The girls, the madness... fame-wise, this is bigger than The Beatles': On the road with One Direction

One Direction aren’t just a pop band. They’re a hysteria-inducing, social media-fuelled, world-conquering phenomenon.... and after five memorable days with them in Australia, Event’s Louise Gannon knows why

One Direction have amassed an estimated £60 million fortune so far, making them the wealthiest British celebrities under 30

As the bush fires rage in the Blue Mountains overlooking Sydney, muddying the blue skyline with ominous plumes of grey, a group of hysterical teenage girls with tear-streaked faces are lying across the ramps that lead to the car park of the Sheraton hotel.
There are hundreds of them, possibly thousands – swarming onto the roads, blocking the pavements, pushing their way into the stylish lobby.
All of them clutch posters, placards, mobile phones and teddy bears. And more are on their way.
This isn’t a protest or a demonstration. This is One Direction mania: teenage hysteria whipped up to unbelievable new levels of organised insanity with the aid of phones, Facebook, Twitter and breathtaking surveillance and intelligence skills that would put MI5 to shame.
The girls’ sole focus is a group of X Factor-formed pop stars, who in less than three years have conquered the world music stage and repositioned the UK (for the first time since The Beatles) as leaders in pop music.
What’s more, these five boys – working-class Northern lads with a splash of Irish (Niall Horan) – have amassed an estimated £60 million fortune in the process, making them the wealthiest British celebrities under 30.

'We all sat and watched the film of them (The Beatles) arriving in America. And to be honest, that really was like us. Stepping off the plane, the girls, the madness,' said Harry Styles (pictured left). Liam Payne is pictured right

From school to superstardom – money, fame, power, hits and hordes of beautiful girls flinging themselves at you. It’s the stuff of teenage boys’ fantasies. The band even have two private jets – one ‘party’ jet, one ‘quiet’ jet – and two tour buses along the same model.
‘The party bus is just full of our Xboxes, DVDs, computers and lots of old socks,’ grins 20-year-old Liam Payne.
The quiet jet and bus are full of Harry Styles’s scented candles (the band’s favourites are Jo Malone’s Vanilla & Anise), eye masks and blankets. Despite seemingly having it all, though, these boys do still yearn for certain things.
Styles, 19, dreams of getting his London home finished in time for Christmas.
‘I bought it at the beginning of the year, then decided to move the kitchen. That turned into a bigger thing, and the last time I went it was all just floorboards.
'The builders have told me it won’t be finished till January, so when I finally get home I’ll still be staying at a mate’s house.’
Louis Tomlinson, 21, one of the three members of the band in a serious relationship, nods when I ask what his dream is.
‘Absolutely honestly? It’s sitting in my garden at home with my girlfriend [Manchester University student Eleanor Calder] on a lovely quiet morning, having a cup of tea.’

'We've all changed. I definitely found it pretty hard to begin with. None of us really knew each other that well and none if us was really prepared,' said Zayn Malik

But it’s not going to happen for quite some time. And the same goes for the band’s shared dream of getting a dog.
‘We all want a dog,’ says Tomlinson. ‘But we can’t have one, because you need to have the time to be with a dog. And we never have the time.’
Every second of their lives is accounted for. An average day will start at 6am and finish at 1am. A rare day off requires planning on the level of a military operation.
‘It’s pretty hard to just “go out”,’ says Payne. ‘If you do, you can try putting on a hat and shades, but it doesn’t really work.
'As soon as you spot someone who’s spotted you and they have their phone out, you have about 15 to 20 minutes before you get completely surrounded.
‘The other day Louis and I decided to go surfing. We got out of the car and were literally zipping up our wetsuits when we spotted someone with a phone.
'By the time we’d got out into the water there was a group of people on the beach. I mean, that’s lovely. But it can be a bit embarrassing when you’re trying to learn to surf and then you’re worrying about trying to look cool and not fall over.’
In a low-key photo studio on the outskirts of Sydney, Payne is sitting in the sunshine trying to explain exactly what it’s like to be a member of a band which – when it comes to American chart success – is officially bigger than The Beatles.

'We all want a dog, but we can't have one, because you need to have the time to be with a dog. And we never have the time,' said Louis Tomlinson

‘There’s just one word,’ he says. ‘And it’s “surreal”. I don’t think any of us have quite got our heads around it. Because how can this in any way seem normal to anyone?
‘It’s amazing, it’s crazy, it’s like nothing we ever even began to think would happen, but it’s also just weird. The performing, the writing, the albums – all that is just more incredible than you could ever imagine. But none of us had any idea about the rest of it.’
Styles shakes his head.
‘I mean, it wasn’t that long ago all we had to worry about was our GCSEs.’ Payne grins.
‘And getting through X Factor. Every Saturday we got voted through we’d look at each other and think, “We’ve blagged another week!”’
That was three years ago. They didn’t win; a singer called Matt Cardle did.
One Direction – a group of individual singers put together into a band by Nicole Scherzinger – came third.
Last month, Cardle played to a crowd of less than 100 in west London. One Direction are eight months into their Take Me Home world tour, taking in Europe, America, Australia and Asia.
Tickets for the seven Sydney dates at the 21,000-seater Allphones Arena sold out in just three minutes.

On life after X Factor: 'We were just kids. Who knows what to say? Now I'm pretty excellent at small talk. You get pushed straight in and you just have to grow up fast,' said Niall Horan

They’re the first pop band since The Beatles to really break America. Their first two albums have gone to No 1 all over the world. Their latest, Midnight Memories, is certain to follow suit (the bookies aren’t taking any bets, as this is a given).
‘It is the biggest achievement any British band has had in decades,’ says Simon Cowell, who owns their label, Syco.
‘Say what you like about them, but One Direction have done the numbers. This band are absolutely massive.’
In May they announced another world tour starting in April – this time in stadiums. Such was the demand for tickets that extra dates were quickly added. So far, they’ve sold over ten million albums.
Their movie This Is Us grossed £10 million in its opening weekend. Their combined Twitter following is approaching the 100 million mark. The One Direction statistics are as crazy as the fans.
Event has flown to Sydney for the band’s only interview and exclusive photoshoot to mark the release of Midnight Memories.
Before I left, their friend and occasional mentor James Corden told me to prepare to be surprised by them. Corden wrote the introductory skit for the album’s debut single, Best Song Ever, directed by his friend Ben Winston (son of the doctor and scientist Robert).
‘They’re really young, they’re crazily famous and you think they’re going to be the usual pop-star clichés,’ he said.
‘But they’re really proper, decent guys. They’re smart. They’re a lot more grounded than I would have been at their age.’

They're the first pop band since The Beatles to really break America. Their first two albums have gone to No 1 all over the world. Their latest, Midnight Memories, is certain to follow suit

 

Harry Styles says HI in Event magazine exclusive teaser

The band are here with their ‘entourage’, including head of security Scott, groomer Lou, stylist Gemma, Styles’s dad Des, and older sister, Gemma.
There is a separate room set aside for the boys, but it becomes obvious within minutes that they just don’t roll that way.
Styles handshakes his way round the room, sniffing and sneezing his way through a bout of extreme hay fever. He drinks a vitamin shake with an espresso chaser.
‘A few months ago,’ he says, ‘we were doing calendar pictures, and my hay fever was so bad I couldn’t open my eyes, but I had to do them. They photoshopped my eyes in.’
Meanwhile, Payne takes Lou’s toddler, Lux, outside to play, Malik checks that his new tattoo (a space monkey) is covered up and Horan and Tomlinson check out the food.
The first thing that strikes you about them, then, is that they’re not exactly aloof.
The second thing is that they all look significantly older and a hell of a lot cooler than they did on The X Factor.
‘We’ve all changed,’ says Malik. ‘I definitely found it pretty hard to begin with. None of us really knew each other that well and none of us was really prepared.
‘We were thrown in it together. We went through the same things. Our mums crying when we left home because they weren’t prepared either.
'I found it pretty hard at first. I was always trying to be too cool, like you do in school.
'I found it really hard talking to people, answering questions – you don’t want to sound like an idiot, so a lot of the time you don’t say anything at all.
‘Then you realise everyone is in the same boat. None of us knew what we were doing. You can’t take yourself too seriously, and you all start to relax into being w