One Direction: Dare to Dream: Life as One Direction (21 page)

ONE DIRECTION
: We would like to thank everyone who has helped us to reach this amazing milestone—our second book! We’re extremely proud. To everyone who has supported us before we were One Direction, especially to our families and our friends—thank you.

To everyone that we have worked with in the last year, we are so incredibly grateful for your guidance, diligence, encouragement and belief. We’re going to do our damnedest to make you proud!

Finally, to our fans. It’s hard to avoid a cliché here, but we really wouldn’t be here without you! Your generosity and love constantly surprise us. THANK YOU! X

HARRY
: This year has been incredible through the
X Factor
tour and making the album, and there are some people I have to thank.

I want to thank Simon Cowell, Sonny Takhtar, Tyler Brown, Mark Hardy, Kim ‘Jimmy’ Davidson, Reema Chuhan, Russel Eslamafir, Simon Jones and everyone at SYCO and Sony.

A huge thank you goes to Richard Griffiths, Harry Magee, Will Bloomfield, Marco Gastel, Katie Ray, Annecka Griffiths, Emily Montgomery and everyone at Modest Management.

And thanks to Nicola Carson and Innis Ferguson for looking after us in America, and for showing us how to drink mud.

I want to thank my family for supporting me the whole time through this experience so far—my mom, dad, sister, Robin, Mike, Amy, Noel and Archie. I want to thank my cousins Matthew, Ben and Ella. And I’d like to thank my auntie and uncle, Mike and Dee. I want to thank my granddad Brian for being the coolest guy ever. And I’d like to thank and congratulate my grandma Beryl for getting to the phone in time when I call her. Thanks too to my grandparents Mary and Keith for watching over me.

I want to thank my friends for always being there for me—John, Ben, Nick, Naomi, Emilie, Ashley, Sophie, Ellis, Lydia and Will. Love seeing you guys even though it doesn’t happen that much…miss you guys.

I want to thank my sister again for always understanding me being busy, but always being there to talk when I am free. I love you.

I want to say a huge thank you to our tour manager Paul Higgins—you help us with so many things and we couldn’t ask for a better guy to have with us…and congratulations on your recent wedding…your wife is hot.

A big thanks to our security team, who do an incredible job at keeping us in check.

Thanks to Ali Barker and Savan for overseeing and helping us through all new things we encountered while we were making the album.

A massive thank you goes out to all the fans, whose support has been incredible…you guys are unbelievable and we wouldn’t be where we are without you, so thank you so much.

I’d like to thank Alex Kadis for being the smartest person ever and being so easy to talk to…and helping me see things in different ways…she’s the best “teacher.”

A massive thank you to Dennis for your many words and just for being you…I’m still mulling over your words of wisdom!!

Thank you to Louis, Liam, Zayn and Niall for being so hard working and just great people…it’s incredible that we choose to spend extra time with each other after the all-day sessions, haha!

I’m extremely sorry if I’ve missed anyone…I love you all.

LIAM
: Thanks to my mom and dad for their support. Wherever I end up in the world they’re always on the other end of a phone when I need them. Thanks too to my sisters Nicola and Ruth for taking me out and about when I’m bored at home and putting up with me being immature :) I’d like to re-thank all of the
X Factor
production and crew team for helping us through the whole
X Factor
experience.

I’d also like to thank a few people who helped me before all of this—Jamie from the Great Western Pub for giving me the opportunity to sing in public and have a great time doing so; Graham Lauren for many vocal lessons; Roysten, Nick and Ashley and all of their team for cutting my hair :)

To Ronnie, Paul and Hannah and their families for all their hard work and help before all this, making things fun and exciting even if I was only singing to three people in a field, haha. I’d like to thank the team that we have around us 24/7 for putting up with our madness; Preston and Ian from the security team for having a laugh with us and keeping us all smiley; and Paul for being a fantastic tour manager and for being like a big brother (didn’t want to call you dad) and always being there for us to talk to if there is a problem.

Lou from hair and makeup, Caroline and Lydia from styling for making sure we look our best.

Thank you also to Vicky and the wonderful team at HarperCollins for turning our thoughts into words and for all your hard work.

All of the people who are writing songs for us—you’re doing a fantastic job, I love almost everything I hear. Special thanks to Rami for writing the first single.

I’d like to thank all of our team at SYCO—Kim and Mark from marketing for coming up with all their great ideas, Sonny and Tyler from A&R for finding the best songs for us, and lastly Simon for being a great boss.

I’d like to thank Richard, Harry and Will, and Marco and Emily from management for putting us in the best position possible for the times ahead, and for putting up with our madness.

I’d like to give a big huge thank you to all of my boys for becoming the best four friends/brothers I have. You’ve all made this the most amazing and exciting time ever, and it would be pointless without you.

I’d lastly like to make the hugest and biggest and super-huge thank you to all our fans. No matter where we are in the world you never stop coming to show your support and we love you for it, thank you so much.

Sorry for anyone I have missed but I appreciate everything you ever did for me so don’t be mad at me for missing you out!!

LOUIS
: What an incredible year I’ve had, and I’d like to take a moment to thank every person who has made this year so special to me.

I would like to start off by saying a massive thanks to Simon, Sonny and everyone at SYCO who was involved with offering us a record contract. Ali Barker, thank you for helping us in the early stages of making the record. And of course Tyler Brown—fair play for putting up with our constant abuse and banter.

Massive thanks to the pregnant idiot that is Lou Teasdale. You’re an absolute babe and have done a great job of what was a very embarrassing bowl-shaped haircut.

Modest Management have all been fantastic—special thanks to Richard and Harry and for some funny memories, one of which was dressing up in Richard’s coat and massively trendy Manchester United cap. Annecka and Will were great friends during the tour but also a great laugh. Big thanks to our current manager Will Bloomfield, who get’s involved with the banter. However he needs to give me a heads up when he’s going to wear stripes, as it’s a bit embarrassing when me and my manager have matching t-shirts. Marco, keep up the hard work and the Milan vibes.

A very special thanks to Paul Higgins, who has been a great leader, but also a great friend to all of us. And of course to Preston—thank you for letting us put our heads out of the sun-roof and drink on the job (that’s obviously a joke!).

Mom, you have been my best, best friend throughout this experience, I can’t thank you enough for all your help. Thank you for being so selfless and generous. I love you.

Thank you to the rest of my family and friends, especially my dad, my four lovely sisters, who are growing up so fast, both sets of my grandparents, my great nan Olive, my aunty Rach, and Stan and Hannah. Again, I would also like to thank Edna and Leonard, who were my great grandparents who I miss dearly. I know my nan would be telling everyone at line-dancing about everything, and the same for my granddad at the pub while playing dominoes. I love you all dearly.

Of course a special thanks to the KFC Colonel for giving me the opportunity to embrace the “Krushems” experience, something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Thank you Colonel—I’m truly grateful. Also, of course, a thank you to Mecca Bingo—without such a fantastic game my life wouldn’t be complete.

Massive thanks to all the fans for their continued support throughout
The X Factor
, during the tour and right through to buying our first single. We would be nothing without you, thank you so much for everything. We love you!

Finally, of course, thank you to the four boys that have kept up the laughs and jokes through this amazing experience: Harry, Liam, Zayn and Niall. I’m so lucky to have met you all.

Going through all these thank yous has made me truly grateful for everything that everyone does for me. I am incredibly lucky to have you all.

Thank you so much, guys.

NIALL
: I would like to start off by saying that this has been the most amazing year of my life so far. We have been on the
X Factor
arena tour—what an amazing experience. We have been recording our first album, and during that process we have been able to travel so much; we have been to Sweden and LA, and got to work with some of the best producers in the world.

While we’ve been doing this, we have had help and guidance from some amazing people. I would now like to thank some of these people!

Thanks to our amazing tour manager, the one and only Paul Higgins, who comes everywhere with us and is with us 24/7. Without you we would be goosed, you are a top guy (obviously being Irish plays a big part in that…). Big thanks also to all our other security lads.

I would also like to thank our general manager Will Bloomfield and his assistant Marco Gastel, who have been amazing with us. Will’s knowledge of the industry is endless and he is always there if we need a helping hand! Thanks also to everyone at Modest Management, the backbone behind this whole process: Richard and Harry, Katie Day, Ben Evans, and Nicola Carson—our manager in the US. Thanks for being there for us and helping us out. Can’t thank you guys enough.

Thanks to everyone at SYCO music, especially our A&R consultants and marketing managers.

Thanks to all the people who have taken in this year with us. It’s been wild and we are so grateful for everything that has happened to us and the people we have met.

I’d also like to say thank you to the amazing producers and songwriters we have worked with: the one and only Savan Kotecha, who has stuck with us since the show and wrote some of our tracks with us, Steve Robson, Wayne Hector, Steve Mac, Jamie Scott, all the guys at Metrophonic, Rami Yacoub, RedOne and all the guys, Andrew Frampton, Kojak (“Everyday I’m Stackin’ It, Stack It Real Hard”), Claude Kelly, Andreas and Josef at Quiz Larossi, Matt Squire and Toby Gad. It was an amazing experience working with all these guys.

Major, major thank you to our incredible fans worldwide. We would literally be nothing without you and we appreciate every single one of you guys, you have been amazing everywhere we go, on tour, on the street, at our book signings, and of course on Twitter and Facebook, where we try our best to keep you connected with our day-to-day lives. We promise to keep you up to date on what we know, we love you so much and we hope you stick with us!

A massive thank you to the lads—Harry, Zayn, Liam and Louis—for making this year the best year of my life, all the laughs and banter and messing about…and then the general friendship we have together…literally my four best friends…love you loads, lads…

Thank you so much to everyone again! It’s been great working alongside you to make us what we are today: One Direction.

lots of love

Nialler

ZAYN
: This year has been a memorable one and I would like to thank all the people that helped to make it that way.

I also want to say I’ve had a lot of fun with the four other boys this year and hopefully there are many more years to come :)

I would like to thank my family and friends, who have supported me and always had faith in me. I would also like to thank Modest Management for helping me with this amazing opportunity I’ve been given, and Simon and his record label SYCO for giving me the opportunity :)