HOW HARRY STYLES OVERHAULED HIS LIFE IN ROME AND BERLIN TO RETURN WITH A DANCE ALBUM
It’s been nearly three years since he last toured in Summer 2023, and a lot has happened for Harry Styles, even though he’s been taking a break. The singer moved into his Thirties, relocated to Rome to reassess life and at the end of 2024 also had to cope with the death of Liam Payne having toured the world with him whilst in One Direction.
So it is understandable he might see his fourth solo album, Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally?, as a new beginning in lots of ways and perhaps the break has left him feeling content.
He says: “I think the end of the last tour felt like such an end of a chapter to me. It was just like a time for me to look at the way that I'd done everything. I'd always toured that way, just as much as possible. And I think it was kind of the only way that I'd ever done it. And I thought that's what it would always be.
“And this time I was turning 30 and I wanted to take a break and assess, I think. I didn't want to just roll straight into another process of making something and I thought it was time to just honestly like make sure I still loved it in a lot of ways and it's funny because I was obviously really lucky to be able to stop for a second and kind of do that, but it's a good thing to have moments where you've done something for a long time to kind of stop and check in with yourself about, do I do this because this is what I've been doing for a long time, or do I do this because I really love it? I don't think that's about being ungrateful because it's so obviously amazing.”
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Those who have met Harry, now 32, will know he would struggle to appear ungrateful if he tried, being known for his polite and considerate personality. He was always the most thoughtful member of One Direction speaking to journalists, even from a young age.
Since winning X Factor in 2010 he toured the world a few times in a global boy band sensation, then released three albums in five years in a solo career that began in 2017 and continued his huge success. The third LP Harry's House, won album of the year at both the Grammys and the Brit Awards after coming out in 2022 and he played huge sell out shows too.
But rather than continue on the touring treadmill, Harry perhaps rightly realised he needed to rest and reflect if he was to continue being in love with music for decades to come. Having enjoyed time in Italy previously, he returned there and found an appreciation for the simpler side of life.
Speaking on Apple Music, he told The Zane Lowe: “It just was a place that, for me, I was able to slow down for the first time. Sitting down to have a coffee doesn't mean I was sitting down to have a coffee all day. I was doing other things also. To me, it wasn't about the coffee. It wasn't about the thing. It was about the appreciation that is in the way of life there of like how special they treat food, how special they treat their relationships with each other, how special they treat time that is spent together. So, ultimately, I think it comes back to appreciating the love around you and the time you have.”
The other thing he tells Zane he has had to contemplate has been the death of close friend Liam Payne. Liam died in October 2024 after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires in Argentina. Harry admits he struggled to speak about it publicly in the aftermath, aware that so much would be written about his comments or reactions.
He describes Liam as a “super special person” and what happened was “really sad”.
Looking back now he adds: “It's so difficult to lose a friend. It's difficult to lose any friend, but it's so difficult to lose a friend who is so like you in so many ways.
“It's like, I saw someone with the kindest heart who just wanted to be great. It was a really important moment for me in terms of taking a look at my life and being able to say to myself, ‘OK, what do I want to do with my life? How do I want to live my life?’ And I think the greatest way you can honor your friends who pass away is by living your life to the fullest.”
Harry was ready to get back to work after resting in Rome, and also wanted to party it seems, and so the obvious place to make his new album was Berlin.
Inspired by the likes of LCD Soundsystem who he has watched live several times, Harry’s new album is filled with drum beats and dance music with big basslines.
He has spoken of recording songs like euphoric opening track Aperture after little sleep, having been out the night before in clubs, enjoying the community vibe of the venues and also presumably the relative anonymity he could enjoy there.
It was also whilst in Berlin he got his appetite back to tour again. He says he loves the idea of performing his new album which he feels the urge to dance to, and so the stage each night of his sell out shows will remind him of his nights out in Berlin whilst he is on the road.
Pinpointing a particular moment he was inspired to tour again, he explains: “I think dancing in Berlin. I went to see Radiohead in Berlin, and felt like so part of the audience in a way that I felt like I had a very clear moment of like, this is why I get on stage because like I'm watching this and like feeling everything that's happening around me in the crowd.
“There's people picking up each other's things and people are bringing each other things. It's this sense of strangers looking at each other and massaging each other's shoulders when someone's emotional and looking into the eyes of a stranger and screaming out a chorus together. I think for me, I had a moment of like, 'I'm there so that people can have this.' You know? I'm soundtracking this.”
Looking even further ahead, Harry says the track American Girls on the new album is inspired by watching three of his closest friends get married. He is envious of how they have "risked something to find something truly fulfilling".
It has also made him sure that he hopes to settle down himself one day, but perhaps not until he has finished his huge new tour and is perhaps a few years down the line for him.
He says: "It's like being truly vulnerable with someone, like sharing a life with someone like that.... what are really the things that I want in my life?
"If you're like touring all the time and you're doing this all the time and all these things, there's no space to really choose. I think I had a real honest conversation with myself about, okay, in five years, what do I want my life to look like? And then how do I make changes to aim at that?
"I don't want to be the guy who's on his own but was like, oh, I really did it. I want to be fulfilled and I want to be in great relationships with people. I want to have great friendships with people. I want a family. I want these things. It just allowed me to go like, okay, what do I have to do to create space to allow these things to happen? I can't just expect them to just happen to me."
* Harry spoke to The Zane Lowe Show on Apple Music which is out now. Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally? Is out on Friday.
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2026-03-04T18:43:31Z