Jade Thirlwall struggled to write solo material at first because she had spent such a long time coming up with songs for Little Mix.
The 31-year-old singer has launched her solo career with two singles 'Angel Of My Dreams' and 'Fantasy' and her debut album is due next year, and she's admitted it took a while for her to get going because she was so used to writing tracks for the girl group.
She told Rolling Stone magazine: "It took me a long time to figure out how to not write a Little Mix song because that’s all I’d done for a decade."
Jade's record label bosses told her she could take her time putting together her first album as a solo artist but she was worried she'd miss the "hype" if she didn't come up with new material soon after the group went on hiatus.
She explained: "In hindsight, I was freaking out about existing without the group and thought I had to jump on the hype of us just disbanding.
"If I’d released then, I would’ve been anxious and have put so much pressure on myself to be as big as [Little Mix] was."
She added of striking out on her own for the first time: "I always associated Little Mix with my womanhood as I spent my whole adult life with the girls.
"I didn’t know how to be a woman in my own right. When we first stopped, I was lost because I was like: 'F**, every decision I’ve made over the past decade hasn’t been my own.’ It took me a minute to get my independence back."
Jade previously admitted she wrote her "best music" when she stopped worrying about trying to come up with a hit that would be ideal for the radio or TikTok.
She told Rebecca Judd on Apple Music 1: "I think I've actually surprised myself creatively. I think the minute I stopped caring as much about like, 'Oh gosh, what's going to work on radio, what's a TikTok hit and all this stuff', I started writing my best music.
"So I think I needed this time to evolve and know who I am as my own artist."
Jade explained she had adopted an "experimental vibe" for her first solo album as female artists now have a lot more "creative freedom".
She said: "There's a lot of songs on the record that have that same experimental vibe. I'd say the record as a whole, to be honest, I definitely have a few of the kind of, I guess more straight down the line poppy songs on there, but peppered in with the chaos, that is my brain ...
"I think there's a really exciting time in music now where it's evolved to a point where, especially for women in music, there's a lot more creative freedom."
