Watch Niall Horan Perform Sleek ‘Too Much to Ask’ on ‘Fallon’
Niall Horan performed a sleek version of “Too Much to Ask” – a breakup ballad from his recently issued debut solo LP, Flicker – on Thursday’s Tonight Show. The former One Direction singer crooned over a stark piano pattern before the arrangement swelled with a lush electric guitar backdrop.
In an interview, the Irish musician also shared some touring and drinking stories – including his annual bar-hopping tradition, “12 Pubs of Christmas,” with friends back home. “There are rules,” he said. “Some pubs, between four and five, you have to link arms with one of your mates and then walk backwards to the next pub. Then you have a certain amount of time to drink. We should make it into a documentary – I’d watch it.”
The singer enthused about returning to tour buses after having traveled the world on private jets toward the end of One Direction’s run. “Our guitarist came up with this thing where we’d have a different [theme] every night on the bus,” he said, recalling how Ed Sheeran recently joined his band for one such evening on the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour.
“We decided before we got on the bus, probably because Ed’s got ginger hair, that we were going to have Irish night,” he said. “We’re going along, just leaving the venue, and some car pulls in front of the bus … Our bus just slams on its brakes. I go flying; we’re all lying on top of each other. I hit my nose on the top of a bottle of beer. There’s beer absolutely everywhere.”
Since everyone was covered in beer, Horan helped out Sheeran by lending him his Boston Bruins shirt with a custom-designed “Horan 17” on the back. “We end up going to the pub,” the singer said, laughing. “As if we weren’t recognized enough, he’s got bright ginger hair, and he’s wearing my jersey with ‘Horan’ on the back of it.”