After leaving One Direction Harry Styles has revealed the musical liberation he felt in working on his own tunes.
But with that came the feeling he wasn’t able to be his true self amid the hiatus of one of the biggest groups in the world.
As he prepared to release his latest solo album Fine Line this week, the superstar has opened up on what the transition was like for him going from being in a chart-topping band to on his own.
We have to say he – along with the rest of his bandmates – have killed it in the solo stakes, but that doesn’t mean the lad didn’t feel some sort of pressure.
‘Coming off the road, there was a definite feeling of, “ok, now I know what it feels like to play a show on my own, what do I want the songs to be like if I’m going to tour again?”’ he told Music Week. ‘So I definitely went into this album with a freedom, that I didn’t have, or didn’t allow myself to have, last time.’
Harry added he’d been ‘trying hard not to get it wrong’ with his self-titled 2017 album, as he said: ‘I was a little subconsciously afraid of making fun music having come out of the band.
‘I tried to get rid of that a little bit.’
Fair to admit One Direction had their share of fun and upbeat songs, but Harry revealed that it wasn’t until he was on the road as a solo artist he noticed ‘people just wanted me to be myself and be authentic’.
Speaking about his latest album, he compared the process of creating new music to childbirth.
The Watermelon Sugar star, 25, recently told Kiss Breakfast with Tom & Daisy: ‘It’s a little bittersweet because you live with it for so long and it feels like it’s yours. Then you start giving it away.
‘That’s the most exciting part, having people hear it for the first time. It’s fun. I assume the pain’s not the same, but it feels a little like giving birth.’
Harry admitted he felt better about creating his second album after the success of his debut record as he explained: ‘I felt better this time going into it I think. With the first one… it was my first album out of the band, I think I was quite scared about getting it wrong.
‘So when I listen to it now there are a lot of places where I can kind of hear… it almost feels like I was bowling with the sides up a little bit.
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