Niall Horan explains the meaning behind his ‘cheeky,’ ‘sexy,’ new song ‘Slow Hands’

Niall Horan is trading nostalgia for seduction on Slow Hands, the second single off of his upcoming solo album.

Fresh off the success of This Town, the One Direction member’s newest solo song — released Friday — recounts a flirty encounter in a bar.

“I wanted to be a little bit cheeky with the lyric,” he told SiriusXM Hits 1′s Mikey Piff. “The first line of the song is, ‘We should take this back to my place,’ and usually that’s what the guy would say, but we flipped it that that’s what the girl said. And that’s what she said, right to my face. Because with the song, before we even wrote lyrics, we had this big track and it sounded quite sexy and whatever, so we thought this concept would match the vibe of the song, and I think we might have been right.”

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But diehard Niall girls need not worry. Slow Hands, like about half of the songs he’s written, isn’t about anyone specific from his personal life.

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As he navigates his career as a solo artist, Horan cites Van Halen as an influence saying, “When he went solo in the ’80s, he just had this funky kind of feeling: heavy bass, heavy guitar.”

Going solo hasn’t slowed him down, either. The former One Direction-member says he’s whittled down his album to 16 tracks and is aiming to record the final two this weekend.

Listen to the clip below to hear how — much like his pal Ed Sheeran — Horan’s Irish heritage adds flavor to his music. Hear the full interview replay on SiriusXM Hits 1 (Ch. 2).

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