Shaznay Lewis insists she couldn’t continue her solo career within the “confines” of All Saints.
The 48-year-old singer – who is set to play Glastonbury this June – shot to stardom as a member of the girl band – which also featured Natalie Appleton, Nicole Appleton, Melanie Blatt, and
Simone Rainford -back in 1997 and they enjoyed chart success throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, but they have been quiet since a string of festival shows in 2021.
Shaznay is set to release her long-awaited second solo album, ‘Pages’, on May 17, the follow-up to 2004’s ‘Open’, and she has admitted it’s “quite limiting” penning songs for a girl group, so she needed to take “another road”.
Asked in an interview for the June issue of Classic Pop magazine if the ‘Never Ever’ hitmakers are on hiatus, she replied: “I’ve done the band thing for so long and a huge part of this journey has to do with writing. And when I say that, I mean I’ve been writing for 25 years for a band with that kind of hat on and being in that mindset. It’s a very specific thing. Some of that specific thing is quite limiting because when you’re writing for a girlband or boyband, it’s a certain formula and a certain way of doing things.
“I just got to a point in my life and my career as a songwriter, where I just wanted to have different experiences. I wanted to be able to write for film or a TV series, or a musical or whatever.
I know that being within the confines of a band, it just wouldn’t allow my mind to go there. I had to remove myself from the situation so that I could allow myself to have these other experiences and be daring enough to have them. So it’s not about hitting pause [on the band], it’s simply just about taking another road.”
The album features the singles, ‘Miracle’, her first solo single in 20 years, ‘Kiss of Life’, and ‘Good Mourning’ featuring Shola Ama and General Levy.
Self Esteem also appears on the track ‘Pick You Up’.