Niall James Horan, known simply as Niall Horan (born 13th September 1993), is a singer-songwriter and musician from Mullingar, Ireland. He is a member of four-piece (former five) boyband, One Direction (formed in 2010). Before he competed in the UK and Ireland singing competition "The X Factor", he played numerous gigs around the country including as a support act for Lloyd Daniels (in Dublin). He then took up the challenge of applying to the X Factor 2010 whereby he entered as a solo artist. His first audition infront of judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Cheryl Cole and guest judge Katy Perry didn't fair too well as he gave them his rendition of Ne-yo's "So Sick". Louis, Simon and Katy all put Niall through as they saw something special in him. However, Cole wasn't as impressed. He was set on proving her wrong. In boot camp, he was put into a boyband named "One Direction". The other members are 4 British lads: Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne. He has gotten numerous solo's throughout the competition in songs such as "Kids In America" and "Viva La Vida", and "All You Need Is Love". One Direction finished third. Simon Cowell did not hesitate to sign them to his label SYCO. They released a book titled "Forever Young", which went on to become a Sunday Times bestseller. Niall and his bandmates' first single release "What Makes You Beautiful" made it straight to number 1 in the Irish and UK charts. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.