Avril Lavigne is grateful for the freedom she was given by L.A. Reid. The "What the Hell" hitmaker was given her first record contract by the American Idol judge when he worked for Arista and she is pleased he allowed her to write her own material.

"L.A. Reid is the man. My experience was he signed me, he believed in me, he got me. He always gave me my freedom to be who I was, to make the type of record I wanted to. On my first album, I was so young - I was 16 when I was making it. Everyone figured that people would write songs for me, and I was like, 'No, I want to write my own music.' It was so different from anything that was out there. L.A. was like, 'She's onto something. Just let her do her thing.' So it was great."

Avril admits she found it difficult working away from the music boss and feels "re-inspired" after signing a deal with Epic Records, the label now headed up L.A.. She added in an interview with WWD, "Later on down the road we got separated when he moved to another record company, and other people came in and took over. It was difficult for me, especially on my last record, working with all these random people that really didn't even understand me at the record company. And now I get to be back with him, and it's exciting again. I'm totally re-inspired. When you're writing and creating, you can't have these businesspeople come in and try to be all business. [L.A.] finds a balance between business and creative, and he's really good at not making it weird or interfering in the creative process."