Grammys exec producer Ben Winston worked closely with Liam Payne for years – Credit: Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

The 67th annual Grammys carried heavier emotional weight than usual, thanks to the backdrop of the Los Angeles wildfires — but the show’s most heartbreaking moment came at the start of the In Memoriam section: a carefully crafted video tribute to former One Direction member Liam Payne, who died at age 31 in October. For Grammy Awards executive producer Ben Winston, who worked closely with Payne and One Direction, the loss was personal. “I love Liam very much,” Winston says in the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now. “We worked with him for years, produced their movies, their music videos, their specials. [Liam and I] spent a lot of time together, and we were together a few weeks before he passed away.”

The tribute appeared while Chris Martin sang “All My Love,” but it could’ve taken a different form entirely. Winston originally envisioned a stripped-down acoustic rendition of One Direction’s “Through the Dark,” which would’ve been separate from the In Memoriam tributes. But when the intended performer (who Winston didn’t want to name) proved unavailable, the producers pivoted. (To hear Winston’s entire behind-the-scenes interview, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above.)

The broadcast also unveiled an unexpected gift for longtime fans: footage from an unreleased, never-finished One Direction music video that had achieved near-mythic status. “For years the fans have always been going, ‘Where’s the ‘Infinity’ video?’” Winston says. “But it never existed. There never was one, it was just some rushes.” These previously unseen moments were interwoven with selections from the band’s This Is Us documentary and footage from stadium performances.

“If you look at it, the consistency of every single one of those clips is significant,” Winston says. “He’s looking over Verona and celebrating with his hands in the air and smiling, then he’s looking at Wembley Stadium, he’s smiling, then he’s at San Siro and he’s laughing. … That was really beautiful, just to show, across the period of a few years, his joy and kindness and love for life.”

A committee at the Recording Academy selects which deceased musicians and execs get honored in the In Memoriam section each year.  “I didn’t think they would mind this year if I just picked Liam out a little bit,” says Winston, “and just put him at the beginning, because I think he has affected so many people around the world and touched so many people with his music and his love and his light.”