One Direction "went straight into the studio" to work on their sophomore album.

The British boy band - comprising of Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik - have seen their popularity soar thanks to the success of their debut album Up All Night.

Niall has revealed that the band are thrilled about recording tracks for their next record.

"We've been recording already, actually," he told MTV News.

"When we came back from Australia, we had a couple weeks off and then we went straight into the studio to get cracking on the next album.

"We wrote an absolutely cracking song that we're all kind of very excited about. And then last week we were in L.A. and we had five days off the tour to record in L.A. so we recorded more there, getting the album done."

The group are making strides in spite of their stringent deadlines.

"Then obviously we've got to make a decision for a single soon, 'cause we have to get a single out towards September, I suppose," Niall explained. "So obviously we don't have a date for that yet, so we're gonna have to start thinking, sitting down with the record label, sitting down with management, getting everyone's views. It's usually not a struggle."