When One Direction went on hiatus at the beginning of 2016, Louis Tomlinson wasn’t totally sure what he was going to do. Yes, he had his reputation as Sassy Louis, the prankish, arched-eyebrow, smack-talking one, but when it came to the actual business of the band, Tomlinson always felt like the kid at the back. Never mind that he’d co-written more of their songs than any other member, including several of their biggest (“Perfect”, “Night Changes”, “Story of My Life”, “No Control”, “Home”)—the thought of him being out on his own was daunting. So he just jumped in. “It wasn’t as if I’d gone into sessions thinking ‘Who am I gonna be’ at that stage,” he told Apple Music in mid-2020. “I kinda had to learn on the job.” Born on Christmas Eve, 1991, Tomlinson was raised in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, one of seven kids from a Northern, working-class family. As a kid, he did a little acting and had joined a band, but he auditioned for The X Factor in large part because of the encouragement of his mother—a bond Tomlinson held with fierce pride until her passing in 2016. His standout solo singles—“Kill My Mind”, “We Made It”, “Walls”—have all the polish and optimism of 1D, but also reflect Tomlinson’s lifelong love of big, guitar-based music like Oasis and Arctic Monkeys. He may have been at the back once, but he’s finding his way to the front.