Ed Sheeran: You Either Love Me or Hate Me

0:02What is up daddy gang? It is your founding father Alex Cooper with call her daddy ed shuren welcome to call our daddy hey okay wait i was gonna ask you a musician never is sitting in the seat at 9 a.m like i've never had a musician is that the coffee there we go bring in the coffee thank you um thank you so much thank you um i'm honestly an early riser like i'm an early riser and an early bed timer but i'd have two very young girls at home so like i'm up at 5 30 every morning oh my god so um yeah i was up i was up at about 6 30 this morning and what time did you go to bed 3 30 oh wow so you could get like do you get a little like loopy like are you gonna get like weird funny are you gonna like fall asleep on me honestly i have no idea where my body is at the moment we've been in india china and then just and then uk for a bit and then now in america so i'm my body is all over the shop at the moment you were in boston we're in boston last night yeah that is one of my favorite places ever i went to college there so boston to me is like did you go to boston university amazing i spent many nights on bar floors and club floors and where are you originally from pennsylvania amazing and then i went to school in boston and i remember being in boston and be like this is the greatest fucking place these bars are epic the people are epic like everyone just goes so fucking hard it definitely feels european it definitely has like a a vibe about it that every time I've gone to Boston like it's always been the first place for me like the first biggest theater I played in the first arena I played here and then the first stadium and it's always bit but I guess there's something to do with the Irish heritage I guess that yeah but yeah I love I love Boston last night was fun we did it's obviously St Patrick's Day and um I flew the the folk band that play with me on Galway Girl I flew them over and they learned all my songs and we basically did a trad jam of it was like a set but it was like with an irish trad band and was that where you were like running on top of the bar singing no that was in nashville that was in nashville you've been like getting after it yeah i've been around i kind of this whole entering into this album campaign i was just like i don't want to do anything that i've done before and for me all of that sort of stuff is so fun it like way more fun than like organizing like proper gig that's ticketed and blah blah if you just turn up somewhere and play you still play the gig but it's just chaotic and fun that's fun though that you're at a place in your career where you're even interested in doing those type of things because i feel like the bigger people get they're like no i don't need to go do random shit like oh no it's the that's i feel like that's when you actually connect with people i think i find it so fun uh i like the balance of having all of it like even when i was on tour in the states last time but I was doing a theater on a Friday and then a stadium on a Saturday.

2:52And I loved the juxtaposition of the two. And I think being a performer, no matter what you do in life, if you do the same thing all the time, eventually it's going to get tiresome, even if it's playing a stadium show the whole time, which is obviously like a really, really amazing thing to do. But I, when people, I talk to people about it and they ask about doing these pop-up shows to 20, 30 people. I'm like, you wouldn't eat a burger breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day. So it's nice having a little mix up. We're switching it up. I love it. Yeah.

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4:45And Matt is obsessed with it. I'm always looking for something that has a fresh citrus floral scent, but it needs to still be that perfect balance of not overpowering, but still bold. And this has exactly that. So, Daddy Gang, if you want to try it out, shop now at Sephora. Okay, I want to get your take on some very American things as a Brit. Okay, rodeos. Yeah, I'm down. I like do you know what I like is is culture and I feel like a rodeo is is culture I like going to countries and feeling like that's what I lived in I lived in Nashville for a couple of years I lived in New York for a year I've lived in LA like on and off and doing things that are so specifically American um if that makes sense like you go to whenever I travel the world I'll try and do things that feel cultural and I feel like going to a baseball game and having a hot dog feels for me as a Brit I'm like this feels American I think like a rodeo is that for me like getting into the swing of that would be fun like I would love I spoke to my um promoter and I was like do they do tours of rodeos because I'd love to just tour rodeos even if it's like for four weeks just do it okay you living in Nashville at that time or any time have you ever considered doing a country album I think there's yeah I guess so but I the from living in Nashville you can't just like dip your toe in if i'm gonna do it i have to do it and then that's it do you have like a good twang like could you pull it off i feel because my heritage is is sort of anglo-irish and i grew up with trad music in my household i think it would have to be a little twinge of that i think i'd have to bring irish trad music into country because it's all kind it's the same instruments anyway but um yeah so i wouldn't have a twang um but i've made i've made country songs in the past they've just never come out i feel like i have to i have to do it probably properly and i think when you transition to country you can't transition back once you're there you're there so maybe you'll do it like your later 100 nashville is like my favorite city in in the states and i would yeah it's always been like my end goal would be like i'm gonna move to nashville and transition to country but i yeah i i think you just have to do it properly it's like a it's a genre you have to really respect and um it's not just uh dipping in out i get it yeah um okay the super bowl i like it have you ever been asked to do the super bowl there was a conversation about 10 years ago to go on with someone and i think that'd be the only way that i would do it at the moment i don't think i've had this conversation before i don't think english artists are like i mean there are some that have the pizzazz of super bowl fireworks dances blah blah blah but me going up there and being like here's the a team and here's perfect i just like no one wants to see that whereas if there was a show with a lot of that like say like if it was beyonce's show and she had all the kind of bells and whistles and then there was a moment where we sung perfect together that makes sense to me but me i don't know i can't i can't picture myself doing it can you picture me doing it i as you're talking i'm trying to picture it yeah What if it's like a spotlight?

8:01For 15 minutes, you know? I would definitely go on and do it with someone. I think, yeah, just to do the Super Bowl. But I don't think my set lends itself to that. I don't know. I just, you know, like you've got horses for courses. You've got to do what like suits you. Ed, don't get it twisted. I really appreciate the self-awareness. Like most people would be like, call me whenever and put me in. you're like you know i don't know if i've got that side of the things where i'm like going out and outfit changes i think i could nail one song i think i could if someone brings me on i think i could do it really well for one song but i can't just my the the catalog that i have doesn't really lend itself have you seen me play as well because it's with a loop pedal and you have to build the things it doesn't really lend itself to the super bowl hey hang on guys i just got to set this up for two minutes you know it doesn't really and also like you saying like and i come out i'm singing like 18 like everyone just starts sobbing in the audience and it's like getting in their feels and then they're just going get a beer this is so comfy here are you isn't this cozy so comfy i wanted you to feel like you can really like you could take off your shoes you don't have to take off your shoes but some people take off the very clean okay don't take off your shoes keep your shoes on um ranch dressing i got really into ranch dressing when i lived in nashville um and then i got really fat so i've kind of like eased off the ranch dressing a bit i'm more of like balsamic vinegar boy sorry what yeah a bell salmon balsamic vinegar you never had that oh balsamic oh right yeah i have this in restaurants where i say water and they're like what what a water water we say balsamic balsamic oh my god i thought you said a balsamic no i thought you said a ball sack no i thought you said a ball salmon then right okay yeah yeah okay so you're into your balsamic vinaigrette yeah oh you know we we have a cider where i'm from in in suffolk that's like it's like the number one cider in in the uk and it's called aspels and i was saying that to a friend and he was like y 'all have a cider called ass balls you never see it it does sound like that what is it aspels it's like uh it's well it's a it's a side it's like a oh you guys would call it hard cider what is your favorite thing to eat when you're here chicken wings but the chicken wings are like the size of my fist and when you see the chicken wings in england they're like you know actual chicken wings they're quite like meager and you know but here it's like you're literally eating steroids because they're pumping them with all that shit and then we're like eating it and actually nothing chicken wings um okay the best american fast food chain in your opinion five guys i think everywhere around around the world but i'd say when i'm in america whataburger in texas i think that that burger bangs the most in terms of all the burgers that i've had what whataburger bangs but if there's it's an american fast food chain around the world i'd usually go five guys oh i fuck with kfc as well man i really like kfc yeah we have you had in and out yes i've had i've had in i do like in and out um but i feel like there needs to be a a wide wide lens view on a fast food restaurant and i don't think in and out chips bang sorry their fries i don't think they bang whereas kfc actually do the best fries kfc fries bang what they bang i've never had so i've never had their fries oh yeah yeah i need to go and i think this about burger king as well because i've never really been keen on burger king's burgers but their fries are always good oh their fries are so fucking good um but yeah kfc kfc fries bucket.

11:42I actually made both kids the night before we stayed at my manager's house and both my children the night before we had a big family bucket. That was like our initiative. Big family bucket and a bottle of Dominus. You know, Dominus red wine from Napa. Yeah. A really nice wine with a family bucket. That is like so high low. You're like eating KFC and then you're like drinking your nice wine. You're like, this is life. Okay. How do we feel about Disneyland? My kids like Disney. we went to Disneyland they weren't like they just weren't fucking with it and it was sort of like I wanted to sort of see them go wow but they were just sort of like I don't know yeah I think it's there is no one that's like that was fine it's either like or I'm getting married there yeah yeah yeah which I think is great I think it's great I think like I find anything in life that has to be those extremities that's what I feel about my music is I either have people that really hate me or really love me.

12:41There's no kind of like passive, and I think that middle bit is what you have to avoid. That like, it's all right. Like you have to be like fanatical about something or like, I don't like that thing. So you would rather someone be like, fuck Ed Sheeran rather than be like, he's all right. Yeah, that's been my entire career. And that's how you have a fan base is people really ride for you or they really fucking want to take you down why do you think people don't like you i don't know i think that sometimes overexposure goes into it like songs being on the radio too much i think also i don't like necessarily fit the social norm of what a pop star should like look like or act like and i i don't know if that like rubs people up the wrong way that um that i do look like their brother who works at a pizza shop i feel like people are like why like why has that happened and maybe that annoys them and then you pair that with the overexposure and has anyone ever in the beginning days of your career tried to convince you like wait let's dress like this and cut your hair like this and do this totally yeah and I think you kind of I've sort of like slipped into that as well especially like because of the uh the era that I came up in was you know Justin Bieber was massive One Direction were massive and I think there was always part of me that goes should i sort of look like that what would that have looked like what would we have done i just don't i don't look like that as a like it's like dressing a mannequin that just doesn't need to be dressed like that you know so i feel like i always have to stay true to like who i am and also my fan base from the beginning started out kind of missed fitty like me and my gigs were just full of people that you know it was like ripped jeans baggy you know converse big shirts uh rather than we're getting clammed up to go out to the gig it might like have segued into that now that the gigs are bigger and people have got got older but i found being a misfit i attracted misfits yes i do remember the like tumblr era photos of you and those were cool okay i liked that side but then i get what you're saying like i couldn't have seen you in like a purple leather get up with like a backwards hat and like yeah yeah yeah yeah i think it's good that you stayed Maybe when I'm up, maybe the Super Bowl.

14:58Maybe that's when I debut it. Oh, my God. You're going to come out at the Super Bowl. You're going to have a full leather getup. And then the year after, you're going to go right to country music and you're going to wear a cowboy hat for the rest of your career. And actually, leather trousers, you could reuse them on both. Because being a cowboy, you've got to have some leather there, you know? Do you own any leather trousers? Yes. Yeah, because I dressed up as Edward Scissorhands for... I do a Christmas party every year with my best friends. I'm dressed up as Edward Scissorhands. So I was like full leather.

15:29How did that go? I had to take off the jacket after about 10 minutes. I was like, I am hot. And bear in mind, this is December in England when it's freezing. And I was still roasting. Oh, interesting. Yeah, leather trousers aren't... I don't fuck with them. Okay. Can we talk about your home in England? You built a pub in your garden. Yeah. Explain how, why, what was the inspiration? I think like there was a local pub that I would always go to and uh I still do go to it but there's you can never really let loose the way that you used to be able to as in my teenage years you know you go to a pub to blow off steam and I think it sort of turned into everyone always knew that I went to this place so I don't know you could never really get to the point where you're actually like blowing off steam and proper drunk because you have to kind of keep an eye out on anything you know anything could happen um so there was a dilapidated barn on my land so i was like we could just turn it into a pub so i bought an old pub off ebay like the kind of uh the counter and the whatever off of ebay it was on ebay yeah it's on ebay it was just an old pub that had sort of taken the sort of shelving and counter and stuff um and then i got all the plumbing wiring i don't even though the pipes put in uh and it's sort of like it's a room for memorabilia i think cherry was like eventually there was so much shit in the house that actually just having it all in one place like even just like meeting this football player and having a shirt signed and having it on the wall like it's better having it there than in the bedroom absolutely she's like take all of your shit it's all and put it in the pub basically i have because there's like a tunnel to it um and in the tunnel there's like i built like a a listening room and there's a cinema and that's kind of my i'd say it's less of like a man cave and more of a man catacombs um i'd love that for you jerry's like go and be gone and like do your thing because i collect um movie props too so i've got like all of that there what is your favorite movie prop that you have uh i'm a huge hook fan so i bought uh robin williams's pan costume and rufio's sword and then uh julia roberts's tinkerbell costume so probably those two how much above six figures no no no no no i have done on props before like i bought c3po that was not cheap do you regret it no i do it every birthday i just buy one proper year and for my birthday instead like it's like the thing that i look forward to i think all year what am i gonna get there's always a movie prop auction around that time and yeah i choose one thing and is there anything out there that you're like i've got my eye on this uh yeah because the auction's coming up i'm trying to get the george clooney batman costume because everyone doesn't like the batman and robin film but that was my first batman film i saw so i have a real like um draw to that movie i bought the um alicia silverstone uh bat woman costume from that so it'd be like a matching we so are you going to these auctions it's online It's online.

18:40You're like an eBay guy, huh? Yeah, but I spend a lot of time in hotel rooms. My main hobby outside of music is movies. That's like the only, I do like, I do music. And when I'm not doing music, because it's shows and studio. And I do that pretty much like 95 % of the time when I'm not like doing home family stuff. And then if I've got spare moments, I watch movies. So those are like my two passions. What are your top three movies? uh goodfellas cool runnings and this this would be like i don't know if everyone would see this but uh i've watched to watch every single year i think love actually is a masterpiece every single year i watch that and every single year i'm not tired of it and those three films i could watch any time any place good for i'm reading goodfellas again at the moment that movie just i can't ever tire of it cool runnings i can't never seen cool running oh cool runnings is okay phenomenal film it's really really worth watching it's kind of humorous heartwarming it's not like the hollywood ending where i'm not going to ruin it for you but it's like i mean it's a really really perfect movie now i gotta watch it no spoilers um okay so we're going for the batman costume yeah i'm glad this isn't going to come out within the next two weeks is it oh because you want to make sure you get it i want to make sure i get it yeah can you give me a ballpark of how much you're willing to spend i would go up to six figures for it i think ed that's like history though it's history it's like you know someone bought the um uh um uh red slippers dorothy's red slippers but they spent like i think they spent like 25 mil on them do you wish you had gotten those i have never seen the wizard of oz yeah it's on my list but as soon as i had kids there were certain films that i was planning on seeing i was like i'll just wait to watch them with my kids but yeah i've never never seen the wizard get ready it's it's a great one but look at you you're like ashamed i'm kind of ashamed about it yeah you're allowed to say it no one can come for you you you are a movie person you've been busy you're watching other things that hasn't been top priority um does your pub have a name yeah it's called the lancaster lock it's basically my mom's maiden name and my wife's mom's maiden name because they both um yeah I think I wanted to sort of immortalize their maiden names I feel like even more getting married and having daughters it's sort of like I want to preserve it's kind of weird like the old tradition of taking names away and having names there you know our daughters have both of our last names and I sort of wanted to preserve my mom's maiden name and my wife's mom's maiden name in something that was permanent that is the like for women around the world listening everyone seemed like yeah he's a really great guy because do you know how many men and they're like toxic masculinity can't handle the concept of like what do you mean you're not gonna take my last name or what do you mean you're not that's how i grew up though yeah that's the only thing that i knew like my mom had my dad's name and you know i come from a very large irish catholic family sheeran was the the name and i think it wasn't until getting married and having daughters where your perception of it shifts you i think you have to like you can't just be born and just believe things you have to kind of experience and be brought over and now i very very much believe that that should be the case that you should obviously keep both identities when you have children yeah i think that's beautiful um sorry i'm obsessed with this pub idea um can you explain to me how many people like are you throwing ragers in this thing yeah yeah but i think if you're throwing a rager it should be like five people i think that's like or like 12 five to 12 people is a really good night i do we built a chapel on our on our land and we do like christmas carols there and then after the christmas carols everyone comes in for like mulled wine and mince pies and stuff that's like we can hold 40 or 50 people but it's like a crammed space in that wait you're not singing christmas carols all year round just you're talking about at christmas yeah okay i know you would say no every week we're doing christmas or are you no we do i do you know it's i i know it sounds weird to like sort of build an infrastructure on your property where you don't have to leave it but i feel like so much that i want there's certain moments you just want to spend with your family and not have someone filming you while you're doing it especially like whether it's something like that at Christmas or whether it's a memorial or there's just certain like intimate moments you want to have like that I don't think it sounds weird at all I actually it's refreshing to hear you're like in a beautiful way not that you can't complain about it but you're like I'm just going to take matters into my own hands and I now have the resources and the funds that I'm going to like build this thing so that I can like go to my pub yeah and I can go to the chapel but I let other people enjoy like my security guy got married in my chapel and that was like really lovely really really lovely so the chapel is like it's there yeah like sign up if you want to get married you come by um which celebrity would you like to invite to the garden pub uh i had a glimpse of what a night with post malone would be like with um we hung out in new york at global citizen festival i actually bought him a um i found this company that do the huge vinyl dinosaurs that you get at zoos you know the ones that like the size of buildings yeah so i've sent him a t-rex because we were sort of joking about it and he was just like yeah yeah send me one whenever i live here and uh and it's done and it's gonna arrive and he's gonna get this fucking huge t-rex that is just gonna and i've only met him once so he's just gonna be like what the fuck but i feel like because I hung out with him for that amount of time and I can sense the kind of person he is I think he's going to appreciate it but I think he would be the hang I'd want I'd want a couple of days hang with him no post Malone is like one of those people that when you're in a room with him even if you're in a room for with him for like a couple minutes you're immediately like I need 19 more hours with you this is yeah he's a really sweet guy really sweet guy he is what is the most embarrassing thing you can recall of just like a drunken night whether you're with your friends or you're out i've never said this publicly but i'm gonna say it i was playing a city in europe this is like 2018 2019 and my best mate was out with his mom and his his sister and we sort of started drinking espresso not espresso what they call cafe patron oh yeah and then i went to bed and I got up in the middle of the night to have a pee and I was sleeping naked and I walked out to have a pee and then I hear a door close and I open my eyes and I'm in the corridor naked, no key.

25:31It's like 4 a.m. and I'm like, oh my God, what am I going to do? And I'm kind of looking around and as I look around, it's like CCTV, CCTV and I'm like, oh, this is not good. And there was like room service, someone had had room service and I went to go and get the uh napkin and I put the napkin on clicked uh the lift went down to the lobby bear in mind it's like 4am there's like people working in the hotel I'll just kind of walk with this thing I was like please can you let me back in my room and please can you not tell anyone about this and my security guard went to go and wipe all the um cct well he told me he wiped it he might have kept it for blackmail late later on down the line but yeah um ed I think that's the most embarrassing thing that I've ever done what was the reaction of the people standing at the front desk it was very much sort of like you could see their eyes widen and be like you're and me going please just don't ask and don't tell anyone just the thought of also like you walking down and 4am those people are probably like so not paying attention to what's going on they're like half asleep and then just like ed sheeran walks into the lobby naked holding a napkin yeah yeah did you wake up in the morning and like fully comprehend what you did or yeah did you go back to bed easily i went back to bed yeah because i was like nothing's going to change the fact that that just happened you know i messaged my security guard and i was like please can you wipe the footage um yeah i'm sort of like nothing's going to change and also like it's a very human mistake oh yeah for sure for sure so casual everyone's done that right no everyone could do that though true very true do that i definitely i then bought pajamas and i started sleeping in pajamas every time you're on the road you're like put something on my body just well i don't you know what i'm sober at the moment so that's definitely like helping the not doing stupid shit how is that going good i just you know i saw the schedule for this year of album release and i was like because i'm i'm basically i'm flying all around the world and then flying home and being dad as well and i'm like i don't want to i don't want to then add on an extra layer of tiredness on that so i'm just gonna not drink and be very focused and energized i guess that's amazing i feel like that is a underrated thing that when you're going so hard with work that you think that you need like a drink at the end of the night to relax you but then i've been feeling it recently where i'm like i just wake up feeling like fucking shit like there's a different way to relax so i get i get in and I'll put on a movie and actually that sort of does the job because you kind of relax into the movie and then by the end of it you can just go to sleep rather than being because I also find when you drink you don't really have a proper sleep anyway because there's so much sugar in your body I have the worst sleeps and even if you have like one drink it still is affecting you okay maybe maybe that's in my future we'll see I'm not going to be sober for forever but I've definitely changed my relationship with alcohol because I used to drink every single day every single day not like i'm not a spirits guy and i'm not really i kind of do beer a little bit but i'm more like a wine guy at the end of the day um but now i'm not doing that me and my wife do date night once a week and i feel like that will be the time when i do start drinking to we'll do a bottle of wine together that night rather than like every single night having to have something i love that for you

29:02I do want to know what do you think is the biggest like misconception about you I don't really know because I feel like all the all the misconceptions that are about me people don't they're people that don't know me so I think that um there's lots of things flying About the internet there's like Rumors that also like Really gather steam because I think That people want to believe them There's all these things that like come out and unless I actually come out and go These things didn't actually happen people just run with It because I think they like People love negative Stories like that and Yeah I think that There's just I think being in The public eye there's just always always a lot of Misconceptions about you but I think unless someone actually She knows me as a person.

29:51They can't pass judgment on who I am. Do you think you handle being in the public eye well? This has been my life since I was 19. So I think that the first five years, six years of my life, no, I really didn't. And I really struggled with it. Relationships wise, not just romantic, but just relationships in my life, friendships, family, everything like it, just everything shifted. And I know people go, you know, when someone becomes famous, they change, they just, but genuinely I didn't for the first three years I was I was exactly the same person and everyone around me changed just in their way of treating me or acting or talking or like leaking things or doing this or doing this and then and then you start changing and you become a paranoid fucker and then it all starts sort of like shifting so I think at the beginning it's that transitional period where you're just trying to work out how who you are and whether I am my stage name and that's me the whole time and i'm pop star and i'm this or whether there's like two human beings and i can be uh you know uh a son to my mom without having to be a pop star or like a husband without having to be a pop star and then sort of like separating the two and i think over the last since covid really being at home and separating the two and knowing that it's quite it's a really really fun job uh to dip into you know it's really fun it's really fun to be a pop star for the night and go to the grammys and sort of be like wow look at everyone but then it's important to be able to go home and be like a regular human being and i think that's why i don't live in los angeles because i don't think i'd ever switch off i think i'd always just be pop star i think that makes sense i think it's healthy for you to have like a good balance like you're talking about being like i can go work nine to three and then i go home and i'm like with my daughters and my wife and i'm having like a pretty normal life and then i'm going to the pub in my backyard and then we're going to the lake and then we're going to the chapel and it was a full day and it was like but i think you have to create that world for yourself because you're right if you do just keep working then you are just like ed sheeran where people are thinking you're just like this pop star and you're mega famous and you're so rich and then it gets to people's heads and it's like you need to have some semblance of normalcy and honestly cherry is the biggest grounding force like anytime that anything is a little bit like a little bit too hollywood she's like bro god it's and it's really and especially because i grew up with her there's there's always just a a lens of suffolk over it of just like come on man like i tried to build a bowling alley in our but in our backyard and she was just like come on man you don't you don't need that she's like the chapel and the pub are enough are you good at bowling not really do you like bowling yeah okay yeah Everyone likes bowling I think I'll become good at bowling I think as long as it's not on the property I think she just wants to She doesn't want our kids growing up and it being like You know the Richie Rich house where There's literally McDonald's in them Have you seen Richie Rich?

32:53Yes but like so long ago Classic, Macaulay Culkin You should do something with like movies I didn't realize you were this into movies I mean I've got a letterboxd No one knows I have a letterboxd but I do have a letterboxd We Explain explain well i just review movies online for myself just to log them just to see what i've watched i have no followers on it like it's literally i've just logged the films i watch ed wait what no one reads it though it's just for me to like log it wait why wouldn't you let it be public it is public but no one knows it's you what's your username i guess they'll find out now um i think it's more fun for people for people to find it i've people um i watch gladiator 2 and there's a character in it who's like the really crazy emperor that has syphilis oh my god yes apparently based on me so that is my profile picture is that is that emperor wait what i saw an interview with him where he's like ridley scott based his character on me i don't know if i'm offended you know or very complimented thank you very much really where was my call because as a moviegoer you're like oh my god like they're basing something on me but then that character is like character was pretty uh yeah obscene if kind of fucking crazy okay we would your username would we be able to find you yeah what is it like ed sheeran no it's like it's similar to my instagram it's like teddy i think well maybe it's ted's it's ted or teddy something oh i'm going to look it up yeah start googling what is something embarrassing that you used to care about like growing up when you were younger or in your like um early teens that you don't really care about anymore i think it would be like the older that i've got in the music industry i think that um the first like five years of my career everything worked and went well and then the first like song that didn't work or like flopped you that was like a real like learning curve for me um and i think the older i get the more i'm like those moments are going to happen but it's about the kind of overall catalog that you're building and um i think my rule has just always been make music that i can stand behind sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't but as long as i like it that's kind of all that matters um and yeah i think i used to be quite embarrassed about that when i was like 24 25 because obviously like it's never fun putting a load of uh work into something that and then you put it out there on the line and you're like this has to work and then when it doesn't I think at the time there was like a transitional period of me sort of living with that and now I think that I it's kind of like what I'm saying about like these pop-ups and stuff like that like my rule for everything now is I just have to really enjoy it and then the success or not success kind of comes secondary to that I think that's beautiful because I feel like also as a creative, you have to know that sometimes you don't need extreme success to enjoy what you're doing because sometimes as long as you actually really believed in it.

36:05Well, that's the whole point. That's why we get into it, isn't it? That's the whole point of it. And I think that also it's about like realistic expectations. I think that my second and third record and first to a point, but second and third record was so big that it's you know aiming for that every single time is just not realistic and they both happened kind of by accident it just clicked and so it's just something will click something won't click something will click like there's so many songs in my career that i didn't expect to do well that ended up becoming massive over time that it's again just make shit you like put it out you have to give it the best opportunity uh as well you have to work every single song the same as you worked all the other songs and it's on the talk the rest follows what is the song that surprised you the most that popped off that you're like what the actual fuck i put out a song called afterglow that charted at like 92 and it was the first time anything that i put out within that that 10 year period had charted outside the top 10 and i remember being like oh oh my god uh and then over time it climbed to number two and ended up having it's almost like half a billion streams now but it's such a like it's such a learning curve of just like sometimes you just gotta let things sit and then they find their audience um and i close my set with that now it's like a really important song within my set list but i remember that week being like oh my god why because did you not love it as much when you know i loved it it's just like going when i just saw it go in at 92 i was like oh maybe i'm wrong that's a nice feeling though right yeah definitely um let's talk about your tattoos do you have any like what do you think of all of your tattoos what has the best story behind it for you they've all got stories really i think my left arm is my first five years of my career my right arm is kind of the next five years and then i got my chest and back done and my back is kind of the most recent one i like my i got my kids footprints like the week that they were born so i quite quite like that because they're tiny and obviously they're a lot bigger now um my legs have actually started being my kids drawing books so my daughter's just done a little bunny rabbit for my leg and you can put like the date of it it's quite nice seeing it wait does she come up to you and be like dad get this as a tattoo or are you like going and looking at their drawings and be like genius and going sort of that yeah sort of that now she's like she'll draw something and be like get it as a tattoo but um yeah i think i'm gonna get one each for each of them every year is there ever a tattoo you've wanted to remove i think if i was to remove one i'd remove all of them i think that i kind of believe that about tattoos is you're either a tattoo person or you're not and i yeah i think if i was going to remove i'd go completely nothing or because i kind of see it as one tattoo it's like one long story yeah beautiful um okay you and taylor swift have been friends for decades i'm a big swifty what has been your favorite memory together that's a good one um do you know what i i have this uh i was in these court cases for like two years well there i mean it was a lot longer than two years but there was one each year and i had to go through all my old devices to give them like you know voice notes and blah blah blah for the lawyers to have and going through all my old texts with people that i've known for that for that long it was really like nostalgic going through and i think that the period of time that i was on the red tour would have been you know i lived in nashville and she lived in nashville and we used to fly to and from the gigs together and do all sort of i don't know i literally spent almost every single day with her for about six months so i think that period of time um and i do you know i see her when i see her i probably see her like four times a year and we do what what i said like instead of catching up the whole time we have like proper sit down on six hour catch-ups and I think that that's like a really nice way to to do it but I think that period yeah 2013 it's beautiful um okay which of your love songs is your wife's favorite oh uh it's actually track 13 it's the last track on this new record and it wasn't it was meant to be a 12 track album and there was this song that from the beginning of writing it she was obsessed with and she kept being like is it on their album is it on the album and i was just like i played it to lots of people and it didn't have the same reaction as as everything else and in the end i just gifted it to her and i just went i'm just going to put this on just for you and you can you can name it what you want to name it and like yeah so so that i think is her favorite and yeah it just exists because of her basically wait that's so sweet wow that's so nice to just be like yeah I told my husband to put it on.

40:51So it's just for me. It came from, I spent a bit of time working with Bono from U2. And he gifted this song called, you know, The Sweetest Thing. Oh, The Sweetest Thing. He gifted that to his wife. He missed, I think he forgot her birthday. And then he wrote a song for her. And then just said, you can just have this song. And like all the proceeds go to like a charity of her choice and stuff. And so I had heard that story hanging out with him and his wife. And I came home and told Cherry that. and yeah I think they kind of was born out of that that is beautiful um you have obviously written so many songs for huge artists is there any song that you wish you had kept for yourself no because I think that they all have their own space and stories and I do honestly believe that like a song like little things for one direction does not exist in the same way if I sing it that they sing i think it came at like a pivotal point of their career and was what it was and i think same thing for like i don't know love yourself with justin i think it came at it came after what do you mean sorry and it was like stripped back and the perfect point i don't think if i'd have sung it it'd be the same and east side with falls include it was like benny's first single i think if i'd have released that that wouldn't have been yeah i think they all they all hold their own space i guess and if i'd have done it maybe i wouldn't have done it properly yeah yeah is there any song of yours that you are secretly sick of playing no honestly no and i think that it goes back to what i was saying of like you have to be able to stand behind it i think if you if you compromise yourself in music to like do a certain thing like reach a certain fan base or like whatever and you can't stand behind it if it if it doesn't work and you've kind of failed in your mission because you've made it to work and if it works then you have to play it for the rest of time so i'm very very careful that everything that i make i have i have to be confident enough to sing it for forever and also if even if you've sung a song 2 000 times it's always different every time you play it with the the crowds so so yeah i'm not really sick of playing anything really okay let's break down some of your lyrics okay i'm gonna give you a lyric and you're gonna tell me the meaning behind it or any story okay he's got his eyebrows plucked and his asshole bleached what are you referring to ed oh my god uh yeah i do you know that's a song called new man and um i actually haven't heard those i haven't sung that song in years um it's basically i don't know it was a 27 year old's take on that you know like being being the ex-boyfriend and sort of i don't know i think it's beautiful uh yeah i wrote that with uh jesse ware actually we've we had a lot of fun writing those lyrics because it was all just kind of like throwing out stuff that we all thought was a bit like funny.

43:56Have you ever had an ex call you out for writing a song about them? Of course. Yeah, of course. But I'm a songwriter. Like I always say like, and I've dated songwriters in the past as well. And it's kind of one of those things that I've got to be able to take it as well as write it. And I think that, you know, it's the good and good and bad. And also like writing songs is it is the two extremes. It's the same thing. You can't write a song about a feeling that's like yeah my day was all right today and i kind of write about it either is like i am the most in love that i've ever been or i am the you know most hurt or blah it's like two extremes and those those are the things that come out and also those things that connect with people so you know you can listen to an artist songs and be and be like well they only really they're either like they either love someone really much they hate someone but those are the times that you write songs that actually feel something you know so um so yeah I've definitely had I wouldn't even say arguments conversations um and I think that because I've been a songwriter since I was 11 that anyone that I've been romantically involved with at least knows that you take the good with the book because you're gonna like there there will be both sides you will you will get both sides you know would you often back in the day would you just like press upload or were you ever giving people a heads up it was yeah i've always given people heads up unless i haven't been in touch with them anymore i mean obviously there's like breakups of people you just don't speak to anymore but yeah there's yeah i feel like i have a good enough relationship with my exes that yeah you'd be like hey a banger's coming get ready this one slaps you want to hear it they're like fuck you yeah fucking hell well okay they say i'm up and coming like i'm fucking in an elevator i wrote that when i was 15 i was really proud of that line it's pretty good thank you it's pretty good what headspace do you think you were in when you wrote that i loved rap battles i loved rap battles so i would there was i would be watching like online there was a couple of like leagues in the uk there was jump off and and don't flop and those were the two that i would like watch as a teenager and it was all about uh metaphors and similes and just saying clever shit line after line and punch lines and stuff so i would that was i was in a phase of writing songs where i was just trying to fit in punch lines and when i wrote that it went down so well at gigs from the age of 15 as well everyone's just like oh that song that it just kind of stayed in it's quite weird actually singing that song as a 34 year old having written it at 15 because you're singing it and like this is so different to how i am now even like i have lines i'm like i spit fast and i know that all my shit's cool i will blast and i never went to brit school and like i'm singing it as a 34 year old dad now on stage like yeah i just don't know if i believe this anymore you're like oh yeah 15 year old me I've really people love it though people love it you know but I feel like that's what's fun though is that you still will play those type you know what I mean like I love the fact that I closed my show with a song I wrote when I was 15 it's like it there it's like a kind of really nice full circle moment because I used to play that song to no one and now you close a stadium with it still it's the same song same setup everything pretty amazing yeah it's fun okay um Azizam I want to get lost in your ocean and drown this obviously is a lyric from your new single what are you talking about ed um i think with that song it was uh it kind of just all felt really really fun and immersive i think that's where the ocean thing came from is just like immersing yourself in the night that line definitely had some people in my circle being like you really need to say drown um i don't know it it sounded good sometimes that's all that counts in the studio is does it sound good and what does azizam mean azizam is uh farsi and it means uh my dear or my love um the guy that i made the tune with ilia is persian and we were literally in the studio we were just trying different things and he was like would you ever do something persian influenced and he just sort of led me on this journey we've got like footage of the moment where he's like i'm like what's like my love in farsi and he's like oh as he's am and i was like that's a fucking cool word and you kind of like it it really like it's a it's a really fun song it well it's funny because when i was listening to it it's awesome but i like hear it the way that you sing it yeah of like well i'm not even gonna fucking try but like how you kind of leave like a pause where you like uh zizam yeah okay okay um moving on that was embarrassing Did you like the songs?

48:46They're amazing. They're so good. Okay, can we talk about your wife, though? You guys met in high school. Yep. And then you didn't start dating until much later. How did you reconnect?

49:00I started employing, like, my best mate on tour. So I kind of went through periods of time on tour. Like, I'm a solo artist, and I don't have a band. And I'm very much, like, I would just tour on my own. obviously like I have a crew but my crew were like 50 year old blokes so there's only so much bonding you can do I think and I got intensely lonely and burnt out and yeah I remember I spoke to my mate she's she grew up opposite me Lauren and she was she just left university she now like works in tour management on my tour and stuff and has been doing it for 10 10 years but she was very much I guess worried about me and just came on tour started working on tour and then we were in uh new york and her sister was living with cherry and i had had uh you know moments with cherry when when we were younger um and i guess like we just kind of reconnected and picked up where we left off i guess and it's one of those things where i wasn't really expecting it to happen i kind of just got out of a relationship i was on tour for god knows how long and it just felt really i was sort of like unless I do this it I will always regret it so I just sort of jumped in and yeah best decision I think I've made you have two daughters how has your life changed since becoming a father very dramatically actually very dramatically I think just um I mean even just not being a fucking maniac with drinking drugs or smoking or you know I exercise now never exercise before um i get up in the morning rather i used to sleep till like 4 p.m like i'm it's really has changed dramatically and um just in the way that i'm home more and my work schedule is based around them rather than based around me that's incredible yeah do you sing to them like do they understand yeah of course it's usually moana like it's usually just me singing moana yeah they like i have a song on the album called sapphire that they love so it's either moana or sapphire moana by the way top fucking tier disney music oh top tier absolutely do you just like walk around the house and sing that to them yeah all all the songs actually and moana too actually when i went to go and see it i wasn't like straight away enamored with the songs and now those songs are my favorite songs too which one is your favorite put me on the spot here probably the chi who song what does that sound like can i get it can i get a chi who that one who are you who where you're gonna be gonna make some gonna make some history come on moana go get your desk mate my children fucking love it oh that's good and they've got the we went to go and see mufasa and they love the brother song oh coincidentally same writer as moana one so yeah it's all lim manuel miranda you're gonna be singing it up your kids are in heaven over there they're lucky that's nice to have

52:10right now we have a single out is there more coming yep i have a uh my my idea was because the album is so broad i didn't want to just be like here's the single here's the album so they're kind of there's music coming every sort of like two three weeks so there's azizam now there's a song called old phone that comes out in a couple of weeks and then after that there's another song that come and we've shot all these videos and i i i'm less about like single moments and more about i want people to sort of feel the breadth of the record and i'm very confident that one of the songs will work um but it's more about just putting them out and letting people hear some of the record before it's out um rather than what i've done before is just like here's my first single here's the album and yeah how is this music different than everything you've put out before or is it uh yeah it's definitely different i think i've been more explorative with this with this album i've kind of had a an attitude of why the fuck not like and not really felt like i have to be in a box of being a singer-songwriter of like i have to do this or i have to do that and i i lived in India for a little bit and worked with a load of Indian musicians and producers and blah blah blah obviously I made a song like Azizam with Ilya who's Persian and that's in that world and Old Phone I think is more in a Nashville country world and there's just lots of different moments on the record and the record is called Play and therefore it has to be playful it has to be celebratory I released two albums that are kind of well one one was the sort of main album and one sort of came off the back of it but they were both very like very depressing about quite hard hitting subjects very muted um i still think they're beautiful records but i feel like coming out of the that of having you know going through grief and all of that sort of stuff coming out i needed to have something that felt bright and colorful and playful and that's where doing st patrick's day playing at tootsies in nashville doing the new orleans thing the whole record just has to feel like fun and exciting how do you avoid writer's block i think you just write all the time i think you have to i think writer's block is actually fear of being shit rather than because i think everyone can write you have to just sit down and write but you have to accept that sometimes it's shit and it's not good enough and i think that i just write and write and write sometimes it's good sometimes it's great um and sometimes it will be a song that you you keep and i think if you do that year in year out you're left at the end of the year with like 10 11 songs that are really great and then you can actually start forming an album it's really interesting to hear you talk about like the way that you're approaching projects albums essentially but they're projects in your brain of like this one was like more intense so now this needs to feel more fun and like i can feel that energy from you um okay ed last question what do you want your legacy in music to be i would love uh for it to seem possible to any kid out there that just wants to pick up an acoustic guitar i think that the the thing i think the thing that's jarring about me to people is also the thing that creates hope because i am a regular dude who picked up an acoustic guitar who's not from a major city who made it happen by going out there and i would love for all kids to go fuck I could probably do that too rather than feel like it's an impossible thing um because it's really not it's really not I think that it's I couldn't sing when there's footage of me online where have you seen it now I'm gonna google it where I can't sing um I mean we could play we could play it now wait you can't see you couldn't sing it's got it type in Ed Sheeran addicted it's me when I'm 14 singing but then it's that bad it's bad but then I like practiced and became You can actually just find the The clip Online yeah someone leaked to my old EPs Which I guess shows progress Listen to it You can fast forward it a little bit I've got an intro because I love an intro Here we go

56:24It's alright you wait

56:36You sound like little baby Ed Wait, that's you Yeah, but it's not like It's not professional standard, is it? Oh no We can turn it off now But I'm saying like I didn't know how to sing in tune And then I taught myself how to sing in tune by practicing So honestly, when I go into talks At like music schools and to kids and stuff I always play that and go Because everyone just assumes That you're born and you just got it and it you can teach yourself i taught myself well i didn't teach myself how to play guitar but i learned how to play guitar i learned how to perform i learned how to perform in front of lots of different crowds i learned how to song write i learned how to sing and i'd love my legacy to be any kid anywhere literally anywhere goes i can do that too because i think that that's like music's music is a thing that it's also for uh kids that aren't good at other things who don't have a lot of self-worth or self-confidence if they start music in any form in poetry or singing or instruments or even like work in the studio or whatever it gives you so much like worth and confidence in yourself as a human being and I think that in school there's so much like importance put on you must be good at this subject you must be good at this subject to actually be a good human being and to go out in the world and achieve and I just wasn't good at anything as a kid and I didn't have a lot of self-worth because of that and I felt like I was stupid and music was I was only good at music and that became my career and I think when I go in to schools and stuff and talk to people I'm like you only need one thing that you're good at and then that is you for life you find one thing you work really hard at it then that is your career and I think that that I would love for my legacy to be I think that is so beautiful and I appreciate you bringing up the concept of like kids looking at celebrities and musicians and actors and anyone in the arts like it seems like this far away concept and you have made it feel like achievable in a way that can be actually like everyday motivating for a person being like I'm one step away from my gorgeous cover going on YouTube and sounding like Ed and then look where you are But then not being embarrassed about that phase of your life.

58:51Because another thing that I've found in my career is I've learned everything from my failures and nothing from my success. It's not like I was on stage at Wembley Stadium being like, I'm learning a lot from this. I learned everything on the way to there. And I think that what that shows is actually failing at something is good. Because then I learned how to sing after then. And there's so much importance nowadays on just even on social media about succeeding and showing you're doing well. and like not being in but like the embarrassment of something failing or flopping when actually all of those things every single artist in the world has played to two people in a room and sucked everything and that is a really important um stepping stone and everyone has written songs that have released that other people didn't like that's an important stepping stone it's all about like learning from failures rather than just always your career just can't do this the whole you can't just get bigger and bigger and bigger better and better everything works because that's just not real life it's about like picking yourself up after the failures and trying again rather than giving up i again always say i'm sorry to bang on about education stuff but i think with with anything it's important that when you have that thing that you love uh that you want to do don't give yourself a plan b because if you have a plan b and it gets really difficult and starts failing you always revert to the plan b and if you have plan a at all points you go this has to work and even at the points we fail like i've done really terrible shows where it's there was a show that i did in exeter where it was like i think like 60 quid to get down there on a train but i had a rucksack full of back um cds and i was like you know what if i sell seven cds i've made my money back and a tenner so all i need to do is sell seven cds at this gig and i got to the gig no one turned up I waited too long to see if people had turned up and then I missed my train home and had to sleep at the train station and in that moment like 18 19 I was like why am I doing this like all my friends have just gone to university some of them have gone out to get jobs they're actually like on their path and I feel like I'm not uh achieving anything and in that moment my head just went but this is the only thing you can do so just keep doing it and hope it will work and I think that in that moment had I had a plan b I would have gone cool I'll just I'll go and do I'll go and do that now you must find that though I mean you're hugely successful you must have just been like this is gonna work I will I yes and I relate a lot to that of not having a plan b and then people whether it was like making fun of you for it or you feeling like why am I not doing a traditional like I remember being um in college and all the girls were taking courses that were like finance and all that and I was like in the film school and everyone was like where is that gonna get you and a lot of times I was like I don't know but those feelings it you know in you what you actually love and the people making fun of you as well I feel because that is a huge thing it's like it's it's so easy for other people to like make fun of someone for taking a risk and and doing something and i i actually think it comes from like an internal thing of when they say what's she doing she can't do that it's actually because in their own heads they can't do it and they haven't got the thing that goes you know fuck it i'm just gonna do this fuck what other people think and it's it's like almost to taking the piss out of you for even dreaming about it because why the fuck would you dream about being successful like just do do your plan b i think it's like almost a scary thing sometimes for that and i got mate i had none of my mates even my best friends now none of them really came to the first gigs i did it wasn't until it started like catching steam that suddenly people were like i'm not saying like all my mates but a large amount of my mates who are now my best friends and have you know have been since since school i had my one of my best friends who literally like you know he's godfather of one of my kids uh when i was a teenager rung me up pretending to be zane low and was like zay zane low worked on radio one at the time and had this thing called hottest record in the world where he would like debut a new record of an unsigned artist and he rung me up pretending to be zane low and then all of you know he had all his my other mates on the phone and they were all laughing down the phone and i was like you know stuff like that yeah that is traumatizing i was crying four years later guess what i'm hottest record in the world on zane low that's so crazy you can never let them forget i'm like you little fuckers never came to my shows in the beginning fuck you i don't i mean one my mate zach real one zach always came the shows zach there's always one shout out nick no i that is such a beautiful message to leave this on because i can imagine there's so many people watching this right now that are either like gonna quit the job because they're not making enough and they hate it and they're like okay i'm just gonna like not pursue it anymore and i'll just go do what like my parents had wanted me to do or there's someone that is like doing something in this moment that people are making fun of them for or they feel let down and they feel like there's no way to actually get to what they want this is like i think it all comes down to it all comes down to enjoyment though because i think if you're still enjoying what you do because even though i did that exeter gig and no one turned up for it i was still playing music that night rather than doing something i didn't want to want to do so i think there will come difficult times in everyone's careers but as long as you love what you do you've always got that at the end of the day but i'd say if you're in a job that you don't love like try and find something that you love yeah you know go go for your passion and make it your job if you can um ed this has been so fun i wish i could talk to you for like 10 more hours because i feel like we could do one an entire podcast and just movies in general do it again i know we could do it again maybe i'll see you again i would love to do a movie one i would sit here with you and geek out over movie because i'm a movie girl too Like I'm full movies.

1:04:57Have you seen the Florida project? Yes. Just literally just watched that the other night Oh my god, you my fucking my Of course. Yeah, yeah But I hadn't really heard of Sean Baker before then so then I went back and did like tangerine in the Florida project and but Florida projects like I haven't cried like that movie for just at the end with the little girl I was just like no, he's so fucking talented. Um, thank you for taking the time I know you're running on like two hours of sleep and you were fucking great. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you

1:05:37Thanks to Lieb by Yves Saint Laurent for sponsoring today's episode. Make a statement with Lieb Loneu, the fragrance that sets you apart. Shop now at Sephora.