BBC Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw talks exclusively to Harry Styles about dating, his debut single, his 21st birthday gift from Adele and his four nipples.
This Friday on BBC Radio 1, as a part of New Music Friday, Radio 1 has the world exclusive first play of Harry Styles’ debut single. Harry Styles also co-hosts The Radio 1 Breakfast Show. Embargoed quotes from the chat are below.
On whether he’s spoken to Adele about his new record, and if she’s offered any advice…
“I’ve spoken to her a little bit, she knows one of the guys that I wrote it with (his music) a lot. But I don’t think so much advice, I just like how she does stuff. I think she leads by example, she’s the biggest, she’s amazing she’s the best so she should be the biggest. The thing with her is she’s a different thing, she’s just good at it, I like how she does everything, it looks very nice.”
Talking about the present Adele bought him for his 21st birthday…
“For my 21st she gave me one of her albums ‘21’ and said ‘I did some pretty cool stuff when I was 21, good luck’ and I was like geez.’
If it’s hard to date when famous…
“I don’t know, maybe. I feel like with all of the stuff how people date now with all online stuff I feel like you can do that (Google) with anyone really if you’re looking at someone’s profile before seeing them it’s kinda the same… No, I used to (research dates), then I said I’m not going to do that anymore, it’s impossible to go in without a perception of someone and you’ve never met them and I started feeling like that was wrong and weird.”
Not dating for a while…
“I haven’t dated in a long time really because I went away to do the movie then did the album so I haven’t in a while. I have a couple of candles left still though.”
His best and worst traits in terms of dating…
“I think I snore and also I quite like routine so I don’t know if I’m incredibly spontaneous. Best trait I don’t know, it’s weird to pick your best, shall we go with the nipples thing.”
On what inspired his writing for the album…
“I think it’s hard to not have influencers from what you grew up listening on. I think everyone reacts differently to different types of music. I was with the guys who I was writing it with and we just wanted to make what we wanted to listen to and that has been the most fun part for me about making the whole album. In the least weird way possible, it’s my favourite album to listen to at the moment… I think if you put out something that you don’t stand behind and really love…then if it doesn’t go well then you could regret not doing what you wanted to do. Whereas if nothing happens with it, I love it you know so I think that’s what you should do. I think that’s been my favourite part to the overall thing is listening to the album and making all the changes – it has been fun to watch over it all.”
“I think a lot of people, especially at labels separate it because they work in music that it’s a broader understanding of music than people who are listening… I think we are all fans of music and I think we made it as the fan… I hope we did a good job but I really like the album so I hope people like it.”
