Liam Payne says One Direction were a true rock band

1 June 2022, 14:21

Watch One Direction sing ‘Torn’ in their iconic Judges Houses audition from 2010

By Sam Prance

Liam Payne also says that he is an "accomplished rock star" on a new episode of Logan Paul's podcast.

Liam Payne has opened up about his time in One Direction and why he believes that the group were a "solidified rock band".

There's no denying that One Direction are one of the biggest bands of all time. As soon as Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn were put together on The X Factor in 2010, people all around the world fell in love with them. From 'What Makes You Beautiful' to 'Drag Me Down', they dominated the charts throughout their career.

However, there's always been debate as to what genre One Direction were. At the start of their career, most of the band's songs were written for them but, as they got more and more popular, they began writing more of their own music and playing their own instruments. Were they a classic pop boy band or could they classify as a true rock band?

Now, Liam has revealed why he thinks he became an "accomplished rockstar" in 1D in a new interview with Logan Paul.

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Speaking about One Direction's writing process on Logan Paul's Impaulsive podcast, Liam explained that he and the other boys got more involved in writing the band's music with each era. He said: "We let the first album go by. I think I wrote a couple of songs on the first album but once you knew what the people wanted it's very easy to redo it again."

Liam added: "The one thing we did very cleverly in One Direction, if you go back and listen to the albums now, is that every time we made a new album we slightly turned the influence of rock up. To the point where on the fifth album, the lead singer from The Eagles message Niall and be like that's the best song you've ever written and it was one of the songs we wrote."

Liam ended by saying: "It was nice at the end to become an accomplished rock star because you want to be in a boy band but you don't want to be in a boy band that's cheesy. For us, we became a solidified rock band because of the peers around us. They gave us props for what we did."

Fast forward to 8:43 in the interview to hear Liam's comments.

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While songs like 'Kiss You' and 'Best Song Ever' are very much pure pop, it's true that you can really hear the rock influence on One Direction's later work. Hits like 'Midnight Memories' and 'Steal My Girl', and albums like Four and Made In the A.M., are all heavily rock-inspired. Also, Harry in particular, has since gone on to release more rock-centric music.

What do you think? Were One Direction a true rock band?

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