Zayn Malik didn't buy One Direction's new album because their music was 'never cool'

“The other boys’ taste was generally indie rock. It’s good music, but I don’t f*ck with it. That was never cool where I was from”

Zayn Malik in Louis Vuitton s/s 16 before the catwalk show

2015 was the year of a million broken hearts. Zayn Malik left One Direction, crushing dreams and sending the internet into adolescent meltdown. Call it treason, call it bereavement; it was a true pop culture moment.

This is a purely creative move, accompanied with a creative level of dedication, “We went camping for a week in the Angeles Forest -- set up a generator and a tent so we could track in the woods,” says Malik's producer James "Malay" Ho. “It was the complete opposite of what he’d been doing. We had the gas grill, BB guns, bows and arrows. It was a sh*ttin’-in-the-woods-type thing.”

The still unnamed album will drop early this year.