Niall Horan on Love, Loss, and New Beginnings

The Rolling Stone Interview

Niall Horan: ‘There’s Only So Much of Yourself That You Can Give’

​​The singer on finding love, grieving loss, and building something new

By Larisha Paul

Larisha Paul

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Photographs by ELIZABETH WEINBERG April 30, 2026

W hen Niall Horan left his house in Los Angeles on a recent Sunday afternoon, there were a few hundred people in line at Olive and James Cafe Tea, a quaint coffee shop on Melrose Avenue. By the time he pulled up, the queue stretched around the block. There isn’t a matcha or tiramisu latte in the world delectable enough to rationalize that long of a wait, but they weren’t there for the coffee. It was all for him.

Horan, who splits his time between London and L.A., teamed up with the shop in celebration of Dinner Party, his fourth studio album, out June 5. The social media invite teased merch, drinks, and “a few surprises,” but never promised that he would be in attendance. “I couldn’t say hello to everyone because I just wasn’t expecting those types of numbers,”Horan says the following morning.

At 32, he has seen fans show up for him without fail for most of his life, ever since One Direction were assembled on The X Factor in 2010. The band’s lightning-in-a-bottle success and his subsequent solo career are proof of that. But he doesn’t feel entitled to it; hundreds of people dropping everything to show up at a coffee shop he might or might not even set foot in still surprises him. “It was just a couple of free coffees,” he says.

The crowd came prepared. Some brought old J-14 posters and dolls from his 1D days. Others wore merch from his 2024 solo tour, which supported his lovestruck third full-length, The Show . “I didn’t realize how much confidence I would gain from that tour and that album,” Horan says. “It definitely settled me down.” The run included two sold-out nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden and an audience turnout of more than 1 million people in total.

“What’s even more apparent to me these days is every single person has got an individual story as to how they started listening to the music, the friends they’ve made, where they got the money to buy the ticket,” Horan says. “That stuff is blowing my mind more now than it ever did.”

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Horan has been in a more reflective state over the past few years. There’s the whirlwind romance of his current relationship, which anchors the album. He met his girlfriend at a dinner party he held about six years ago, proving that love really can just come knocking at your front door. He sounds settled and enamored across the record, even as he contends with grief following the death of his former bandmate Liam Payne in October 2024. More than anything, Dinner Party is a celebration of life and love.

Here, the Irish singer-songwriter looks back on the past fondly and looks ahead to the future with excitement, eager for more music, bigger shows, and every chance he gets to bring people together.

The first single from this album, “Dinner Party,” sets the stage for how your life has changed, in a good way, since meeting your girlfriend. What was your headspace like before that night? I was very single. The way I would look at it is, a lot of my life — well, all of my life and most of my existence — is based around my job. Those gaps that I would have in between jobs were just being at home doing nothing, chilling out, and counting down the days until I go back out on the road and do it all again. I was in my mid-twenties, just having a good time, touring, making music, doing all the things that come with it. I was free-spirited and not particularly looking for anything or anyone. And then however the world works, the opposite happened.

Whose dinner party was it? It was mine. It wasn’t much of a dinner party. To be honest, it was more Uber Eats than it was me over a stove. But a few people were over having food, and that was pretty much it, really.

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There’s this line in the song, “I’m done looking for somebody.” You always have it in your head, don’t you? You’d like the idea of settling down and doing the whole thing, but you’re also kind of doing a bit of both. You’re not thinking about it, and you are thinking about it. It’s never a switch that’s completely turned off. So I guess you’re in the waiting room, hoping that the doctor walks in.

This is your second album in a row that is deeply rooted in love and romance. How does that feel for you as a songwriter, in contrast to writing about heartbreak? It’s very different stuff to write. If I have to go into the studio and make something up, then it’s harder. Sometimes I do write observational-type music, where I look at other people’s scenarios or other people’s relationships or things I might have seen on the street. But when it comes to love or heartbreak, I find if you’re going through them, you can write about them a lot easier. These last two albums have definitely been more on the romantic side, because that’s where I’m at.

> “I always try, even in the doubtful songs, to have a happier ending.”

You do still manage to find a level of grit and conflict, even in that. There’s this awareness that something could go wrong. If it was all rosy, it wouldn’t be a great listen. All of my favorite songs have a bit of doubt to them. And if there’s no doubt, you’re lying to yourself. When I’m trying to put pen to paper, there has to be a bit of both in there for me. I always try, even in the doubtful songs, to have a happier ending. When I did “What a Time” with Julia [Michaels], I remember listening to that song for the first time and the whole thing was “What a time, what a time, what a time.” And at the very end, she went, “What a lie, what a lie, what a lie.” And I was just like, “That’s where it’s at.” I liked flipping the song on its head and making it something different. “Better Man” on this album, I did it in that. There’s a bit of bad dream and doubt, and a bit of songwriting tips and tricks.

What makes a great pop record for you? It’s all about hookiness and trying to get as many catchy bits into a song as you possibly can. The great pop records of all time have got great hooks in them, whether that be musical or a little melody thing that repeats. That’s why I’ve got so many choruses in “Dinner Party,” because I felt like it was the best part of the song.

We’re seeing bridges come back, too. Pop has really been missing them for a while. It’s great to hear them. I feel like Olivia Rodrigo has been a big influence on that for pop writers. “Red lights, stop signs …” — she does that a lot. What I like about Olivia’s music is 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 her and Dan Nigro are up to is a good little team they’ve got going there. It’s definitely influencing people, including myself.

The rock influences are here on this album, too — “Tastes So Good” is reminiscent of Blink-182. Blink, obviously, that drum sound is something that we were trying to chase, and that comes from that late-Nineties, early-2000s punk-rock era. 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.

Your tour for The Show felt like a homecoming after the album before that, Heartbreak Weather, arrived at the worst possible time, in March 2020. You and Lewis Capaldi were supposed to go on the road together, then that all faded away. I’m still getting over that. That was terrible. The album came out and we were meant to tour, and then obviously Covid happened, so that didn’t happen. I’m kind of glad it didn’t, because we would have just drank for six weeks. But, yeah, no, because that tour was missed and I hadn’t toured since 2018, there was a long gap of five or six years. The fans were ready to go [by 2024], waiting in the wings more than ever. Even having those conversations with my agents about booking tours and they were talking about arenas, I was just like, “Are you really sure about this? Because I don’t want it to be embarrassing.” It was the craziest year ever. We played to, like, 1.5 million people or something nuts like that around the world.

You went from these intimate shows at amphitheaters on the Flicker tour in 2018 to headlining Madison Square Garden. Driving down and seeing your face on the side of Madison Square Garden is pretty crazy. If I never did it again, that was a box ticked.

There were these postcards at the show with an old tweet from a fan saying you could sell out MSG. This is becoming a recurring thing, where you’re referencing things your fans say. That was the starting point for “Flowers,” too. I’m not a serial scroller. But when I do, I’ll see the odd thing that stands out. It’s like, “Niall, follow me.” “Niall, I love you.” “I hate you.” “Your eyes could grow flowers.” That’s all the tweet said. I was like, “That’s interesting.” I was sat next to Amy Allen, we were in Texas in between the two weekends of Austin City Limits. We were sat on the couch, just thinking about what we were going to do next, and that comment came up. It’s like this person is just so powerful in the small things that they do, their personality, and the way they make people feel. They’re so powerful that their eyes could grow flowers. It makes your ears perk up.

Some artists are very insular — “I don’t want to hear anything else.” But you’re the opposite of that. My first-ever singer-songwriter I heard was Paul Simon, which gave me Damien Rice. Or the first rock band I heard was the Eagles, and that gave me Bruce [Springsteen] and gave me Fleetwood [Mac]. You’re constantly just picking up new stuff. It’s nearly impossible not to these days, being around people and listening to what they’re listening to. Or going on Spotify or Apple [Music] and going through the different playlists. You can’t help but pick up different influences, whether they’re conscious or subconscious.

> “It’s all about trying to get as many catchy bits into a song as you can.”

What’s your dinner-party playlist when you’re hosting? I feel like you always have this concept of “Oh, it’s going to be chilled,” and then it ends up with everyone hammered. But that would usually start with an early Billy Joel album or O, by Damien Rice, which turns into Fleetwood Mac. And then before you know it, you’re listening to anything. To be honest, I’ll listen to most types of music. After a few drinks, whatever makes you get up and dance.

That’s essentially the premise of “Little More Time,” just wanting to be in that home space for a little longer. I still get that rush from the secon

_Originally reported by [Rolling Stone](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/niall-horan-rsi-shell-1235555667/)._