Houston Chronicle

One Direction shows right stuff in video

- By Joey Guerra joey.guerra@chron.com twitter.com/joeyguerra

One Direction is helping Houston live up to its Space City tagline.

The boy band filmed the music video for current single “Drag Me Down” at NASA’s Johnson Space Center earlier this month. When the clip premiered Friday morning, it immediatel­y became a worldwide trending topic across all social media platforms.

The four band members are shown training for missions, sporting orange astronaut suits. The group, which recently lost member Zayn Malik to a solo career, spent two days filming around NASA, including sequences at Ellington Field.

“This was an excellent partnershi­p because we are able to spread our message about space careers and space exploratio­n, especially to a demographi­c we don’t normally reach — teenage girls,” NASA social media specialist Megan Sumner said. “It’s amazing for us.”

The clip was filmed around NASA T-38 aircraft jets used by astronauts to train for spacefligh­t and near the NASA WB-57 High Altitude Research Aircraft. 1D, as they are known, also filmed in a full-scale replica of the Orion spacecraft, a vehicle designed for missions to deep space that’s still in developmen­t.

Each member is shown training in different parts of NASA’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. Liam Payne works inside the Internatio­nal Space Station replica; Louis Tomlinson drives the Space Exploratio­n Vehicle rover prototype; Niall Horan maneuvers the Partial Gravity Simulator; and Harry Styles gets to know Robonaut, a robot that replicates human movement.

“You can pretty much see everything in the video,” Sumner said. “They were able to see lots of different parts of NASA Johnson Space Center, including the Internatio­nal Space Station mockups.”

When fans discovered the foursome was in town filming, the word spread on social media. They congregate­d for hours around Johnson Space Center, Ellington Field and the St. Regis Hotel near the Galleria.

Sofia Temoli, 13, found out “the boys” were in town on Twitter. Her “amazing” parents drove her from Sugar Land to catch a glimpse and even agreed to book a room and stay overnight at the St. Regis.

“I freaked out,” Temoli said. “I was so happy. I’ve been to two One Direction concerts, but I felt so much closer to them when I stayed at the hotel. I made a lot of friends who understand what it is to be a Directione­r.”

Hundreds of fans were camped outside, singing One Direction songs and screaming, she said. Several captured blurry photos and video clips that can be found under the hashtag #WelcomeBac­kToTexas1D.

“Drag Me Down” was released as a single in July and sold 500,000 copies its first week. It set new records on Spotify, including the highest first-day global streams for a single. The song debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is currently at No. 26. The video premiere may help kick it back up the chart.

Directione­rs are hoping to break the 24-hour viewing record on Vevo, the video-streaming service that premiered the clip. It’s currently held by Taylor Swift’s star-studded “Bad Blood,” which racked up 20.1 million views its first day of release.

The band is on tour but has no Texas dates on the books. Its last local performanc­e was a year ago at NRG Stadium.

“Drag Me Down” is arguably the biggest music video filmed in Houston. Beyoncé filmed two clips, “Blow” and “No Angel,” in the area that were included on her 2013 visual album.

Though Temoli didn’t get to meet the objects of her obsession, she did see Tomlinson’s sister and the band’s stylist in the lobby.

“It just felt so unreal,” she said. “I got to be inside the same hotel as One Direction — my idols, my heroes.”

 ?? Columbia Records ?? One Direction filmed the video for “Drag Me Down” at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. From left, Harry Stiles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan.
Columbia Records One Direction filmed the video for “Drag Me Down” at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. From left, Harry Stiles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan.

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