Louis Tomlinson is “proud” he wrote songs for One Direction.
The 31-year-old singer has writing credits on a number of his former group’s tracks, including ‘History’, ‘Perfect’, ‘No Control’ and ‘Night Changes’ and he has admitted being able to contribute creatively helped him feel “important”.
Speaking in a preview clip from his upcoming documentary film ‘All of Those Voices’ he said: “When I think about how proud I am of One Direction, I think of us as a collective. When I think about what makes me most proud as me as an individual in that band, is definitely having the most writing credits. That makes me feel important to the band, and that’s all I ever wanted when I was a lad.”
Louis had always felt it would be “cool” if the group – who were put together on ‘The X Factor’ in 2010 – wrote their own songs because it would set them apart from other boy bands.
He said: “It had always been in my mind that it’d be cool if we weren’t just the standard boy band who just got given songs and sang them. Like, maybe we should be writing our own songs.
“Once I got to feel stuff bubbling for us and I could see that we got people’s attention, I realised that we might be able to make a few of our own decisions.”
The ‘Walls’ hitmaker admitted writing for the group was the first time he “felt ownership” of his career.
He added: “All of a sudden, I felt in control again. The first two and a half years, I just felt like I wasn’t in control of myself or certainly had an influence on the band.”