Louis Tomlinson is in “a good moment” and it is reflected in an upcoming album “cheerful and warm”. It has not been made easy by disastrous events such as the death of his former partner Liam Payne, but also, he tells EFE, he has had to redefine schemes of his era with One Direction as what happiness is.
“In my solo career I realized that I needed a different definition of success, because what I considered success before was based on my experience in One Direction and it wouldn’t be fair to myself to use that concept as a reference,” he says about it during a talk in Madrid.
It comes apropos of the title of what will be his third solo studio album, ‘How Did I Get Here?’, or “How did I get here?” in Spanish, a question he admits he has asked himself on many occasions, “with no single answer” unless it is that of his fans and which helps him maintain “ambition”.
“The ironic thing about chasing your ambition is that once you achieve a version of what you hoped for, you realize that you just expand your dreams even further. It’s a bit of a futile thing, but obviously I experienced it at the top with One Direction,” he acknowledges.
He says he has learned that “although many people think that success equals happiness, it definitely does not. “You have to find it within yourself,” he insists, before making another reflection, “I’ve found love and benefit in not just chasing numbers, because that would only frustrate me.”
“Anything I can get because of the album, its commercial success and popularity, will be like a bonus. But I’ve found that a lot of the real success for me lies in being comfortable with the music I make and not taking shortcuts to fit a particular sound. I’m proud of myself for that,” he says.
In that sense Tomlinson (Doncaster, 1991) has tried to be as honest as possible with his next album, which will be released on January 23. “The reason it took me longer is that I wanted to write a fun, joyful and liberating album, but in my personal life I wasn’t at that point yet,” he confesses.
“I started writing this record two and a half years ago, but I wrote most of it seven months ago. I was getting frustrated being in sessions where I wasn’t feeling good about myself and it felt fake to write happy stuff. So I had to get to that point by living,” he says.
Since his departure from One Direction, his music until now had seen two lines, one more guitar-based and the other tending towards electronica, two branches that have converged thanks to producer Nicolas Rebscher.
It is noticed in the first single, ‘Lemonade’, in which Theo Hutchcraft, former member of the synth-pop band Hurts, has participated as a composer, who, like Rebscher, helped him to approach his music from another point of view, with less prejudices.
“My intention with that record was to compose with as many artists as possible, not as professional songwriters. I wanted love and attention to detail, not just them thinking about making a living, and the kind of music he makes connects with people,” he says.
Another detail that stands out about these two collaborators is their lack of “pretentiousness.” “When you come from pop and you’re looking to get into a more guitar-centric space, it’s scary. I know how pretentious that whole world is. There was quite a bit of that when I was in the band, like the thing about releasing your first indie record and all of a sudden criticizing pop music. I may have been like that,” he confesses.
“That’s why it’s great when you find people like Theo, who have made a lot of really good songs and records, but still see pop for what it is. And with this record it’s been really exciting to be challenged to make pop seem cool versus the stereotype that it’s cheesy and try to give it more depth,” he anticipates.
In April he will come to Spain to show this material on two dates: the 12th at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona and the 13th at the Movistar Arena in Madrid, in his increasingly regular reunion with an audience he feels close to.
“Something has definitely been brewing over the last couple of years. I’ve had amazing concerts here. It’s something I’ve always noticed, ever since One Direction. The Spanish public has the intensity that is needed for a show,” he emphasizes before a tour in which, as in the album, he will try to get out of that “melancholic rock ‘n’ roll style with lots of red and black tones” in search of something “brighter and, hopefully, more colorful,” reported Agencia EFE.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
