If you haven’t heard of One Direction by now then you’ve probably been living under a rock. The British boy band has taken the US by storm with their hit single “What Make You Beautiful” and there’s no stop in sight for these guys.

Zayn Malik from One Direction called in to St. John’s Playhouse and instantly our phone lines blew up. We also received over 1,500 questions for Zayn from eager fans on our website. It became very clear that we had more than just a singer to interview. Zayn is part of a full-on pop phenomenon.

One Direction is anything but an overnight success. These five guys have been hard at work ever since being finalists on The X Factor in 2010. “I literally auditioned just for the experience… I never expected to win the competition or anything,” said Zayn. ”It seems that we’ve done so much in a year… it’s been crazy.” And it’s true. They’ve been busy dominating the UK music scene throughout 2011 and now they’re one the verge of going global.

The boys released their debut album Up All Night in the US on March 13th, 2012. It debuted at #1 following a televised Today show performance that drew hundreds of fans one day prior to the album’s release. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. One Direction has just announced several tour dates including two right here in the Bay Area. With everything that’s going on how do these boys manage to keep their focus? ”We are always going to stay the same people we were before… we keep each other grounded.”

Proof of that is the fact that the boys of One Direction are truly friends. And what do friends do? Make fun of each other in good fun, of course. We had to bring up the subject of Zayn being deemed the “human echo.” ”I do like the R&B licks and riffs in the background… so whenever Liam would do a verse or whatever when we were on the X Factor I would do the R&B thing in the background. So I’d echo what he’d do. I did it a couple of things in a row so they kind of picked up on it and it was a joke that I was a human echo,” explained Zayn about the 1D inside joke.

We had to put our own spin on Zayn’s ability to be the human echo. Tune in to the full interview with Zayn below and you’ll hear the “Human echo” at work proclaiming how he “hella” loves the Bay!

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