Harry Styles is on the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone. It’s an understated cover and that, some might say, is what makes it beautiful. For it, the pop star was interviewed over a series of days in L.A. by one-time contributing editor at Rolling Stone and director of Almost Famous Cameron Crowe. We learn a lot about the forever-young ex-boyband heartthrob. “The fame visited upon Harry Styles in his years with One D was a special kind of mania,” opens the feature. “With a self-effacing smile, a hint of darkness, and the hair invariably described as ‘tousled he became a canvas onto which millions of fans pitched their hopes and dreams.”
We also learn that the songs on Harry’s much-anticipated album skip genres between full-on rock (“Kiwi”), psych pop (“Meet Me in the Hallway”), and uber confessional (“Ever Since New York”). We learn that the lyrics are detailed; full of whispered secrets and declarations of love. We learn that Harry’s drink of choice is tequila on ice, and so now our drink of choice is tequila on ice. Find more fun facts below.
Harry thinks people should have more respect for his teenage girl fans: “Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music — short for popular, right? — have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious? How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans — they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.“
“Sign of the Times” was written about a rather intense scenario:“The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a child and there’s a complication. The mother is told, ‘The child is fine, but you’re not going to make it.’ The mother has five minutes to tell the child, ‘Go forth and conquer.'”
He wanted independence and creative control: “I wanted to step up. There were songs I wanted to write and record, and not just have it be ‘Here’s a demo I wrote.’ Every decision I’ve made since I was 16 was made in a democracy. I felt like it was time to make a decision about the future … and maybe I shouldn’t rely on others.”
Like us, when Harry goes home he still feels like a kid: “I like to separate my personal life and work. It helps, I think, for me to compartmentalize. It’s not about trying to make my career longer, like I’m trying to be this ‘mysterious character,’ because I’m not. When I go home, I feel like the same person I was at school. You can’t expect to keep that if you show everything. There’s the work and the personal stuff, and going between the two is my favorite shit. It’s amazing to me.”
If the Beatles’s tours were like Fellini’s Satyricon, Harry says that One Direction tours were more Wes Anderson: “Cut. Cut. New location. Quick cut. New location. Cut. Cut. Show. Shower. Hard cut. Sleep.”
Harry made Stevie Nicks a cake and gave it to her at a Fleetwood Mac concert: “Piped her name onto it. She loved it. Glad she liked carrot cake.”
Harry would like to tell Taylor Swift, thank you: “Maybe this is where you write down that I left! …I don’t know… Certain things don’t work out. There’s a lot of things that can be right, and it’s still wrong. In writing songs about stuff like that, I like tipping a hat to the time together. You’re celebrating the fact it was powerful and made you feel something, rather than ‘this didn’t work out, and that’s bad.’ And if you run into that person, maybe it’s awkward, maybe you have to get drunk … but you shared something. Meeting someone new, sharing those experiences, it’s the best shit ever. So thank you.”
Harry has written part of the album about a recent relationship, but won’t confirm who: “She’s a huge part of the album. Sometimes you want to tip the hat, and sometimes you just want to give them the whole cap … and hope they know it’s just for them.”
Harry is cute: “I always said, at the very beginning, all I wanted was to be the granddad with the best stories… and the best shelf of artifacts and bits and trinkets.”
Credits
Text Frankie Dunn