#m:quote

[dingyuxi]

THE FIRST FROST 难哄 (2025) @userdramas event 24: passage of time — sang yan x wen yifan

[actualhumansunshine]

SiriusXM: What are you listening to these days? Niall: To be honest, I've spent so much time in the UK, it’s quite UK centric at the moment. SiriusXM: Tell us! Niall: This morning I was listening to... There's a UK singer-songwriter, she just won the UK Rising Star award at the BRITs. Her name is Holly Humberstone, and she is... She's the real deal. Just her and a guitar, she's incredible. She's got this sweet little voice. Um, what else... Sam Fender, who is like a... kinda remake Bruce Springsteen. He'd be a good part of our crew, myself and Lewis, and he's amazing. His voice is insane and very unique. Um, what else have I been listening to... SiriusXM: What Top40 artists, like that we play on Hits1? Niall: Oof! Listen to a lot of Lorde. Been listening to her latest record. Joel worked with Lorde, Joel Little, he produced her first album. Did Royals and all that kinda stuff, so I've been listening to a lot of that lately, just through association and, oh my god, that album was unbelievable. Um... Olivia Rodrigo, she's just incredible. It's just scary to me that she's that young and that gifted of a songwriter. Like, I didn't have a clue... SiriusXM: Do you have any advice for someone that young that's coming up in this? Niall: I mean, keep your head on your shoulders and keep the same crew around. You know, just like... Things are gonna change for her, so just go back into your bedroom or wherever you sat and wrote Driver's License and Good 4 U and all of those and just write from the same place with the same people. Don't change it up too much

[actualhumansunshine]

Yep, of course! I'll never leave that. Yeah, Joel [Little] and John Ryan and them, they're just kind of taking, like, a good overview and exec producing it, so it's gonna be fun. I feel like previously, I've just went out and written songs and never really thought about how they would sound and kind of... never really created any cohesion. So I think this time I wanted to be a bit more mature about it and actually think about it.

Niall on NH3 for SiriusXM | 11.02 - Are you working with the same camp? Julian Bunetta and that whole crew?

[actualhumansunshine]

I found it hard at the start because everyone was trying to be creative. Every time you looked online, someone was baking, someone was painting, someone was doing, like- It was very like, 'Oh, we have loads of time now, we must create!' and I was like, 'Jesus!', so I just kind of did nothing for about 6 months, to be honest. Cause I'd just written an album and had just released it, so I was like, 'I'm done with the writing thing for a while.' But then I found it really good. What I've noticed off the back of it and having been in the studio writing my own stuff is that conceptually, it's been really good. You have more time with your own thoughts. You have more time to actually think, like, 'How to I story-tell here?' Cause the best part and the easiest part about songwriting is if you walk into a room and you know exactly what you want to say before you've even walked into the room, you take hours off it. Like, Anne Marie straight away was like, 'I'll be honest, I'm alright with me', and that sums up her whole album, because her album's called Therapy, so she's been doing therapy. And if you're able to say in the opening line of a song, 'I'll be honest, I'm alright with me', you know you've done alright. So conceptually, it's a good place to be in!

Niall on whether the pandemic was a help or a hindrance for creativity on RTE 2FM Breakfast | 02.06

[actualhumansunshine]

Niall: We haven’t really decided if we’re putting out [the second song they wrote]. The conversations are kind of happening in interviews, we’ve found these days. People go, “Are you putting them out?” and we kind of look at each other and go, “Are we?” [Laughs] We’ll see. But yeah, we really like it. It’s a completely different vibe.

Anne Marie: Very different! We recorded it at the same time. So, like, for example- on Our Song, I’d go up on the mic, record my verse, vice versa, I’d sit down, Niall would get up, record his verse. But on this song, we both stood at the microphone and recorded it live with each other, both at the same time, and I’ve never experienced anything like it. It was brilliant.

Niall: It makes the vocal sound fun! Like, when you hear it, it sounds like we’re having fun, and that’s the reason we did it. We set up two microphones, kinda like they used to do in the old days. I used to see videos of Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks singing and they would be just, like, a couple feet away from each other, and that’s what we did for this. And it’s kind of like a.... How would you describe it? Kinda guitar-driven, Tom Petty meets Kate Perry meets....[shrug] I don’t know! [laughs]

—Niall and Anne Marie on the second song they wrote together, MYX Phillippines | 14.06

[actualhumansunshine]

It's been a go-to on this. I've been playing a lot of shaker to keep tempo.

Niall on his recent Instagram post for SiriusXM | 11.02

[actualhumansunshine]

The song that has resonated with me throughout this is a song called Dear Patience, which is from my new album. If there's one thing I learned about myself this year, it's that I'm a lot more patient than I thought I was. You know me, I'm quite the Duracell Bunny, and I've learned to be patient this year. And I think that could be said for quite a lot of people!

Niall for RTE 2FM | 14.10

[actualhumansunshine]

I'd definitely make music with Niall Horan, yeah. Definitely, if the time came... I mean, I guess it technically did. We did a little song during lockdown where he said he had an idea and it needed a chorus, and so I wrote a chorus and sent it back to him on Whatsapp and [laughs]. And....yeah, so that exists! But who knows. It may never see the light of day, do you know what I mean?

dermot kennedy on instagram live | 23.03