Just a few days after scoring her fourth career Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper with “Drop Dead,” Olivia Rodrigo is earning some high praise from Niall Horan.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone (April 30), the One Direction alum opened up about his approach to songwriting, praising the return of bridges to pop music, which he credited to Rodrigo.
“It’s great to hear [bridges]. I feel like Olivia Rodrigo has been a big influence on that for pop writers,” the Irish singer said, before crooning a bit of the “Drivers License” bridge. “What I like about Olivia’s music is [that] you feel like you’re getting one song and then you get a completely different song. It completely flips on its head musically, goes somewhere different, brings you to a bridge, brings you to some weird musical breakdown thing. Whatever [she] and Dan Nigro are up to is a good little team they’ve got going there. It’s definitely influencing people, including myself.”
Horan spoke extensively about his forthcoming Dinner Party, which is slated to arrive on June 5 via Capitol Records. He’s already shared two songs from the new album, including its title track and “Little More Time,” both of which were co-produced by Afterhrs, John Ryan and Julian Bunetta. Accompanied by a sprawling 22-date tour of Europe, Ireland & the U.K., the Irishman’s newest LP is the official follow-up to 2023’s The Show, which opened at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. In his RS interview, Horan also noted the increased presence of rock influences on his upcoming album, which he credits to his lifelong appreciation for pop-punk bands like Blink-182.
“That drum sound is something that we were trying to chase, and that comes from that late-’90s, early-2000s punk-rock era,” he said. “Rock’s been a big influence in my life since I was a child. I write pop songs, but dressing them up in a different way sometimes is quite cool. And now, the way my career is going, I’m completely thinking about live shows all the time. I learned so much from being on the road and being out there every night. There’s only so much sitting on Spotify you can do and reading comments before you actually get an idea of what people actually think. You can see it in the room. The rockier stuff really goes off at the shows.”
The “Slow Hands” singer also has a pair of U.S. stadium shows set for this year. Alongside longtime friend and Grammy-nominated country star Thomas Rhett, Horan will play GEODIS Park in Nashville on July 9 and Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Pa., on July 19, with Live Nation promoting both shows. Kashus Culpepper and Emily Ann Roberts will open both shows. Horan’s busy year on the road means all four surviving members of One Direction will be touring new music this year. When asked about experiencing shows from his former bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and ZAYN, Horan gave shout-outs to Styles and Tomlinson.
“I went to Harry’s show a couple of years ago, and that was just wild. Madness going on there,” he said. “It reminded me of the 1D stadium shows where it was just seas of people jumping up and down. Watching the things going on on the floor, all the fans dancing around, I love that. You feel a sense of pride watching the boys doing what they love to do, and the communities that they’re able to create. I’m going to try and get to a Louis show of some capacity in the next few weeks.”
Horan is also the fourth One Direction alum to release a new album this year. Tomlinson shared How Did I Get Here? in January; Styles went No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally in March; and ZAYN dropped Konnakol earlier this month (April 17).
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