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"\r\nIn April of 2012, just as they were breaking in the United States, the members of One Direction&amp;#xA0;spent several days hanging out with Rolling Stone for a major feature that, in the end, went unpublished. Back then, the guys were unaffected and friendly, with a puppyish, Hard Day&amp;apos;s Night-esque energy, and they did most of their interviews together, often resulting in a hard-to-transcribe blur.\r\nThey ultimately consented to brief individual chats &amp;#x2013; including this phoner with just-departed member&amp;#xA0;Zayn Malik, conducted through a fuzzy cell connection as he prepared to board a plane. To commemorate Malik&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;tenure in the group, here&amp;apos;s a quick snapshot from the early days.\r\n\r\nGrowing up, when did you realize that you could sing?I joined a school choir originally just to meet girls. I joined when I was about eight or nine and then it just became a hobby and I started to sing all the time.\r\nBefore One Direction, had you performed a lot in public besides the choir? Had you ever had the feeling of being a star?No. The only performance stuff I&amp;apos;d done was the acting in school performances. I&amp;apos;d never really sung in front of everyone; just one of my friends that called me to audition for X-Factor.\r\nSo you never expected your life to be anything like this, then?No, not at all. &amp;#xA0;This isn&amp;apos;t what I thought I was going to&amp;#xA0;be doing. I just went for the experience. I never went with a master plan, thinking, &amp;quot;I want to be famous.&amp;quot; I literally went for an experience thing on the show and just hoped that&amp;#x2026;I guess I just got lucky.\r\nIf none of this had happened, what would you be doing now?I think I&amp;apos;d probably be at [college]&amp;#xA0;right now, studying English, because I wanted to be an English major. I have a massive thing for English; I just loved words.\r\nWhen we spoke before, you were saying your dad disapproves of your tattoos.&amp;#xA0;Are there other aspects of your lifestyle that he has problems with?Not really. I have cool parents; they&amp;apos;re really cool and very supportive of everything I do. They understand that I&amp;apos;m young and that a lot of things that you do when you&amp;apos;re young, you might not approve of when you&amp;apos;re older. They don&amp;apos;t restrict much and let me do my own thing and I think that&amp;apos;s why I&amp;apos;ve developed this attitude of, &amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m not really interested in a lot of things that I should be.&amp;quot;\r\nI&amp;apos;m not out going clubbing; I prefer to stay in and sit on my sofa and watch TV and that&amp;apos;s because I&amp;apos;ve never been told that I wasn&amp;apos;t allowed [to do anything]. I never really wanted to do something that I wasn&amp;apos;t allowed to do because it was always available for me. They don&amp;apos;t really want me to get drunk, but I think that&amp;apos;s the same with every parent&amp;#x2026;\r\n&amp;quot;When you hear yourself on the radio or see yourself on the front of a magazine, you sometimes don&amp;apos;t get it. You can&amp;apos;t believe it&amp;apos;s actually happening to you.&amp;quot;\r\nDo you drink?No, I don&amp;apos;t drink a lot. Maybe occasionally on a social occasion, but I&amp;apos;m not a big drinker. I don&amp;apos;t enjoy it.\r\nDoes that mean that you don&amp;apos;t go out with the rest of the guys? They seem to like to drink.Obviously I go out with the lads. I have nights out with the lads and stuff, but it&amp;apos;s not something that I do of my own choice. I go out if the lads are going out just to chill out with the guys. I don&amp;apos;t really do it on my free time.\r\nWe talked about whether you&amp;apos;ve faced any prejudice because of your Muslim background and you said it hadn&amp;apos;t even occurred to you that could be possible, which is cool.It&amp;apos;s really cool. I never even thought about that. It&amp;apos;s very interesting to see that people don&amp;apos;t really care. I think that&amp;apos;s a good way to look at things, like why should there be a prejudice because I come from a certain religious background. I think it just shows that people are moving on and they&amp;apos;re becoming [more] accepting of other people.\r\nYour life is so completely different than it was two or three years ago. How do you adjust your mind to that?It just happened and I&amp;apos;ve just gone with the flow. I guess that&amp;apos;s why it works so well because we share everything together; it&amp;apos;s a new experience for all of us. We just help each other through it and we don&amp;apos;t really think about what&amp;apos;s going on.\r\nHow about the hysteria of it all?It&amp;apos;s that thing that we&amp;apos;ve sometimes talked about &amp;#x2014;&amp;#xA0;when you hear yourself on the radio or see yourself on the front of a magazine &amp;#x2014; and you sometimes don&amp;apos;t get it; you can&amp;apos;t believe it&amp;apos;s actually happening to you. Even the girls running down the street still doesn&amp;apos;t really hit you. It&amp;apos;s like, &amp;quot;No, they can&amp;apos;t be running for me; for us.&amp;quot; It&amp;apos;s really strange, and it&amp;apos;s hard to put into words, but it&amp;apos;s almost like you know it&amp;apos;s happening and you know you should believe it, but you almost don&amp;apos;t.\r\nCan you go back to normal life after this? If you quit in five years, could you leave show business?I don&amp;apos;t know. I think I&amp;apos;d love to be involved with it still, because obviously, we&amp;apos;ll be working in the industry for an extended amount of time and you get used to it. Even if it wasn&amp;apos;t as public or out there as what we do now, if it was just something even in the background, working as a studio songwriter, producing, that would always be a cool thing to do."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/one-directions-zayn-malik-the-lost-q-a-20150325>