Show and Tell

As he releases The Show, Niall Horan reveals how he "lives" for touring, his desire to connect with fans through his songs, and the challenge of going out for chips in his Irish hometown

- By Nick Levine. Photograph by Christian Terney

It's almost a cliché to call Niall Horan a "super-nice guy", but really, there's no getting away from it.

He may have named his new album The Show, but Horan feels no need to put one on for a journalist. In fact, the Irish singer-songwriter is so laid-back and likeable when we meet at a smart London hotel in the run-up to the record's release - fresh flowers everywhere, bottled water on the table that I ask how he's stayed so welladjusted. "It's probably a combination of the upbringing I had and the fact I already had enough character at 16 [to deal with it]," he says. "It might have been a different story if I'd started doing this when I was 10."

Now 29, he has been scarily famous for almost half his life. After auditioning for The X Factor in 2010 as a solo artist, 16-year-old Horan was eliminated at the boot camp stage, then given a spectacular second chance as one fifth of a hastily assembled group called One Direction. He and his new bandmates - Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson didn't win that year's show, but still used it as a springboard to become a chart-topping global phenomenon. By the time One Direction announced an indefinite hiatus in January 2016, they had sold 70 million records worldwide and debuted at number one in the US with their first four albums something not even The Beatles achieved. When asked what he would say to his pre-1D, 16-year old self, Horan replies: "Get ready. Your life's about to change on a level that most of the world can't even quantify."