwing ourselves at whatever was put in front of us next and we had an energy that seemed to be well received and popular. As the youngest member of One Direction, Harry openly talks about this naïvety and it’s something we can all now look back on and see ourselves.
Obviously, a few years down the line, we’ve all become more experienced with our jobs, but we’ve also matured and grown up as individuals. So we can’t say we’re exactly the same people as those starry-eyed kids who got that break on TV back in 2010. However, the thousands of miles flying across the globe, the hundreds of TV shows and gigs, and the thousands of interviews and photo shoots should never be allowed to change who you are as a person. It sounds like a typical pop cliché, but it’s true. We’re still the same. Older, wiser, and yes, we now have a few life lessons under our belts too, but we’re the same. At least, that’s how we feel.
We’re under an intense spotlight and that’s certainly not a problem for any of us, but we’ve tried to explain how that can feel. At times it’s a little uncomfortable, at other times it can provide the maddest and most insanely brilliant moments. Niall explains inside how he thinks he’s one of the worst celebrities in the world, and we all feel that way, pretty much. Obviously One Direction are a band with a fairly high profile, and we’ve been lucky enough to sell a good amount of records and tickets and all that. But that doesn’t make us celebrities, whatever that word means anyway. It certainly doesn’t make us any different to anyone else in the street. Yes, we might be recognised if we go out and
about, but that’s just a superficial and unavoidable part of what we do. None of us wants to be called celebrities. Why would you want that?
We try to maintain as close a relationship with our fans as possible. It can sometimes be harder than it used to be, but we’re all very conscious of the huge role you fans have played in this band becoming as successful as it is. You can see from this book that there’s one overwhelming emotion that repeatedly catches us out – amazement at what you, the fans, do for us day after day after day. It’s easy for people to be cynical and say that we don’t mean that, to snipe that we’ve lived inside a bubble these last few years and we can’t actually be in touch with our fans. But in our opinion that’s just wrong.
Even though the band has progressed from those five naïve lads who made it to the last three of The X Factor to playing stadiums all around the world, we’re still constantly amazed by the support we get from the fans. It shows itself in all sorts of ways that we find hard to compute – the albums doing so well, breaking records, thousands of people turning up to events like book signings or the Today show in New York, or just to an airport or hotel where we happen to be, and our own movie being a big success. The list of the ways in which you fans have backed us all the way seems endless.
The ultimate culmination of all of you championing One Direction is selling out our stadium tour. That tour is, clearly, the biggest series of shows we’ve ever done. Some of the venues – in fact all of them! – are just massive. Yet, at the time of writing, even after playing a few of the early shows down in South America, we’ve all noticed that the intimacy that we have with our fans is still there. Once you lose that intimacy, any band is in trouble. To us, it still feels like we’re all just meeting up for a great night out.
We’ve always gigged hard and we enjoy playing live so much. That’s the case whether it’s our own tours or a one-off like the Olympics. You’ll also see in this book that we still find it amazing that so many people come out to see our own shows. Zayn says it blows his mind when he sees so many faces, and he tries to think of all the individual train or car journeys, the time off work, the effort, the energy that has been involved in getting to the show. That pretty much sums up how we all feel. Just because we are in a band that sells a lot of records doesn’t mean we don’t care about our fans and what they’re thinking, doing and feeling.
That’s also why the release of Midnight Memories meant so much to us and why it was so important that you fans enjoyed that record – because we’d been so heavily involved in the songwriting, because we’d poured a lot of our thoughts and feelings into it, we really wanted you to lock into that, to ‘get’ that record. It was proof that we still have that closeness with our fans. Great songs are such an important part of this band. In fact, rather than grow more distant from One Direction as each year goes by, we’ve all found that our desire to write songs and be more and more creatively involved with the music has pulled us into the band even further.
Obviously exhilaration and excitement are a pretty constant feature of our story. We’re not gonna pretend that One Direction hasn’t been just the most incredibly exciting time of our lives. But there’s also a whole other bunch of feelings we’ve experienced, such as surprise, a lack of confidence, bafflement, homesickness, sadness, nervousness, being star-struck, nerve-wracking uncertainty . . . we’ve been through so much together! Some nights your head hits the pillow and it’s just so hard to process everything that’s going on. As Louis repeatedly says in his chapter, the best way he’s found to deal with that has been to just ‘keep on keeping on’, try not to over-analyse things and just enjoy the ride. And what a ride it’s been!
When this book’s published, it will still be less than four years since we all auditioned for The X Factor. Some bands take that long between albums. Most kids spend longer than that at secondary school. So in many ways it isn’t a very long period of time. Yet in other ways those auditions are a lifetime away. Maybe because so much is compressed into each One Direction day, it means we feel like we’ve lived a whole life in just those few short years. Three albums, two world tours, a million memories. Hopefully, this book will give you a glimpse of what we were thinking and feeling as that life happened to us and, of course, your own role in that amazing story.
This is who we are.
It’s hard to believe that I was only 17 when One Direction started. That feels like a different lifetime to me now – so much has happened since this band began. Inevitably, because we’ve been quite successful, when I look back at my life it’s coloured by the whole One Direction experience.
I see traits in my personality now that I know help me in the band, but when I think about it I can see them in me as a kid too. I was always on the go as a young lad – I needed to be doing something all the time. I used to be everywhere, all over the place, especially when I was in my early teens. It used to annoy my dad ’cos I’d want to go and play football over the field by my house or go running. I’d come home completely covered in mud after playing football all day and Dad would say, ‘You smell like a sweaty little boy!’ He always used to say that. Eventually I had a pair of trousers for every day of the week ’cos it was impossible for my mum to keep up with the washing. ‘Liam! You’re always so busy, busy, busy! You never sit still! Where do you get the energy from?’ Busy, busy, busy. I was sitting in half my classes covered in mud and after school my parents would rip me to bits: ‘What do you think you’re doing walking round like that? Do you know who that reflects on?!’ I was only having a bit of fun ... I just found it hard to sit still. Boxing and athletics were good outlets for all that energy. I loved my sports, still do.
I used to bounce off the walls at home a fair bit too. We lived in a three-bedroom house with five people – Mum, Dad and my sisters Ruth and Nicola. We were a tight family and we loved each other, of course, but the house was small and crammed with all our stuff in it so there were times when we’d argue. Mum and Dad were always having to be careful with money and work hard, and we sometimes did get on top of one another. It’s inevitable, I suppose. There were just too many kids growing up in a small house. I’d want to watch my favourite show on the telly but my sisters would want to see their stuff, or we’d be arguing over something and nothing. I’d shout into the kitchen, ‘Mum, I want to watch the football but Ruth says she’s watching something else!’ but Mum was just trying to get everything sorted around the house and keep everyone happy! Typical family stuff, really, but because the house was so small we were in each other’s faces the whole time.
When I was a kid I was constantly running, playing football, messing about outside – on the go all the time – so I spent a lot of time in the shower later!
So I used to spend a lot of time outside, playing football, going over the field and causing a bit of trouble, just playing with my mates. Then as soon as I got home I’d be up into my bedroom on the PlayStation. I guess I was quite independent at times. I suppose all teenagers have that phase, to be fair.
However, one thing that I always absolutely loved doing was singing. Choirs, a local performing-arts group ... karaoke when I was a little older. Wherever and whenever I could sing or perform, I would. My dad was amazing. When I was a kid he was my driving force to get out there and perform to people. I never saw anything like this – as in One Direction – happening. In fact I don’t think anybody could ever have seen this coming. But for some reason – whether he was just crazy or not, I don’t know – Dad was convinced I’d end up doing something in music. ‘Liam,’ he’d say, ‘you’ve just got to get out there and perform. We need to get you more and more gigs. You can sing, and you’ve got what it takes, son. You can do this, I know you can.’ He thought that I’d maybe do just a solo record in the UK, but never anything worldwide. Then One Direction kicked off. So maybe he wasn’t the crazy one after all?
Back in the day he used to take me to all my gigs, he cut my CDs for me to put my backing tracks on, he’d do my sound, all the driving. He w
as like my tour manager when I was young, and if I did something wrong I’d get a telling off from him the same way as I would now from One Direction’s tour manager, Paul. Dad taught me so much.
That impulse to always be busy carried over into my singing. As a kid I was constantly after doing more and more gigs. I didn’t care where they were or who I was singing to – I just wanted to perform, graft and learn. Dad would say, ‘Liam, I’ve got you a gig in this local club, but it’s pretty small and there’s no money in it,’ and I’d be like, ‘I don’t care, Dad, let’s do it. Bring it on.’ We were both like that, to be fair. No gig was too small or too far away. Whatever, whenever, we both knew any shows at this point were all great experience for me. This has served me well in One Direction because it’s meant that when the madness all kicked off I was at least reasonably experienced already. That’s why I used to start all the band songs off back then, because the management knew I’d been on stage many times before. We were so young when One Direction started and I guess it made sense to utilise whatever limited experience we did have.
I’m proud that I did a lot of groundwork for the band when I was younger. I performed to some of the strangest crowds you could ever play to! I once played in Rhyl at this event called the Sunshine Festival. Except it was tipping down with rain and I don’t remember seeing any sunshine the whole day. It was decent money (£50 for three songs, I seem to remember), but when I got up on stage there were about ten people – maximum! – just standing around in a field looking bored. I still made the effort, though, ‘Hello Rhyl!’ I was jumping all over the stage, and I remember there was this one mother feeding her baby with a spoon the whole time while I bounced around like a nutter. That was an odd gig.
On another occasion I played the Oceana Centre in Wolverhampton, which was near where I lived. The crowd was a bit lively and about halfway through the second song this lad just dashed a 50p coin at me. It hit my face, cutting my cheek open. I had two songs left and no way was I gonna let him stop me, so I dabbed the blood off, carried on and finished the set. ‘Thanks, mate!’
One Direction: Who We Are: Our Official Autobiography Page 1