Ever since One Direction announced its hiatus in 2016, we have seen each member go off on their own as they ventured into the music industry to varying degrees of success. Louis Tomlinson was probably the dark horse out of the five-member band and, despite releasing two very solid solo albums since, he was close to quitting music after they went their separate ways.
In a trailer for his upcoming tell-all documentary All Of Those Voices, Louis confesses to feeling lost in the moments that followed One Direction’s breakup. “I thought for me it was the band or nothing,” Tomlinson says.
Albeit being the primary songwriter in the band, and the brain behind most of the lyrics audiences associate with One Direction’s music, the singer was far from its frontman, with that spot usually disputed by Harry Styles or Liam Payne. He was a core team player and arguably the backbone of the group, but, he reveals, “it was hard for me to imagine myself on my own.” “I didn’t see a way back. Not even musically, just to do anything,” he added.
Tomlinson started singing well before auditioning for The X Factor. After failing to progress in 2009, the now award-winning artist tried again in 2010, at 18, winding up paired with Styles, Payne, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik. The band went on to become one of the biggest acts of the early 2010s, and a tough act to follow.
It took a while for Tomlinson to find his footing, from experimenting with different genres in his early solo singles “Back to You” and “Just Hold On,” to making television appearances as a victorious X Factor judge. Finally, in 2019, he released his debut album Walls, whose sonority was entirely its own thing, unconcerned with trends, and instead inspired by the Britpop on which Tomlinson was raised. A world tour and a second album, Faith in the Future, followed.
Whatever soul-searching Tomlinson had to do post-1D, it definitely paid off. The musician is arguably the most self-assured ex-member of the band, musically and artistically, carving out a place in a scene that’s neither interested in charts nor records, but the music itself.
All Of Those Voices, exclusively in theaters for three days — 22, 25 and 26 March – will offer a glimpse into the hazy world of post-global phenom and detail Tomlinson’s journey to finding an identity as a solo artist, even as he battled personal tragedy.
