Niall Horan strolls into the lobby of a London hotel wearing a sweatshirt advertising the Eagles European Tour 1996. It turns out this is not just some retro affectation. The former boy band star is a bit of an old rocker at heart. “I actually saw this tour,” the 26-year-old Irishman proudly explains. “It was my first show of all time, in Dublin, with my dad.” Horan would have been three years old.

“Don Henley is the main man, he’s my all-time songwriting hero.” These days, Horan has Henley on speed dial. “It’s mad. I send him my songs, to get his view. He’s quite a blunt man, for better or worse. But I love the honesty. There’s a lot of a--e-licking yes men in this business. Don still has that small‑town Texan thing. He tells you what he thinks.”

Horan is small (5ft 7in), gregarious and friendly, with a strong Irish accent. “There’s a humble side to being Irish that is quite appealing. Of course, a humble person wouldn’t say that! But I don’t see myself as a superstar or anything like that.”

He grew up in Mullingar, in County Westmeath. All he ever wanted to be was a musician. “I was the family show-off. I led the school choir. I was in garage bands playing Arctic Monkeys songs or playing acoustic guitar around pubs.” He was frustrated by his small town environment. “Dublin was an hour away, but it feels years away when you’ve got no money and you’re just walking to school in the rain, playing guitar, doing homework, going to bed to get up and do the same thing again.” He was 16 when his teacher filled out his application for The X Factor. He wound up in One Direction; the rest is history.