ABC/:Paula LoboLiam Payne’s long-awaited debut album will arrive in September, and he says he’s been paying special attention to how one particular person has responded to his new songs: his 14-month-old son, Bear.
“He is like a good bop check…if it’s a bop, he will go for it,” Liam tells ABC Radio, laughing. He says Bear really likes Liam’s latest hit “Familiar,” a collaboration with Colombian superstar J. Balvin.
“[With] ‘Familiar,’ he goes, like, fully rigid, and he’s like, ‘Oh my God, I love this, what is this?,’ and he gets as close as he can to the speaker…it’s hilarious!” says Liam.
Liam adds that he and his partner, Cheryl Cole, who’s also a singer, play Bear “all these different songs and he’s like the boss right now — he’s Boss Baby! Just hanging out going, “Yeah, I like that one, but this one doesn’t really do it for me.'”
“Familiar,” which Liam performed on TV with J. Balvin for the first time on Tuesday’s Good Morning America, will be on the album, as will his previous singles. He says it’s very eclectic, because music fans are used to listening to playlists.
“Think about your general playlist: You’d have Ed Sheeran…Quavo…Zedd…you’d have all these different people,” notes Liam. “[Well,] I have that on my album. I’m really fortunate.”
Liam adds that the disc “bounces around genres quite a lot, but there’s something that ties it all together. That’s why I’m super-happy with it.”
As for “Familiar,” Liam says originally the song was in English, but after he met J. Balvin in a restaurant, he sent him the song.
“He sent it back with this amazing Spanish twist on it, and I was like, ‘That’s amazing!'” recalls Liam. “So we threw it out there.”
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