'I never really chose this life': Louis Tomlinson shot to fame after auditioning for The X Factor in 2010. Photo / Getty Images
“Do you mind if I smoke?” asks Louis Tomlinson, tapping cigarette ash into an empty Coke bottle. “The modern man smokes a vape, apparently. But I still smoke ciggies. I’m a judgemental f****r, and I hate vapers.”
He’d kidding, but the former One Direction boyband star certainly does like a cigarette, getting through half a dozen during an hour-long encounter in a hotel boardroom that reeks of stale tobacco. “Maybe I drink too much for a singer. Maybe I smoke too much for a singer. But it can be quite demanding, this life. So, for me to have those little vices, it’s important.”
Tomlinson is getting ready for the release this week of his second solo album, Faith in The Future. He seems both nervous and excited. “The lows are lower in a solo career, but the highs are higher,” he suggests. “Because you are not one of 4 or 5 anymore, you have to take full responsibility for everything, so it hits you at both ends.”
Scruffily unshaven, in gym wear and trainers, the 30-year-old hops up to open a window, while chatting away in a friendly and engaged manner. “I never really chose this life,” he insists, with a strong Doncaster accent (though he lives in Hertfordshire now). “I auditioned for X Factor and crossed me fingers. And now, here I am.”
In 2010, at the age of 18, Tomlinson and four other young hopefuls (Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Zayn Malik) were assembled into a boyband mentored by entertainment impresario Simon Cowell. Although they didn’t win the talent show, their impish appeal saw them rise to become the most successful manufactured group of the modern era, achieving levels of fan mania comparable to the early days of The Beatles.
Together for five frenzied years, 1D have scored four number one albums, sold more than 200 million records worldwide, notched up over 21 billion streams, won seven BRIT awards and their final tour in 2015 grossed over £173 million ($336m) in revenue. For a time, Tomlinson’s floppy fringe adorned teenage bedrooms all over the planet. There was considerable hysteria when 1D said they were taking a “hiatus”, citing exhaustion.
Tomlinson was the oldest member (two years Styles’ senior) with the shakiest voice but adored by fans for his genuine smile, wacky fashions and undisguised pleasure at being part of the gang. Styles had a cheeky swagger, Malik was the sensuous R&B singer, Horan the folkie-next-door, whilst Payne was a cocky Jack the lad (whose solo career has been a bit of a washout). As time went by, Tomlinson shed insecurities to get more involved in songwriting, helping push 1D’s pop rock side.
Faith in the Future (out on Friday) dials up the guitars, building on his chart-topping 2020 solo debut album Walls, inspired by Britpop and indie, the music of his pre-fame youth. “I used to spend all my Friday nights in this place called Priory, it was f***ing unbelievable: £10 all you can drink! That’s been banned now. It was in that bar where I fell in love with guitar music.”
Although he retains a fondness for a big chorus, it is not a sound you would particularly associate with 1D. “I don’t relate to right-down-the-middle pop,” he admits. “But I wouldn’t say that was dumbed down in One Direction. Maybe I dumbed it down myself. Maybe I assumed I couldn’t be exactly who I was.”
Tomlinson was the last of the five members to release an album, and reveals that he was a reluctant solo artist, upset by the band’s decision to separate at the height of their world-beating success in 2016.
“It was a bit daunting. I’d just got to a stage where I really started to feel like I found my rhythm, I was enjoying songwriting, I felt like I finally worked out where I am in that band. And then it’s like: ‘Okay, well, now we’re going on a break.’ So there was a bit of petulance from my end, I was frustrated.”
He admits that he has felt competitive with his former bandmates and been jealous of Styles’ enormous solo success.
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me at first. Only ‘cos I didn’t know where to place myself, and really my only point of reference was other members of the band. But it’s not surprising to me that Harry’s the most commercially successful because he really fits the mould of a modern star.
“He’s not just doing music, he’s got film as well, and the (stadium) tour he’s done is unbelievable. It took me a while to work out where I stand. But I look on Harry like a brother, man. I have a lot of pride for what he’s doing.”
He says band members are quietly supportive of each other. “I’m sure the lads will text me when the album comes out, we check in on each other, we’re good like that. I bumped into Niall [Horan] at Glastonbury, and even though we hadn’t spoken all year, it was like absolutely no time had passed. Because we’ve lived through such experiences together in One Direction, this bond that we have is for life.”
Tomlinson has had other issues to focus on. In 2016, his mother Johannah Deakin, a midwife, died from leukaemia, aged 43. His parents separated when he was a child, and Tomlinson is estranged from his father, a hotel manager. He has seven younger half-siblings, one of whom, Félicité Tomlinson, died of an accidental drug overdose in 2019.
“I’m coping good, man,” he says. “I’m a glass half-full person because what’s the alternative? I’m not saying that there have not been some dark days, because there have. But I had a really lovely upbringing, and my mum was as good as gold.
“Even though she’s not here anymore, I wouldn’t want her to feel guilty for what happened. She wouldn’t want that to define my life and my happiness.”
He also feels a sense of responsibility to his family. “I’m the oldest of all my siblings, and I knew that I had to put on a brave face.” Nonetheless, Tomlinson, who is also father to a five-year-old son, whom he shares with his ex-girlfriend, confesses wariness when it comes to talking about it. “It carries its own weight emotionally and I’m wanting to escape that because I don’t want people f*****g feeling sorry for me.”
He addressed grief on 2019 single Two of Us, but has consciously sought out more upbeat subject matter for Faith in the Future, on songs including The Greatest, Lucky Again, Out of My System and mercurial indie rocker Silver Tongues.
“I have become a bit of a soundboard for people’s grief, so I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Because if I can help other people just from a little conversation about my own individual experience, that’s great, I really want to be there to help. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a burden.”
Tomlinson has been thoroughly enjoying being back on the road. “Performing live was always my favourite thing. I’ve had to build it back up, because I’ve never toured on my own, I had to relearn my craft and what the show needed. So it’s not as if I went into small theatres and thought, I used to play Wembley stadium, I’ve f*****g failed! I was having too much fun.”
He jokes about not even noticing if there has been any change in the level of luxury as he has shifted from one of the biggest bands in the world to a solo artist determined to prove himself.
“Hotel rooms can be kind of lonely when you’re moving all the time, so it doesn’t matter how luxurious it is. I sleep on the tourbus, cause that’s where my band are, so its really social. It’s a f*****g lovely tourbus!”
Next year he will be back onboard, touring Britain’s arenas. “It’s all going the right way, and I’m thankful to be here, doing what I love. It doesn’t feel as manic as it did in One Direction, but I still get recognised everywhere I go, so not much has changed.”
Like many stars, he’s conflicted about fame. “It’s something I have struggled to deal with over the years. If I go to the pub with me mates and we’re having a drink and being social, it doesn’t matter if just one person stops and is like, ‘Oh it’s Louis, can we have a picture?’ It takes me outside of that normality. Just one photo can kind of bug me for the next half hour. But I’m still ambitious, and if that means raising the temperature [of fame] again, it’s a little bit daunting, but that’s the life.”
There have been some exceedingly odd aspects to being a boyband superstar. A strand of online fan fiction imagined a passionate affair between Tomlinson and Styles, which was subsequently depicted in a graphic, animated sequence on hit HBO series Euphoria. Another piece of 1D fanfiction is being adapted for forthcoming movie The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway as an older woman having an affair with a boyband star.
“It’s weird, all that s***,” tuts Tomlinson, disapprovingly. “But there’s not much you can do about it. I’d rather they didn’t, like, but it is what it is. I won’t be watching it.”
Tomlinson is excited about his new music, raving “I can imagine some of these songs being on albums by bands I would have listened to as a kid. It took me a second to find my feet after One Direction, and realise I need to be brave enough to embrace what I love.”
He says he thinks about success differently now. “Its all about musical fulfilment. When you’re one of four or five, it’s hard to express yourself as an individual. This music is who I am.”
He still expects One Direction to eventually reunite. “When you look at it on paper, it’s like, ‘How the f***’s it all gonna fit back together?’ We’re all making very different music, doing our own thing, all busy all the time. So I don’t see anything happening for at least another 10 years, but you never know. It looks pretty jumbled. But I think there is a world where it all kind of fits together.”
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