Payne noted, "My style and my fashion sense are all quite laid back now because that's kind of the way I am as well. I don't feel the need to hide behind the clothes anymore. I feel I can finally be who I am and enjoy myself."

As he explained to the magazine, One Direction's sound wasn't the best fit, either. "When we did the band stuff it was very—not exactly scripted—but let's just say you kind of knew your audience very well," he said. "We'd usually sell a tour out before we'd even done an album. And then they [the record producers] would go: 'Right, you're doing stadiums.' And then you'd go: 'Okay, so we need longer choruses—the kind of songs that people can chant in a stadium.' You had to kind of write around the tour."

As Payne acknowledged to the magazine, "It's a very backwards way to do it...Obviously people don't really tend to write like that. But we just had no time, so it was like: 'Quick! We need another hit and another and another!' It was actually easier to write in that scenario because there were so many hoops you had to jump through."

With that came a confession: "It wouldn't necessarily be my choice of music now—it wasn't something that I would listen to—but I just knew how to make it, if that makes sense?"