Zane Lowe has been called “Pop’s Unofficial Therapist” by the New York Times, and his recent Apple Music Interview with Harry Styles solidifies that status.
The Apple Music DJ’s interview series has profiled all the biggest names in pop music. The Zane Lowe Interview features a number of intimate questions and is a prime example of the best of Apple Services — the giant’s entertainment hub for streaming and organic content. From Apple Care, Apple Card, to Apple One, Apple Services helps you get the most out of your beloved devices with high‑quality content and services. Award‑winning series and films, amazing music in spatial audio, world-class workouts and meditations, trusted news publications, superfun games — even the ways you pay for things. Like Zane Lowe’s revealing show, they’re only on Apple.
In anticipation of Harry’s third album Harry’s House, Lowe recently sat down with the heartthrob for an emotionally generous interview about life, love, and music. A huge part of Lowe’s magic is that his Apple Music show is not just another stop on the press tour. One of the crown jewels in Apple Services’ organic content, the Lowe interview doesn’t merely promote a pop album — it grants an entirely fresh perspective on a pop artist and their deepest thoughts.
Paramore’s frontwoman, Hayley Williams, has been a guest on the show, telling the New York Times, “Never once have I felt like I was selling myself or even selling an album while doing a promo with Zane … Thank God for that. There’s genuine curiosity in his voice, and the allowance for vulnerability means that nobody has to walk away feeling misrepresented.”
The NYT suggest that this is because of Zane’s very real connection to music and mental health. “Since 2014, when Lowe, now 46, was recruited from London and the BBC to join Apple in California, he has emerged as a trusted figure — a hyped-up fan stand-in who artists also view as a peer and a pleasure to talk to. But over the past year, Lowe’s role has shifted. His conversations started veering into how the creative process intersects with mental illness or emotional stability, and he leaned into it, using himself as an example: He has anxiety, he will freely tell you, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, revealing his own struggles helped others open up. Now that everyone wants to talk about their mental state, Lowe is primed to coax unusual realness out of locked-off megastars.”
It's no surprise then that his interview with Styles is as riveting and revealing as ever.
Harry donned a pale green, mohair sweater with the brick-colored outline of a house stitched on it — a reference to his album which was released on May 20th. He spoke thoughtfully about everything, the discussion so personal we feel like a fly on the wall listening in on a conversation between old friends. Styles — who has been touring as well as acting in upcoming films Don’t Worry Darling and My Policeman — looks totally relaxed. It seems he slipped into an American accent on certain words — a sign of his new life in LA and his acting ventures, perhaps?
Everything’s totally genuine and unguarded in this must-watch interview. Styles — an Aquarian (known for being withholding and abstract) — is charming and open about some parts of his life. However, certain topics have been off-limits — particularly his time as a member of One Direction. Leave it to Lowe to ferret out fresh insights into the crooner’s formative years.
“I think there is very much a respect between all of us,” he says of his former bandmates. “And that is something that you can’t really undo. And you know, it’s like a very deep love for each other.” He’s grateful for the group, which included Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson. He couldn’t have faced that time without them, he thinks. “I look at people who kind of went through some version of what we went through but on their own. I’m like, I can’t imagine having done that, really… I feel really lucky that we always had each other to be this unit that felt like you could keep each other in check and you could just have someone else who gets it.”
Lowe didn’t waste time with the usual fascinations and speculations about One Direction. Instead, he let Harry talk about how he felt at that point in his life. And despite the support and the love, the answer is he felt lonely sometimes. “I think everyone experiences this, feel[ing] like, ‘Oh, everyone else is on the other side of the glass and I’m on this side of the glass, and no one really gets it.’”
He also brought up being a former boyband star but no longer being a “boy.” Growing up in the spotlight is tough, but what happens when you outgrow it? The solution to that existential crisis emerged in the way we all deal with our melancholy: listening to Billie Eilish. A fan of the young singer, Styles said that watching her go through what he went through — being a star so young — made him realize that he wasn’t that age anymore. And — for the first time ever — he felt great agency — thanks to Billie.
“I think being in the band, I’d always felt like we were really young… And I had a moment seeing [Billie] do this at such a young age where I felt like, ‘I’m not that young anymore.’ And for a while it was, how do you play that game of remaining exciting? … This is so unbelievably liberating to go, ‘I just want to make good music.’ That’s it. That’s what I want to do. And everything else is what it will be. And that’s kind of it.”
And that’s the mindset he made Harry’s House with. “Putting out the first single from this album was far and away the most relaxed I’ve ever felt putting anything out… I no longer feel like my overall happiness is dependent on whether a song goes here or goes here.”
Overall, it was a whimsical process that came together almost by accident. “I was kind of like, ‘It’d be really fun to make an album called Harry’s House,’ and thought about it being this smaller thing. And then it was back to that thing of, ‘Maybe that’s an album I’ll make in four years or five years or whatever.’ And as I started making the album, I realized it wasn’t about the geographical location. It’s much more of an internal thing.”
Listen to Harry's House Now
Harry revealed that this album will sound “more electronic in a lot of places than anything I’ve made, it’s also so much more intimate to me. And so much more intimately made.”
As you listen to Harry’s House, be sure to check out the unbelievable interview with Zane Lowe for a layer of depth that will add a real realness to your listening experience. Thanks to Apple Services, you can watch this interview and further Zane Lowe features as well as other exciting hosts’ content from music exclusives to video and entertainment.
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