Since the breakup of One Direction in 2016, Louis Tomlinson has taken four years to release his first solo album, Walls. Four more serve for the second Faith in the Future. This year comes the third. It will be released on January 23rd How Did I Get Here?the project that, without hesitation, Tomlinson defines as the most personal and authentic. It is a record with which the singer wanted to embrace his more shamelessly pop and carefree side. The one in which, in the end and most of all, he recognizes himself.
If at first he wanted to prove that he was something other than what he did with the band, today Louis is not afraid to admit that cheerful pop is the music he likes to make. Despite its hot orange cover and the first singles released, Lemonade And Palaceswhich focus on the sighs of romantic love, How Did I Get Here? is not without some pressing reflections. Among these: the constant doubt about one's abilities and successes, the effort to wear one's scars with pride, the need for lightness.
When I meet him on a late November morning, he is wearing a chenille tracksuit and is busy at the coffee machine. He politely asks me if I want one and I make a joke about the excellent quality of Italian espresso. He sits seraphic on a small armchair and begins to tell me the genesis of the album, which took shape in the English countryside, before being refined in sunny Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. There, together with his team and, in particular, co-producer Nico Rebscher, he spent three weeks writing and recording, in search of a form of authentic lightheartedness.
He explains: “Most of the trips I've taken have been for work, so I've never had much time to actually spend in each place. It was really nice to be able to do that in Costa Rica. The town where we were staying, Santa Teresa, is a surfer's place: it was small enough for me to find my way around in three or four days, so after a couple of weeks it felt familiar, and it was really nice. It was a hybrid place, away from home, with the kind of freedom that makes you want to record an album.” Obviously, Costa Rican culture contributed: «I went to buy milk and people replied: “Pura vida”. It is more than a motto, it is a constant reminder of an enchanting and sweet way of life.” Louis describes it as a “liberating” experience and tells me for the first time (of many) how much he worked for it How Did I Get Here? absorbed some of this lightness and sounded like “a record full of hope, happier and more joyful”.
Is this how he actually feels, or did he have to prove something to his fans? He replies that «obviously at the beginning of your career it is normal to try to impress more and think more about the public's opinion. But, as a huge music fan, I love when my favorite artists do what they love, it's a contagious and inspiring feeling. And the same goes for me and my fans, I think authenticity rewards.”
The uptempo pop frame is therefore authentic, as are the reflections that emerge here and there in the lyrics – sometimes loving, often self-reflective. In PalacesTomlinson gives what could be the key to understanding the whole album, singing “There's beauty in the scars tonight” (in scars instead of in stars). «It's something I tell myself. I have a pretty big scar on my arm that I'm proud of,” he says, referring to the fall in November 2022 after the concert for Faith in the Future in New York, due to which he broke his left arm and had to be operated on. «I was thrilled by the success of the album», he adds, laughing. Then, becoming serious again, he talks about his city of origin, Doncaster: «It's a sentence also written about Doncaster, the place where I come from. Because in these places we wear our scars with pride, and I think there's something beautiful about that.” Defined by CNN as “one of the most economically disadvantaged areas in the United Kingdom”, Doncaster has a crime rate above the Yorkshire average and an increasingly high cost of living: growing up in that city could actually leave you with some scars.
Perhaps also due to the place he comes from, Louis Tomlinson is not always able to fully recognize the goals achieved in his career which, at the age of 34, has been active for 15 years. He speaks about it openly in Impostorwhat is perhaps the most analytical track of How Did I Get Here?: «Honestly, I don't think I'll ever stop feeling this way. I think people can feel like they're impostors in any job they do, but when you have a profession that's different from the ordinary, it's almost inevitable. Mainly because I didn't grow up learning music, so this wasn't the life I thought I would have. It was a combination of hard work and love that brought me here. So it's easy to have impostor syndrome. But I'm fine, in a certain sense it seems to me that this makes me more ambitious, it pushes me to move forward.”
Somehow too Polishedthe final track of the album, as well as the one containing the phrase that gives the album its title, takes up these sensations. Regarding the song and that endlessly repeated question, “How did I get here?”, Tomlinson explains: «Polished it had already been written a year before I realized the title was in there. I had listened to it so many times, and then suddenly that sentence in the middle really hit me. I thought it was the perfect title for the record. And for me it's more of a statement than a question. It's more a sense of amazement at the situation.”
It's the emotion that overcomes him when he sees the arms moving to the rhythm and the audience miming the words of the songs: «I imagine myself in one of those incredible concert halls where I will be next year, and I look around with my fans, thinking: how the hell did we get here?». Speaking of live, the tour will start in March 2026 which will touch North America and Europe, including two dates in Italy (9 April in Bologna and 10 April Milan). At a time when more and more artists are opening up about the grueling pace of touring, I ask Louis if he's found a way to better experience this endeavor: “I actually think it's not something I've ever struggled with too much because for me it's all the other aspects of working as an artist that are much more difficult mentally. Maybe physically the tour is more tiring, but mentally not. For me it's the reward, it's the reason I do what I do. The sensations you feel on stage are incredible. Don't get me wrong, eventually you're exhausted. But it's also exciting. Performing is this amazing thing that you look forward to every night. It's both exhausting and a source of energy.”
With How Did I Get Here? Louis Tomlinson really feels he's rendered a lucid portrait of who he is today: in his mid-30s, with a peculiar career path and several personal scars to bear. Yet, an immense desire to rediscover lightness. For the first time, he says, he made a record completely for himself and not to prove something to others: «I didn't let myself be limited by the expectations I had imposed on myself. Ever since I left One Direction I've always wanted to prove who I am as a musician, to myself and to others. But this time I think I simply put the music first, without thinking too much about outside opinions. I tried to make the happiest record possible.”
