Harry Styles has opened up about his transition from a teenage boy band star to a musician pursuing his own career, explaining that he found solace in watching Billie Eilish’s unexpected rise to pop stardom.

In an interview, Styles sat down with Zane Lowe for a 78-minute chat about the album’s creation, the tour, Styles’ creative process, and his growth as an artist and a person away from the spotlight. Eilish came up towards the end of the interview, where Styles spoke candidly about how his art now compares to how he approached it in the early days of One Direction’s breakup.

He explained: “I definitely had a really big moment, I think, when Billie Eilish first broke out. I think when I was in the band, I always felt like… it was fun and exciting because we were young. And I had a moment, seeing her do this at such a young age, where I was like, ‘I’m not young anymore.’

“For a while, I was like, ‘How do I play that game, and still be interesting?’ And I just had a moment where I was like, ‘Okay, we’re not the same.’ And in the same way, ‘You’re not always the young type,’ I was like, ‘Okay, I really want to think about who I want to be as a musician.’”

Styles went on to say that although he and Eilish have “[randomly] met a few times” over the past few years, he’s never told her how she inspires him. “I was like, from afar, incredibly grateful to her,” he said, “because I feel like she represents something to me there.

“I feel like [she] came in like, ‘You don’t have to… Like, don’t worry about being this thing, ever.’” Because, you know, she’s so much younger than me, and there’s no point in me saying, ‘Okay, how do I get back? How do I like, get back to like… She completely broke the spell on me, in a way that I’m so grateful for.”