Gwen Stefani says songwriting helped her in her struggle with dyslexia: ‘It unlocked something inside me’
The voice behind hit songs like ‘Last Nite’ and ‘Brick House’ from Gwen Stefani’s solo career often gets the spotlight, but in a new interview, the singer acknowledges that songwriting is not an easy task.
‘The biggest compliment I can give is that songwriting is the same for anybody,’ she tells Billboard. ‘You have to get the beat and the lyrics down.
‘It’s not like you wake up and go, “I’m writing a song”. Sometimes it feels like that.
‘For me, writing songs has always been a very personal thing, and the process has always been a very emotional process for me. But, I’m also learning to trust myself and to have control over what I want to write.
‘Now, through being on tour, I feel like I have people to write with,’ she says. ‘And I feel like it’s been quite therapeutic to see the process for myself from other people’s perspectives.’
Stefani, 51, is working on new music with ex-husband Kevin Tyler, but admits she is ‘not at the point’ where she is trying to make a second solo album.
In an interview with Billboard, she says she is still taking ‘cues from the music’ but is trying to find her own place in the pop sphere, adding ‘there are a lot of artists who have a certain image they carry, a certain sound they play and a certain set of rules.
‘For me, I just want my own voice.’
I get a lot of feedback from a lot of fans that songwriting is one of the things that helps them in their struggle with dyslexia