Liam Payne says he hopes One Direction will one day make another album.

The 23-year-old heartthrob would love to reunite with his bandmates - Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson - but further down the line when they are not focused on their solo careers.

He has revealed that he wrote half of a record that was never heard or played live, which he feels "deserves" to be shared with their loyal fans, known as Directioners. Asked about a reunion, he told KISS FM:

"It's no disrespect, never any disrespect, I had some of the best times in my life in that band, and you know, some things I'll never forget. It's given me the greatest outlet to make my own music, and move forward.

I don't really know, it's difficult to see how everyone's gonna work out at the moment. I'd like to think there was one, and there deserves to be one. There was an album that wasn't toured, which I wrote half of! I think it deserves it's time. But we need to write another album, and do some more tours later on."

The hunk - who has newborn son Bear with his girlfriend Cheryl - also revealed that the 'History' hitmakers were offered material by Pharrell Williams previously, and though nothing came of it he has teamed up with the 'Happy' hitmaker on a song for his debut solo album after the pair met at the BRIT Awards in February. He revealed:

"When I was in the band, we got the opportunity to go down and work with him, on a day off. Days off were scarce in One Direction, it didn't happen very often. But I was like, I'm not gonna not go and work with Pharrell, so I went down and turned up, and we started chatting and whatever else. And I sang for him, and, and we wrote a song, he showed me a couple of songs. He played us a couple of songs, but none of the songs quite worked for what One Direction wanted to do. I saw him at the Brits, and he came over to me and was like, I've seen this film played out over a thousand times, but this time I want to get it right, I'd really like to work with you. I don't know what he was referencing there, but I know he worked with Justin Timberlake. So, I got to work with him, we had a great time."

Liam Payne is set to release his debut solo single this week on May 19. The former One Direction singer took to social media last week on May 11, to announce that he will drop his debut solo effort, entitled ‘Strip That Down,’ after posting a teaser video on both Instagram and Twitter.