One Direction don't speak to Zayn Malik anymore

Zayn is no longer close with his One Direction bandmates. Photo / NZ Herald

Zayn Malik has hinted that he hardly speaks to the One Direction boys.

The 22-year-old singer - who shockingly departed the boy band last year - has had "every intention" to stay in touch with his old bandmates, Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson, and the people who work for the group after they went their separate ways but admits in some cases the "total opposite" has happened.

He said: "The truth of it is, you can think one thing about a situation and the total opposite can happen. I had every intention of remaining friends with everybody, but I guess certain phone numbers have changed and I haven't received calls from a lot of people.

"I've reached out to a few of them and not got a reply. Certain people have pride issues, but it's stuff you overcome in time."

And whilst the 'Night Changes' hitmaker "genuinely enjoyed" his time with One Direction, he personally prefers other music genres and has confessed he hasn't bothered to listen to the last 1D album 'Made in the A.M.' - the first that doesn't feature him on vocals - and baulked at the sound of the second single 'Perfect'.

Speaking about the LP, he said: "There are no sides to pick. We're not going head-to-head ... I'll be honest. I thought the first single was quite cool. I heard the second single and ... yeah, I didn't buy the album.

Zayn Malik has revealed he doesn't really speak to his former bandmates anymore. Photo / AP

"I genuinely enjoyed [the band] and did whatever I could to be myself within that, but it's just not where I sit as a musician. The other boys' taste was generally indie rock. It's good music, but I don't f**k with it. That was never cool where I was from."

Zayn claims being a member of 1D - who were created by Simon Cowell on TV talent show 'The X Factor' in 2010 - had many limitations, especially when it came to what music they could release.

He said: "It was like a f***ing machine going constantly. We weren't allowed to say certain things, or word [lyrics] the way we would want to. I'd sit and wonder, 'If the fans knew how it worked, what would they think?'

"My argument was: People are more intelligent than that. They want to hear what's real, so why don't we write some stuff that we're actually going through?"

When asked what being in the band gave him, he added to Billboard magazine: "Status. The capability to restrain certain things I would want to do. I also learned it's good to keep friends, because you don't know when you're going to make new ones, so you should probably just keep the old ones."

- Bang! Showbiz