"We're against ourselves" is how Liam Payne describes having two singles out at the same time — but as he tells Teen Vogue at a Musical.ly event for some of the platform's top Musers, he couldn't be happier to be in competition with himself.
"Strip That Down," his first solo effort since One Direction's hiatus, features Quavo from Migos, and debuted in May; "Get Low," his collaboration with Zedd, followed on July 9. And though he's been teasing his progression toward R&B-style riffs on Instagram for months, Liam would be the first one to admit that "I think, really, my fans weren't expecting" his new sound.
He notes that "Strip That Down" was "number 1 on Shazam for a while. And that's the people who are like, 'Um, who is this guy?'... for a good reason or a bad reason. Hoping it was good," he adds with a laugh. "That's the most interesting thing to me. I love my fans and I want to carry them on through with me, though some of my music is not for some of them, and they'll say that as well. But we're picking up a whole new fanbase, too."
Part of that fanbase is the group of Musical.ly stars hanging out around us. They've all gathered to celebrate the addition of "Strip That Down" to the platform, making it easier than ever to lip sync along to the swagger-filled track, and even taught Liam a thing or two about how to make a Musical.ly. At one point, Citizen Four and Skylar Stecker stop everything to watch — and sing along — to AJ McLean perform the Backstreet Boys's hit "I Want It That Way" live. The levels of boy band inception in the room are at an all-time high.
Yet even though Liam was (and is!) a key member of one of the most successful music groups, he's still learning a thing or two about his own sound as a solo artist. When asked what what it was like to begin working on his own music, he says that he didn't realize "how much I like rapping, but I'm never going to be Eminem. That's what surprised me the most." And while he jokes that he and his friends "do the most stupid raps," he hints that a rap of his did make the cut onto his album. "But it's not... It's getting toward rapping," he clarifies. "It's singy-rapping."
He also hints that he "wrote some quite personal songs and some different things," for the album, which doesn't yet have a release date. "I get told off for saying too much all the time. That's my biggest problem in life, is I will say too much. But I've really enjoyed making the album. It's been good."
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"Everyone keeps asking me, 'When I'm going to write a song about Bear?'" he adds about the son he and Cheryl Cole welcomed in March. But don't get your hopes up for a dedication track any time soon, as Liam says that he hasn't written much since Bear's birth — which is understandable, given how busy Bear's kept them. "I actually haven't written anything since," he says, "until last night, actually, which I wrote a song from a daughter's perspective for her dad." (That song, he says, is for another artist, but he doesn't say who.)
In addition to Zedd and Quavo, Liam's been racking up studio time with some pretty major names: he lists Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, Bibi Bourelly, and Ed Sheeran as people he's been working with on new music. "I just love collaborating," he explains. "I don't really like writing music by myself, for myself. I'd much sooner have someone imprint a little bit of themselves into what they think of me, and I'll take it and run with it. So it's been really great and I'm so happy that people want to work with me."
As for a dream collab? Calvin Harris comes up almost immediately."He's wicked," Liam says. "So, wherever Calvin is, I'm putting him on blast. I'd love to work with him, even if it wasn't something for me."
But if you think that the next logical step for Liam would be to collaborate with Cheryl on a song, think again. When asked if they'll ever team up in the studio, he offers a quick "Nah, but we laugh about this all over. She'll catch herself singing my songs in the house. She likes my songs. She's my biggest fan."
That separation between personal life and work seems to have served him well — after all, with millions of Directioners following his every move, there have to be a few things Liam keeps for himself. "I go home and spend time with my family and make sure that I put my phone down, and see my son and spend time with my missus as well," he says about downtime, noting that he reserves apps like Instagram and Snapchat for when he's on the road. "When I come away, we get into it. We have some fun."
And while he may be on the road right now, it's possible that there's a little bit of downtime in his future. After all, the next single doesn't come out until October, which his manager confirmed to us after we both asked. "She said it!" Liam exclaims. "Oh my God! That made ink. Wow."
As he puts it, it's "a busy summer, man, making memories with people." But it's clear that he wouldn't want it any other way.
Related: Louis Tomlinson Is “Really Excited” For His Son Freddie to Meet Liam Payne's Bear
