I listen to a lot of Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears - the songs just stick in your head and that's what I want to achieve with my music.
Instead of the Beatles and the Stones, my mum and dad were listening to Michael Jackson, Barry White.
The focus is on melody: If you get it right, and it connects to the mass audience, it doesn't matter if it's a studio album or played on the dance floor.
The adrenaline is like nothing else. You might be tired or whatever else, but when you get on that stage and see people reacting there's nothing like it. It's a bit god-like - that feeling that nothing can feel better.
The 'I Wanna Dance' hook actually came to me when I was in bed and just in that lucid moment between consciousness and sleep... I jumped out of bed and recorded a voice note of the vocal hook and I went into the studio the next day fully inspired.
People like Little Mix... they've got a big lot of choreography that they need to do so it's difficult to sing and dance at the same time. I think if they've got to do a big performance with loads of visuals behind, they need to possibly mime at some point.
A turntable is the classic DJ's weapon for playing vinyl, but the mixer is the device that actually allows you to blend multiple tracks together to create a mix.
A mixer for me needs to have some sort of effects, as it's a big part of how I might hype up the crowd in certain parts of a track, using the delays and filters for instance.
There's benefits of having established artists on the record, Liam Payne on 'Polaroid' for example. If you look at that song you have Lennon Stella, who's an up-and-coming artist, so there's a balance on there because I still want people to focus on the song just as much as Liam being an amazing superstar.
I prank my manager. I tell him I've lost my passport, or I've lost my case, or I hide his case. He is so gullible, he is the most gullible person ever.
I think some people have this thing where just because you do singles that means you're not a real artist. It's like hold on a minute - I'm selling millions of records here and been streamed billions of times... How can I not be taken as a real artist just because these songs are singles?
I kind of write in a very classic way. I sit in the piano, working on some catchy, cool melodies and coming up with song concepts for those melodies. I kind of write in a very traditional way '- how people have written since the early '40s.
My mates are absolute nutters. They're all Essex boys in the true sense and they definitely keep my feet on the ground.
