Niall Horan says that his solo album is inspired by 'Fleetwood Mac and folk-pop'

You may have guessed by his softly-strummed solo debut single 'This Town' that Niall Horan isn't gonna go the 'electro banger' route for his own material.

The Mullingar native has revealed more details about his forthcoming solo album, and it's allegedly inspired by the bands that he listened to growing up - like Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles and Crosby, Stills & Nash - telling EW: "Whenever I would pick up a guitar, I would always naturally play chords like that, and finger pick a lot and play that folky kind of style."

He revealed that he had started writing the songs on piano and guitar this spring - apparently not long after One Direction had split - and said that most songs have a “folk-with-pop feel to it",  adding that "some songs are heavier than others. I play a bit of electric on some tracks and we obviously played around a lot with percussion stuff to build up the songs so there was a lot of things going on percussion wise.”

The biggest challenge, he said, related to his vocals and "making sure I could sing for that long. I did write the songs in my key so I didn’t try to make it too difficult for myself. songs are heavier than others."

Sounds suspiciously like another red-haired musician on the comeback trail, if you ask us...