Niall Horan revealed he has stopped writing music claiming everything he’s created so far in lockdown has been “crap”.
The former One Direction star, 26, also admitted he’s disappointed his latest album ‘Heartbreak Weather’ missed out on its chance to reach number one in the US.
The Mullingar native, who has been working from his home in London over the past few months said: “I love it [album]. It’s just a shame it was released during this s**t.
“It went to number one here but I’d have liked for it to go to number one in America.
“It’s a long time to spend on an album then it be released during this.”
The Slow Hands hitmaker told how he spent a whole year working on it since the end of his last tour in 2018 but said: “You can’t win every week, is my phrase.”
Niall, previously opened up about joining forces with his pals in the industry such as Lewis Capaldi to write songs during lockdown.
However, opening up about suffering from a slight songwriting rut, he said he has now taken a break from the pressure of creating a hit during the pandemic.
Speaking to American singer songwriter Ashe, to celebrate the release of their hit collaboration ‘Moral of the Story’ on Instagram live this week he said: “I was writing loads, I spent all my time sitting at the piano.
“And then I was just starting to write crap and didn’t really know what I was writing about.
“So I’ve taken this week to just listen to some tunes.”
“All I’ve done this week is just go for long cycles, listen to music, jam a little bit, write riffs - I’ve been writing a lot of rifts.
“I once heard Joe Walsh saying that every song has to start with a guitar riff.
“Sometimes if I’m in a rut, trying to write a rock song, I can go and look for riffs.”
He added: “You can always tell the artists that haven’t written their songs I think.
“You can tell when they perform, you can tell by the vocal, well I can anyway.
“You look through history and the best songwriters are the storytellers and through all types of music - through R&B, through rock, through pop.
“The Paul Simons, the Carole Kings, the Don Henleys, the Damien Rices.
“I went to see Carole King about three years ago, God it was a great gig.”
