Zayn Malik says One Direction's music was 'never cool'

Zayn Malik has opened up about his decision to leave One Direction. The 22-year-old singer quit the boy band in March 2015.

During an interview with the Billboard magazine, Malik said he is interested in a different genre of music. He said: "I genuinely enjoyed [the band] and did whatever I could to be myself within that, but it's just not where I sit as a musician. The other boys' taste was generally indie rock. It's good music, but I don't f**k with it. That was never cool where I was from."

Malik also talked about his current relationship with his former bandmates after leaving the group. He said: "The truth of it is, you can think one thing about a situation and the total opposite can happen. I had every intention of remaining friends with everybody, but I guess certain phone numbers have changed and I haven't received calls from a lot of people. I've reached out to a few of them and not got a reply. Certain people have pride issues, but it's stuff you overcome in time."

Meanwhile, Louis Tomlinson had previously talked about Malik's departure. During an interview with Australian radio station KIIS FM, he talked about how the group continued as a four-piece after Malik left. He told radio hosts Kyle and Jackie O: "I think it's like anything, it's a difficult time at first in any job when you lose part of your crew but in reality it ended up being a positive for us because we knew the four of us really wanted to make it work and I think we're showing that."

"​We carried on making the record and business as usual. He had his own reasons; the bottom line is he did fall out of love with the music, which is absolutely fine," he added.