The Voice / YouTube Blake Shelton and Niall Horan
It’s all love between the cowboy and the Irishman.
Ahead of his Friday, June 9 performance on “The Today Show”, winning “Voice” coach Niall Horan reunited with host Carson Daly and received a video message from his co-star Blake Shelton.
“Hey Niall, it’s your old hero, Blake Shelton here,” Shelton joked in the clip, “I just wanted to say good luck today on your ‘Today Show’ performance. I miss you buddy, and now that it’s over with I can tell you that I wrote it into the script that you were going to win ‘The Voice’ this finale.”
Horan responded with a quip of his own, saying, “Good old pops, when I won ‘The Voice’ the only thing he said to me was ‘I taught you everything you know’.
Niall Horan Talks His Newest Album, ‘The Show’
Horan’s “Today Show” appearance coincided with the June 9 release of his newest studio album, “The Show”, which he started working on during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. During his visit, he discussed what went into the album and how excited he was to be releasing it.
“It’s a very nerve-wracking time,” Horan said, “It’s like Christmas Eve excitement. I like the songs, I wrote them, my inner team, we all like them, but you don’t know what the masses are going to think around the world.”
Horan also wrote about how the album was more “mature” than his last two records, “Flicker” and “Heartbreak Weather”, which he simply credits to his being older and more mature when he recorded it.
“I think during the pandemic there was a period where I could sit still for the first time in my career ever for longer than 10 or 12 days at a time,” Horan went on to say, “So it was nice to be able to sit still, reflect, look forward to the future, and think about your outlook on things. And I think that played into what I was writing about straightaway.”
Horan’s career exploded at the age of 16 when he auditioned for the British singing competition show “The X Factor”, where he auditioned as a solo singer, was eliminated after the boot camp stage, and then brought back and added to a new boys group that the judges had formed, which would go on to be the global phenomenon One Direction.
Niall Horan is Returning to ‘The Voice’ Next Season
Despite his busy schedule with his album release and Summer tour dates, Horan is carving time out of his schedule to return to “The Voice” and defend his title when season 24 premieres this Fall on NBC (though a specific premiere date is yet to be announced).
If he hopes to retain his crown, Horan will have to defeat returning coaches John Legend and Gwen Stefani and take down newcomer Reba McEntire, who served as the Knockout Round Megamentor on season 23.
After season 24, Horan will be going on a world tour to support “The Show” which stretches from February to July 2024 with shows in Europe, Australia, and the United States.
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