We all know Zayn as that guy from that boyband, you know the one I’m taking about? Yeah, One Direction obviously but this is the new real Zayn and he gets candid about everything from his break up with Perrie to why he left One Direction in his recent The Fader Interview.
There’s so much to discuss right now so let’s take this point by point.
Quitting Had Been On His Mind For A While:
According to Zayn, it had always been on his mind he just didn’t know when he was going to do it. He says in the interview, “By the time I decided to go, it just felt right on that day. I woke up on that morning, if I’m being completely honest with you, and was like, ‘I need to go home. I just need to be me now, because I’ve had enough.’” As we know though, the tabloids claimed Zayn had left because of cheating rumours that potentially affected his and Perrie’s relationship and he went back to “save” it. Zayn denies this and says, “The two things never really coincided in my mind,” he says. “Obviously, publicly, that’s the way it worked, because it worked well for the purpose. Them two stories looked good together side by side.” “It wasn’t because of that that I left—that was just a contributing factor to everything. I’d already made my mind up before that.”
His Break-Up With Perrie Didn’t Happen Over Text:
Zayn didn’t discuss any details about why he broke up with Perrie but he did say this, “I have more respect for Perrie than to end anything over text message. I love her a lot, and I always will, and I would never end our relationship over four years like that. She knows that, I know that, and the public should know that as well. I don’t want to explain why or what I did, I just want the public to know I didn’t do that.”
He Had No Creative Freedom In The Band:
Zayn expressed one of his frustrations while being in the band and it was that he wasn’t able to contribute creatively to their music. He discusses that “There was never any room for me to experiment creatively in the band” and for example if he would sing a hook or verse slightly R&B, “it would always be recorded 50 times until there was a straight version that was pop, generic as f***, so they could use that version”. He continued to say, “Whenever I would suggest something, it was like it didn’t fit us. There was just a general conception that the management already had of what they want for the band, and I just wasn’t convinced with what we were selling. I wasn’t 100 percent behind the music. It wasn’t me. It was music that was already given to us, and we were told this is what is going to sell to these people. As much as we were the biggest, most famous boy band in the world, it felt weird. We were told to be happy about something that we weren’t happy about.”
His “Mysterious Boy” Image Isn’t Him:
He also discussed the fact that his image was manufactured to be that way and he’s “actually quite easy, a happy-go-lucky sort of guy” and that there were a lot of times where situations were created to make him be portrayed as the mysterious or quiet one (example the Steal My Girl music video). He went on to say, “I guess that’s just something that people buy into, and it helps them sell things. It’s a product that’s already designed, and it sells.”
On His New Music:
“To me, it’s like I stood in front of a canvas for about five years, and someone said like, ‘You’re not allowed to paint on this canvas.’ I’ve got the paint, I’ve got the f****ing brushes, and I can’t get it on there. Now someone removed the plastic and was like, ‘Alright, you can now paint.” During the interview Zayn teased on his new music, which will be out early next year, without giving too much away. He says, “I’m working every day now, but I’m working on music that I enjoy,” He also added that One Direction’s music was not the type of music he’d listen to, “Would you listen to One Direction, sat at a party with your girl? I wouldn’t. To me, that’s not an insult, that’s me as a 22-year-old man. As much as I was in that band, and I loved everything that we did, that’s not music that I would listen to. I don’t think that’s an offensive statement to make. That’s just not who I am. If I was sat at a dinner date with a girl, I would play some cool shit, you know what I mean? I want to make music that I think is cool shit. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.” Malik continued to discuss how the album will be a mix of different types of genres and for now he’s just testing the waters. Nothing is certain yet as he isn’t sure what his style is yet and just wants to show what his influences are. He continues on saying, “Depending on what the reaction is, then I’ll go somewhere with that. If people like that I’m a bit more R&B, then I’ll do more R&B on my next album. If they like the fact that there’s reggae on there, I might do more reggae. It’s just depending on what they want and what I feel comfortable with at the time. I might even have a rock tune on the album, but it’s kind of like R&B-rock.”
His Relationship With The Former Bandmates:
He doesn’t seem as close to his former bandmates as he was before he went solo but they’re not totally estranged either. “I spoke to Liam about two weeks ago,” Zayn says. “It was the first time I’d spoken to him since I left the band, and I rung him, and he wanted to talk. He said that he didn’t understand it at the time, but he now fully gets why I had to do what I did. He understands that it’s my thing, that I had to do that, and that basically he wants to meet up and sit down and have a good chat in person, and he wants to do some music and work on some stuff aside from being in the band, which we always wanted to do anyway.”
Watch Zayn’s Cover Video here:
Zayn’s The Fader feature will hit newsstands on the 15th of December.
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