Harry Styles Got a Vintage One Direction Toothbrush, Fleetwood Mac 8-Track Out of His Nardwuar Interview
The self-proclaimed “Human Serviette” also gifted the singer an Elvis Presley seven-inch and a slightly creepy action figure
CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY for Harry Styles this year. Ahead of his headlining performance at the 2022 Coachella Music and Arts Festival, the innocuous but thorough interview host Nardwuar caught up with the singer for an interview that paired nearly every question with a hyper-specific piece of music memorabilia – from a 7-inch pressing of Elvis Presley’s “The Girl of My Best Friend” to a vintage One Direction toothbrush badly in need of new batteries.
Most people would have to spend hours sifting through vintage stores and thrift shop bins to find the kind of gifts Nardwuar digs up to pair with his interview sleuthing. For instance, after Styles named Mick Fleetwood the campaign star of his gender-neutral brand Pleasing, the Canadian host found an 8-track cartridge of Fleetwood Mac’s seventh studio album Penguin from 1973 for him. There were also some Peter Gabriel rarities, including a poster and promotional LP from his 1983 Geffen album Peter Gabriel Plays Live.
Styles didn’t appear as taken aback by Nardwuar’s extensive digging as some of his past interview guests (see: N.E.R.D.). But you could make a drinking game out of how often Styles threw out a “wow” or “how cool” in response. He appeared most surprised by the Penguin 8-track, quipping: “Where did you find this?”
“Well, you’re Harry Styles,” Nardwuar answers. “We have to find stuff.”
Nardwuar also called on Styles to revisit an ancient internet relic: Vine. Back in 2013, the singer was somewhat of a social media savant, and in an iconic, four-second “creepy doll” video, he stripped down his One Direction action figure and twisted its head around one frame at a time. Just in case he’d lost the doll in the nine years since uploading the video to the now-defunct app, Nardwuar had him covered – literally – with a fully-clothed 1D action figure.
One Direction popped up throughout the interview as well, with Nardwuar asking about the group almost as frequently as Styles’s truer musical influences, like Joni Mitchell and Stevie Nicks. Along with the action figure, he was gifted a gum-less pack of 1D trading cards — which go for about $5 on eBay — and tasked with breaking down the story behind a photo of the band stacked up as a human pyramid, with Columbia Records Vice President of Publicity Mike Navarra at the base.
“I’m thrilled that you found this,” Styles says. “I’m sure Mike is not, but I am thrilled.”
From Rolling Stone US.
