These recording sessions will all go to Zayn’s forthcoming solo debut, planned for release in early 2016. Of the roughly 20 percent of the album that Malay estimates they recorded in a proper studio, even those parts were unconventional, like the time they rented a studio in The Palms Casino in Las Vegas after a night on the town. That’s how Zayn, who is doing all of the album’s writing himself, got the idea for a song. “We were sitting in the club,” Malay remembers, “and he was just like, ‘This situation, me in Vegas, I’ve done this before a million times, like all over the world, but not like this.’ It was a super simple concept, but that perspective comes from what he experienced at such a young age.”

The next song they play is an upbeat jam tentatively called “I Got Mine,” with freshly recorded trumpets and a beat that’s almost U.K. garage. The lyrics were inspired by a Guitar Center employee who struck up a conversation with Zayn about his Prince T-shirt, then revealed that he’d loaned his MIDI keyboard to Madonna’s touring band. “There’s so many people in L.A. that have a story to tell, but they never got to tell the story,” Zayn remembers thinking. “Every line in the pre [-chorus] of that song is a different person’s perspective. So, it’s like, Talk is cheap but we still talk it/ Road is far but we still walk it/ Writing chalks or change the story. At that point, that could be like a teacher writing on the chalkboard, writing a story, but they can change it. Keep it moving when it’s boring. The dustbin man, putting the garbage out, whatever. Thoughts come out just like they’re pouring. An alcoholic guy who’s, like, a super creative dude. It was all different perspectives.” He says that other songs on the album follow a similar approach—Zayn using his position to give voice to others—including one called “My Ways” that’s sung from his father’s perspective.

He says that’s beside the point. “That’s not music that I would listen to. Would you listen to One Direction, sat at a party with your girl? I wouldn’t. To me, that’s not an insult, that’s me as a 22-year-old man. As much as I was in that band, and I loved everything that we did, that’s not music that I would listen to. I don’t think that’s an offensive statement to make. That’s just not who I am. If I was sat at a dinner date with a girl, I would play some cool ****, you know what I mean? I want to make music that I think is cool ****. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.”