Harry Styles Explains Why He Took Music Hiatus, Shares What He's Been Up To

Harry Styles is back!

On Thursday (January 22), the 31-year-old Grammy-winning singer dropped his new song “Aperture,” the first single off of his upcoming album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.

The new song marks the end of a four-year drought without new music from Harry, and more than two years since he last hit the stage for his 22-month Love On Tour.

In a new interview with John Mayer for SiriusXM on Friday (January 23), Harry explained why he decided to take a break from music and shared what he’s been up to these past few years out of the spotlight.

Keep reading to find out more…“I think the last two years for me, the most important thing was about being on the other side of the audience experience,” Harry said. “Spending so much time on stage, it’s really easy to forget what it feels like to be in the middle of a crowd and dancing and singing with strangers.”

For “the last couple of years,” Harry has reconnected with the experience of seeing live music, and many fans may remember his spotting in the crowd at Glastonbury Festival this past summer.

Getting to be an audience member again helped inspire his new album.

“It was largely about having that reminder of this feeling of being in the audience,” Harry said. “What this means to people is so magical and that’s what I wanted. That’s the music that I wanted to make. I wanted it to feel like it was made from the dance floor.”

After finishing his Love On Tour, Harry said that he wanted to get back out there and experience life again.

“If you’re like a touring musician, your life slowly becomes more isolated,” he explained. “The corners just start coming in, whether it’s the people you trust or your friendship circles get slightly smaller over time, just as people do when they grow up. I think for me, the last kind of couple years was just about opening back up. When you close yourself off to some negative things, you have to accept that you’re also closing off to a lot of positive things.”

Unlike with his past albums, Harry had more friends and people listen to his new album as he was making it.

“I had a lot of people over and have been playing it, and we’ve had people in the studio playing it,” he said. “I think every other record that I’ve made, I’ve always felt really guarded about who’s hearing it—no one hears it until it’s finished and stuff like that. And I think realizing that that made the music feel like a product is something that I wanted to reverse.”

“It just became really obvious that it was music that was meant to be played loud,” he continued. “That is when it feels its best. And then, you know, in total contrast to that, I love like sitting with it in headphones and like having my own experience with it as well. So, I hope that people will kind of road test it in a couple different ways and see how their album experience kind of shifts.”

Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. will be released on March 6. If you didn’t see, Harry announced that he’ll be doing a seven-city world tour in 2026!