28/03/2026

LYFE SATURDAY | MAR 28, 2026

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B RITISH singer-songwriter Harry Styles shared with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe the stories and inspiration that led to his fourth studio album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally . Styles also opened up about meaning and creating candidly. On the meaning and creation of opening track Aperture Styles: I was 16 when we started, which now feels like quite a long time ago. Being able to just acknowledge, when I’ve been at fault for things has freed (me and) also my writing in such a way – because it’s a different thing to explore in terms of the conversation you’re having with yourself. I look at the past albums now where I was like, “Oh, this line is like super vulnerable.” So to me, it’s why I think Aperture felt like a perfect start to me, because Aperture was about the moment of realising, like, “no, I was in the wrong for something.” You can move forward when you acknowledge the things that you don’t know and therefore, give yourself the space to let light come in. That is what that song is about. We didn’t sleep that much. Yeah, that was Berlin. It was towards the end of the sessions. Tom making the track, and it being that energy-wise was because I think I had been out the night before, was in the other room writing sad songs and feeling down. And he was like, I have to get the energy up or we’re toast. Then I came back in the room and he had the modular stuff going. And then we were kind of just spent a bit. So, it just came from this like, “Okay, I’m too tired to pretend I want to write about this thing. I don’t want to make up a story. I don’t want to write this thing. I don’t want to make it super this. Just kind of like, this is how in my feelings I am.” And it ended up being the freest song on the record. It’s long and playful. When we had that song, I think it was the last thing I felt like hadn’t quite said yet. So when we got that one, it was like, “Oh, the record’s like pretty close.” About making music for himself with this album Styles: Selfishly for me, I want to enjoy it the most. The record for me is about “How do I still have my experience while I’m playing it?” – And that was what making the record was about for me. It was like, “What music do I have to make for me to be on stage feeling like I’m in the middle of the dance floor? And it’s not like I was in the

Making of Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally

o Harry Styles shares stories, inspiration of fourth studio album candidly

that period about what is okay for me to decide for myself, I think as well, that it’s okay to (be) like, “No, I feel like I know this person enough. I can make my own judgment call.” And everything I learnt through those interactions of learning when it was right to say yes – learning when it was okay for me to say no – has just led to so many wonderful things in my life. It has changed the way I’m experiencing the life I’m living in a grand way that this album is a wonderful byproduct of that because I was recording while all this was happening but I think also just being in a place in my life where I’m like, “If I put this album out and everyone decided they hated it. Would I be sensitive about it? Yes, I would. Would it make me doubt who I know myself to be as a person? No, it wouldn’t.” On the woman behind the last track of Carla’s Song Styles: I will include in that group of friends that if I hadn’t said “Yes to this thing, I wouldn’t have met this person.” Carla became, in so many ways, the most important part of the record to me. It’s a song that answered so many questions. All of that questioning of why and who do I want to be and what am I giving by doing this, making sure I love this enough and being at a show. I think having a moment of reminding you of a time when you heard a song for the first time that made you want to touch music in some way. Carla is a friend of mine (and) we were at a friend’s house, waiting to go to this after party. She mentioned she’d just discovered Paul Simon. She said, “I was feeling kind of down, so I was listening to...” She was listening to Norah Jones, and it was on a playlist. She was obsessed with 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover , and she was listening to it over and over again. So she was kind of asking everyone, “Oh, have you heard Paul Simon?” We were like, “Yeah, he’s amazing.” So I said, “Oh, you’ve never heard Simon and Garfunkel?” And I grew up listening to Simon and Garfunkel all the time. When I lived in a pub a little bit when I was younger, there was a four CD changer that I think Bridge Over Troubled Water record was in the whole time I lived there. I said, “Oh I really want to play you something.” So I played her Bridge Over Troubled Water and watched her listen to it, having never heard that song, felt like I

dance floor.” But now I’ve made it, I have to separate my life again. And now I’m just going to kind of deliver the sermon, if you will. But it’s like, “No, I love this music too. I want to dance to it.” And I think that’s the difference. On finding himself through new experiences, which led to inspiration for the new album Styles: It was about meeting some people, whatever level of trust to just spend time with someone and saying yes to things. I remember someone saying, “Do you want to come with us?” And I was like, “Yeah!” And they were like, “Oh.” So, I think trusting people and being rewarded for that by meeting some great people and learning a lot through them. At all different levels, there’s been such a thread in the last couple of years for me of reconnecting with someone who invited me to something that I always would have said no to. Going to that, meeting two friends there that I wouldn’t have met if I hadn’t gone there, that leading to all these other things, going back, having these experience with this group of people, learning so much from a group of people that I didn’t know six months before. Everything you imagine about friendship and relationships – and honesty and being around friends who are really dedicated to honesty in a way that is terrifying if you’re not. Being in friendships and watching people be in relationship to each other and people be like, “This is the most honest version of who I am. Is that okay? And being like, yeah, it is. And then, all right, so why wouldn’t it be okay for you to be that version of yourself?” So being in a group of new people, I just learned so much in

Styles says Aperture felt like a perfect start for his new album. – ALL P I C S F ROM A PP LE MUSI C / THE ZANE LOWE SHOW

was just watching someone see or discover magic. There was something in that moment that reminded me of what you’re investing in (by making music), and it’s songs that go so beyond our lifetime. Acknowledging that making music is just adding something to this world of things that is waiting for people to discover is the point – that is what the joy is and I then played Kathy’s Song , which is just another one of my favorite Simon Garfunkel songs, which is why it’s called Carla’s Song – but the ability to be able to add something like maybe someone hears a song of yours and goes, “This song’s going to be in my life forever.” That is kind of it. Like, that is enough. I don’t ask for any more than that. I think the idea of, I know what you like. You can hear it any time – and it’s all waiting there for you. This will be here after, like, when I’m not here. These songs will exist. About track American Girls and how he plans to settle down and start a family Styles: The song to me is quite a lonely song in a lot of ways. I watched my three closest friends get married. Seeing them trust in something and risk something to find something (is) truly fulfiling, in a way that isn’t as shiny and on paper as exciting as watching them get married. I’m single, so I’m having all the fun. American Girls is about watching them get married and there just is a magic when you find the right person that you want to be with. But I think watching them do that. It’s being truly vulnerable with someone, sharing a life with someone like that. Having the time to stop and assess all of it – and really look at my life from a bird’s eye view and go, “What do I actually want in my life?” Like, I

have all these things around me all the time. It’s hard to pull those things in without making space for them. So if I stop everything, then I get to decide what I want to bring back in. Like what are the things that I want in my life? If you’re touring all the time and you’re doing this all the time and all these things, there’s no space to really choose. 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.” On his upcoming tour Styles: A lot of the thinking behind it for me is about, “I think it makes the show better.” You can build something that doesn’t have to travel every night. The show itself is better. There’s something in this that allows me to like stay in my life while I’m doing it. And therefore, I think allows me to take care of myself better, which makes me better at doing the thing. It’s not like I’m saying I’ll never travel again, but I want to see what it looks like if you do it a different way. People in my band have families now and kids – and some aspect of that too. It’s really important to me that they’re on the road, that I would love to have them. I don’t want to make it like near impossible for them to be able to come do that with me.

Styles says the new album is selfishly for him.