Niall Horan is about to release his fourth album, and he's already excited about making the next one. Before he even wrapped up his 2024 tour, he was thinking about what his next would look like. It's easy to assume, then, that before One Direction called it a day (sorry, an 'indefinite hiatus') in 2016, he was thinking about what his own material might sound like.
Ten years on from the release of his debut solo single 'This Town' and Niall has stuck to his guns with the intensity of a fly to a generously iced bun. From the start, he did whatever came naturally; for Niall, it was pretty much set in stone that he'd be the guy with a guitar. Now, a few albums later, he's carved out a career for himself that has not only outlasted the one that flung him into the limelight but has solidified his place in modern pop.
But if Niall's million-miles-per-hour career beginnings have taught him anything, it's to slow down. 'Dinner Party' meets the star at a point where he's entering his thirties, settling into routine (hardly an average one, mind you) and taking more chances musically.
We meet Niall in the middle of a very hectic day. He dials in from London (where he spends half of his time, the other half is spent in Los Angeles) amidst preparations for Radio 1's Big Weekend in Sunderland, his first live show back since wrapping up his tour for 'The Show' in South America almost two years ago.
"After the tour, I just needed to step away for a little bit and live some of my life," he says. "For this album, I think my personal relationship plays a big part in it, and everything that comes with that. There's a bit of everything, from nostalgia to excitement for the future and for being in the present. And love, and loss, and fear of losing that person or fear of losing anyone."
He's almost astonishingly down to earth, with the same Irish charm that won over nations when he was a teenager, doubled down on by his admission that releasing an album has never stopped being a nerve-wracking process. But with his last full-length, Niall also took the leap towards his first solo arena circuit and wound up with enough inspiration to fill the next album.
"I've always wanted to make the most sonically live-sounding thing I possibly could," he says. "I feel like the world is kind of heading that way a little bit more. What we're listening to in pop music is definitely sounding more live these days, so I've been waiting in the wings for that to happen so I can make it. We didn't really try to complicate the recordings. There's mainly just acoustic guitar, a couple of electric guitar parts, a synth part or a keys part, and drums and bass, and we kept it pretty straightforward. I think that leans into things I love, like Britpop, you know, Oasis, Blur, then like Radiohead, especially from a melodic standpoint. I tried to try to copy Thom Yorke subconsciously; his cadence for his melodies is always something that I've been interested in."
"I needed to step away for a little bit and live some of my life"
— Niall Horan
He brought that vision to life with the help of two long-time collaborators, John Ryan and Julian Bunetta, the songwriting duo who broke through in tandem with One Direction after penning some of their early hits in the 2010s, and have since gone on to hit big with Sabrina Carpenter's 'Short n' Sweet' and Teddy Swims' 'I've Tried Everything But Therapy'. But it wasn't a hit that the trio were chasing with 'Dinner Party'; for Niall, there simply wasn't anyone else he'd want to do it with.
Maybe John and Julian knew they'd be in for the next album before it even took shape, because they immersed themselves in Niall's world during the tour for 'The Show', spending a week on the bus with him and watching the performances across different parts of America, in indoor and outdoor venues, seeing what makes the fans tick. They knew the live experience was important to Niall and worked to capture it on the record.
"I've definitely done that phase of going around the houses and writing with the next big songwriter at the time," Niall explains. "I've tried that, but it is a tough thing to go in and tell your life story to someone that you don't know, and that doesn't necessarily get any easier. The two boys, they just know me really well. I've known them since I was 17. I've made most of the songs that I've ever made with them, and we have a similar taste in music, so we get how it should sound. All of us are always on the same page, and they push me in a way that, because they know me, I wouldn't necessarily push myself if they weren't there. As far as producers of the world go, they definitely are project people. Anything that they've done has been project-based, whether it be us or myself or Sabrina or Teddy Swims; they work with the artist and try to be a part of the evolution, which is really important for me. It's beyond the producer artist relationship; it's much better than that. It's not just me that's doing this. I stand up there and play the songs, but they're as much of a part of it as I am."
The way he talks about them is actually reminiscent of the way Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich talk about one another, with Nigel describing his twenty-plus-year relationship with Radiohead and the members' subsequent projects as more familial than work. With the band serving as a massive inspiration for the album, on 'Dinner Party', Niall shoots for big retro alternative rock, filtered through the lens of his pop star sensibilities: big Britpop choruses and breezy 90s guitar lines alongside pluckier, folkier 70s melodies.
Read the full interview in the July 2026 issue of Dork. Niall Horan's album 'Dinner Party' is out 5th June.
