Gary Barlow: `Buying toothpaste revived my career`

After the man-band split in 1996 and his solo career flopped, he moved to Los Angeles in a bid to make a living out of writing songs for other people.

But with his confidence at an all-time low, he admitted that he struggled to produce anything decent until he got back into the swing of life.

He told The Sun, 'It was great. I was doing stuff I hadn't done for ten years.

'I would walk into a supermarket and go, 'Wow, look at all the brands of toothpaste - this is unbelievable.'

'I had a year of getting my life back and I watched my son cough, sneeze and walk for the first time.'

He continued, 'I don't know if it was writer's block because I would come up with stuff but it was just rubbish.

'I've always had a good ear, my intuition is good with new music, but I knew straight away that nothing I was coming up with was any good.

'Most of what you do - the big part of you - is gone, it's evaporated. Your question is, 'Is it going to come back?'

'I ended up with no confidence as a writer.

'Doing something with all your confidence stripped is hard - it would have been better to take ten years off.'