Harry Styles wanted to pay tribute to his One Direction past during his debut solo tour.
The 23-year-old singer has included new versions of the band’s debut single ‘What Makes You Beautiful’, along with album track ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, on his setlist and his music director and producer Tom Hull, who is known as Kid Harpoon, revealed it was important to Harry to acknowledge 1D in his performances.
He told Rolling Stone: "At first, he was definitely cautiously up for it. I feel like those [One Direction] songs are brilliantly written songs, and obviously it was a moment where we had a conversation. Beyoncé does Destiny’s Child songs, so we were like ‘Let’s do some of the songs that people will all know and everyone will love.’
"We all have so much respect for what put him here. It’s an important part of it. You can’t underestimate his fans."
And Hull admitted that being able to draw on Harry’s previous music has also been helpful as there are only 10 songs on his first solo album, ‘Harry Styles’.
He explained: "When the Strokes first came out, their album was 35 minutes long and they had to do Talking Heads songs to fill out the set. It’s quite good to be able to do [Harry’s] record and have other songs in the set because he’s written so much music with [and outside of] One Direction. We’re presenting it in a way that sort of reflects the record and where he’s at now, which feels unique to Harry."
However, despite his love for One Direction, Harry has been enjoying the chance to explore his own music tastes as a solo artist.
Hull added: "That was the hard thing, I think, in [One Direction] before. You’ve got a bunch of lads who all have different tastes in music and have their own personalities. Obviously it’s clear they’ve all done something different [as solo artists]."
Harry Styles’ One Direction tribute
