Dare to Dream: Life as One Direction. One Direction

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      I really enjoyed secondary school and I worked pretty hard, but I enjoyed myself as well. Life is all about balance. I played badminton a lot in secondary school. My dad is really good at it, so I got that from him, and I was always really competitive. I liked the fact that it wasn’t the most obvious sport to get into, and that you need quite a lot of skill to play it. I like things that involve skill and I love anything that’s a bit of a challenge.

      At the end of Year Eight I became mates with a guy called Will and he became like my brother. We had the same sense of humour and we got on really well from the word go. He and a friend called Hayden were really keen to start a band, and a guy called Nick had just started to play bass so he joined them too. They wanted to enter a battle of the bands competition at school and they needed a singer, so they asked me to try out.

      That was a bit of a shock as I’d only ever sung to myself in the shower or in the car. I knew I could sing a note, but I had no idea how I’d be. But I’d always imagined what it would be like to be in a band, so I started practising with them. We were always singing ‘Summer of 69’ by Bryan Adams and ‘Be My Girl’ by Jet, so we decided to perform them in the competition.

      We were all ready to go and we started filling out the application form, but we didn’t have a name and we couldn’t think of anything. It got to the day before the show and we had to put something down, so we decided just to go for something completely random. I suggested White Eskimo, and we hadn’t thought of anything better, so we wrote it down and from then on that’s who we were.

      The competition was in the school canteen, and we decided that we were all going to dress in a similar way so we all had white shirts and black ties on. At the time we thought we looked really cool. All of our friends were down at the front of the stage when we sang ‘Summer of 69’, and afterwards this girl came up to me and said, ‘Where did that come from?’ Three finalists were chosen, including us, and we all had to sing again – and we ended up winning, which was amazing. After that we decided to take things a bit more seriously when it came to practising.

      The band changed a bit after the competition because we got a new bassist, and also a guitarist called Jacob. We used to practise every Wednesday after school at Will’s house. Then we landed our first gig.

      A girl in my school said that her mum was getting married and wanted us to play at the wedding, so we rehearsed solidly for two days. We had a set list of about 25 songs that the bride had chosen, and we learnt the lot. We used my stepdad’s PA system and we went along and set it all up and it all went really well. We felt like a proper band. We performed a lot of Bob Marley tracks, some acoustic songs, and I also sang ‘Halleluiah’.

      One of the guests at the wedding was a music producer, and afterwards he came and spoke to us and told us we were really good. He also said that I reminded him of Mick Jagger, which of course I loved.

      We got paid £160 for the gig, which worked out at £40 each. And we got free sandwiches. What more can you ask for? We practised more and more after that. Will’s mum is a TV and radio presenter called Yvette Fielding. She was really supportive, giving us advice and helping us with everything. Now we were serious about carrying the band on and trying to get a deal or something one day.

      I had always thought about going in for The X Factor, and watching Eoghan Quigg and Lloyd Daniels in 2009 – young lads like me – made me want to do it even more. I also think that being in front of an audience with the band had given me a taste for performing. I loved being on stage and I wanted to do more and more.