S5 EP6: Ed Sheeran on squeezing Stormzy into his Mini, having breakfast with Van Morrison, and remaining normal

28:23Like you really, there's no choice. There's no skipping it. There's no like, oh, I don't like that song. There's no, well, I'm going to put on this artist and then I'll go to this artist. It's just you commit to a record and you commit to a record for like a morning or an evening. We've just bought this brilliant country artist called Megan Maroney, her record that my kids love and my wife loves, and it just has lived in our kitchen, and we just flip it every morning and listen to it, and we love it. And I also met the guy that works at Rough Trade, Chris, through Elton Collects Vinyls, and I went to Elton's vinyl room and was like, fucking hell.

29:00That would be Elton John? Yeah. Do you know another Elton? I'll get back to you on that he still calls me Ed Chiran though really? that's a joke? no I just think that's just programmed in but anyway he has a huge vinyl collection and he listens to all the new releases every single week and I sort of wanted to replicate that just listening to new music every week so I've kind of got his set up now of all the new releases come and I listen to as many of them as I can it's very hit and miss though So very hit and miss. Because you sort of like, you commit to an album and you're like, it's not really for me.

29:40We were talking about Jamal, because I'm kind of curious about what the timeline was. But just to deal with, you'd been semi, of no fixed abode. I think that was the term we agreed upon. And then you kind of made this friendship. You clicked. This was after you'd come back from America where you'd famous. No, it was before actually, because I remember speaking to him when I was in America about what was going on. I'd gone to America just to do the same thing as I was doing in London. I felt like London had got a little bit stale for me. I was playing the same acoustic nights with the same artists at the same venues.

30:16It's very difficult to stand out as an acoustic singer-songwriter with five other acoustic singer-songwriters on the bill. Honestly, I just wasn't good enough. I wasn't as good as everyone else I was playing with. I was also like 10 years younger. so I thought I wanted to sort of break the cycle a little bit and go and play in America I had a friend Elizabeth that was a poet that knew a poet out there that ran a poetry night and said that I could go and play there and I went to go and play that gig that went really well and then at that show the promoter was like I can get you more shows so then we just did a month of shows around America and what it kind of did for me was show me that actually it's really possible if I try a different approach and so when I got home my approach was anything but an acoustic night so I would play jazz nights, soul nights, folk nights hip hop nights, comedy nights and you always stand out because you're the only one doing what you're doing there You had listened to grime growing up so it was like, I mean you had an appreciation for that for that genre and that scene a little yeah i would have watched sbtv from its sort of like birth really i followed that scene from really really young yeah 14 15 was when i was sort of locked into it and then moving to london i got to meet all the people i'd grown up watching in person because they were just around who were the artists you're thinking of uh i mean through jamal i met i met jme uh wretch 32 scorcher um dave and stormzy or would that be a bit later that was later on and i met them so like naturally i actually originally tried to like and and it wouldn't have worked because he'd set up his own label at this this point anyway but i just set up gingerbread records and my friend alec knew mike really well and i mike is stormsy stormsy and i tried to i got him down to suffolk and uh there was talks of maybe signing him and then obviously he set up Murky Records and went to do what he did but we stayed really close and have been collaborators since then but that was like 2015 I think I met Dave in 2017 at the Ivers and we've he's actually Dave's worked a lot on the new record he's done a lot of production on the new record because aside from being a brilliant lyricist he's also an incredible producer and writer so he's been across the record really.

32:42Wow Stormzy writes very warmly of you in his book I say it's his book, it's all a biography of him, and he describes arriving maybe with twin. Yeah, at my house in Suffolk. Yeah, and they think they see a battered car, and they're like, maybe in a blinged-out car or whatever, and they're like, we've got this all wrong. Yeah, it was my Mini. Do you know that? Yeah, no, I didn't know that. Yeah, I bought, my first car was a Mini, and I think they came, and I then drove them to the pub in the Mini, and you've obviously met Stormzy. He's pretty big. He's like six feet six. He didn't really fit in the back of the menu.

33:15I bet. No. But isn't that... I was really struck by the way in which, certainly for elements of the Graham community, like success is something that you display, right? Ostentatiously, that's just part of the culture, whereas obviously that's not how you roll. I don't know, man. I like nice things. Do you? Yeah, I like nice things. Like what? I love a good bottle of wine. I'd say that's like... What about your watch? No, I started collecting watches. Is that an expensive watch? Because I can't tell. I think most watches over a certain point are, yeah. I got my first watch with Jamal, actually.

33:50I started collecting watches with him. We started our passion of collecting watches together, I guess. But yeah, that's definitely something that I'm into. What was it that clicked between you and Jamal? How do you describe it? Because it was a kind of, it sounds like it was quite a special friendship. Yeah, it was almost like brothers. It was almost like meeting someone that I'd known my whole life. and we really clicked and spent... I actually say it in the song F64 that I did when he passed away. People did assume that we were lovers. They thought that we were in it because we were just together the entire time and we would holiday together and blah, blah, blah.

34:29I'd obviously stayed at his house and stuff, but it was just a friendship that I was just with him the whole time. We had so much in common, but also from two completely different backgrounds. backgrounds but he grew up with his mum is a performer and a singer and had been on stage and I think he grew up around that so I think we had this I don't know synergy uh he appreciated you musically were you sort of musically aligned yeah because I think that I think that a lot of the music that I make has soul in it and as I said like he'd grown up with a lot of soul music in his house. And yeah, I guess we were musically aligned.

35:08And I love rap music. And he obviously was so ingrained in rap culture. So yeah. And you were rapping a bit at the time. Yeah. I mean, I still rap from time to time, Louis. Of course you do. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. And I like that. I used to rap a bit back in the day. I got a viral rap called Jiggle Jiggle. Do you ever perform Jiggle Jiggle? Do you ever go and do a PA at, you know... Are you asking me to perform it? It needs to be like an Oceana or a Liquid Envy, you know, like one of those. What is that? It's like a student night, just go and bust it out. When it first broke, I've got a gold record.

35:49It went gold. I know to you, Ed Sheeran, that maybe doesn't mean very much, but to me it means a lot. I think it's pretty cool to have a gold record being Louis Theroux. I think it's pretty cool. Thank you. And when it first happened, it was obviously very weird. my agent said be careful about performing it too much because it could go on social media and it dilutes its presence on the social media algorithms. Does that make sense? Totally, yeah. I mean, less is more definitely. Less is more. And plus my wife said stop it, this is embarrassing. She was the big one. Do you know what? Just one time turn up on someone's set at Glastonbury and do it.

36:23Just once and just rock it. They asked me to do it at Glastonbury. You have to come out on the right person's set. I think I missed the window. I think that Like if Stormzy brings you out, that's amazing. I think the Jiggle Jiggle era is over as much as it's not over. It's never over, man. It's never over. It's alive in all of us. That's nice to hear that. I believe that as well. But I don't like to say so. Oh, my God, you've got me on the back foot. You know, it was really striking around that time as well. So you'd come to London. One of the things you did, embarrassingly try and point, on SBTV, you did a song called You Need Me, I Don't Need You.

36:59Was that released as a single? Yeah, I put it out as a single in 2011, like a recorded version. That was actually the toughest song to record because it was such a live song and we could never get the energy of the live performance in it. Suffolk sadly seems to sort of suffocate me is one of the lyrics. Yeah. You talk about you didn't go to Brit school. I wasn't trying to rag on the Brit school. It was just at that time. You remember at that time, every artist had come out of the Brit school. there was like a time where it was like every single big artist and I've been pulled up on it before because a lot of people I know now went to the Brit school and you know were like why did you say that but it was more at the time I was 15 when I wrote that song so at the time I was like I'm going to be big and I didn't go to Brit school and that's you know like I don't know it's like a confidence thing Well what I wrote was brackets chip on his shoulder question mark obviously this isn't the end of now.

37:52Passively Dude I was like I had I was slightly chubby really messy red hair played a small guitar I rapped and I beatbox and everyone told me that I would never get anywhere because of the way I looked and the way I performed who told you that? I went in to see every single record label at least twice and all of them were like I think one of the quotes was can you imagine yourself on a magazine cover someone actually said that someone actually said that who said that let's put him out there but you don't always get it right and I think the reason that I had success was because it was so anti everything that people thought a pop star should look like or act like.

38:31Yeah, so I had a massive trip on my shoulder. Hair and teeth. You know, this is the James Brown quote, do you know it? Hair and teeth, you got them, you got it all. I think you need a little bit more than that. And James obviously had a little bit more than that. But I think he meant like, he was talking about packaging, I think, rather than musical talent. No, I don't agree with it. I think there's three things you need. Hair, teeth and what else? No, fuck hair and teeth. you obviously need you need work ethic and drive I think is number one I think number two is a personality and I think number three is talent and if you have the first two and a little bit of number three you will go far if you have all three personality work ethic and talent work ethic and drive first because you can get a long way just being you know persistent personality if people like you if you're magnetising if you've got like a bit of fucking zhuzh and then talent and there are so many people that I know within the industry that have a lot of the first two and a little bit of the third, and they've got really far from just being likeable and hardworking.

39:31Are hair and teeth maybe four and five? I'm not going to rag on James Brown because I think he's very talented, but I don't think hair and teeth come into it. Really? Yeah. I feel like I've maybe done James Brown a disservice. I think the quotation wasn't intended to be like, this is all you need in life. Yeah. Although it would take you quite far in life in general. In some areas. I think in the music industry, I think in any industry, like I, to begin with, I wouldn't say I had a huge amount of talent. Like I think my talent was home. I've heard you say this before. I think it's true. I'm not buying it, Ed Sheeran.

40:07I can play you songs that I made when I was first. I've done it so many times in interviews where I've played songs. I heard one on Jonathan Ross. And it was... The guitar work was pretty good. Yeah, it was three chords. But like my singing wasn't there and the song wasn't there. We've all had our off days. You were probably like 12 years old. 14, yeah. Yeah. Your voice was probably breaking. It was. Yeah, but also, like, I think the more I sung and the more I imitated, like, singing Stevie Wonder songs, it got better. The more you kind of do the scales and all of that. Stevie Wonder specifically?

40:37Stevie Wonder and Beyonce were two people that I used to listen to all the time and practice runs. Like, they do lots of... Really? I think they're called melismas. Melisma is like a... Exactly. No, no, that was... Cut that bit out. Don't cut that bit out. It's when you kind of shift pitch on a single word. Stevie has a song called They Won't Go When I Go, and there was one riff on the end that was like, They won't go when I go. And I used to just sing that over and over. Can I just applaud that? That was nice. It wasn't Stevie Lair, but when I was 15, 16, just used to try and do that run over and over and over again.

41:10And there was a bunch of Beyonce songs where I would just practice her runs, and I think that that's where... Which songs of hers would you do? would it be Beyonce solo or Destiny's Child both I think I don't think you're ready for this jelly I don't think you're ready for this jelly I don't think you're ready for this jelly my body's so boo delicious you can sample that someone can sample that now why just you going I don't think you're ready for this jelly why would they want to do that because you need another gold record no it was more her ballads and she would always let rip on the ballads I think more of the tempo songs it would just be this is what makes a great vocalist I think you know when to do those runs and not to like if you just overly run the whole time as you say less is more when Beyonce does it or when Stevie does it like Stevie doesn't really do it on superstition you know like tiny bits but when he does those tiny bits on superstition you're like oh that's if he just did it the whole way and it didn't have structure it would be yeah absolutely who else do you like that I might be surprised by musically do you like a bit of everything?

42:17yeah I listen to I think you're very eclectic I am what have I been listening to recently I finally got into Tom Waits finally did it take a bit of work? yeah I used to tour with a band and the piano has been drinking it was Mule Variations his record that really clicked for me and it was so I got bought his one of his records when I was 15 I was touring with a band called Nisloppy and I was there Nisloppy who did famously the JCB song and loads of other fucking amazing they were like my favourite favourite bands yeah but at the end of the tour Luke the lead singer gave me a Tom Waits album and I just didn't get it at that point I listened to it and it just didn't didn't hit me which one was it Swordfish Trombone I remember it had a blue cover and it was screaming on it yeah but anyway my studio engineer Hunter came around mine the other day we had a vine all night and he brought Mule Variations Tom Waits and it like I suddenly got it I had the same thing with Bruce Springsteen with I didn't really understand Bruce Springsteen until I listened to Nebraska and then I was in I think sometimes with artists you have to have a like entry point Nebraska's his sort of pared down bokeh yeah but interestingly Midwestern kind of bleak soul bearing album I think Born in the USA was written for it and I think it was originally recorded for it and then held off it and then he did that next but it's very he's got a song called Atlantic City which was my entry point to that record but I think it's just a perfect record He's a terrific songwriter.

43:42Yeah. I mean, that's sort of like stating the obvious. I think he's someone who I, like, when you have role models in terms of performers, Elton's obviously in there, but the way that Bruce has handled his career and his private life and raising his kids and knowing when... What's he done? He's got boundaries? He's like, he doesn't play the fame game too much. I don't really know him, by the way. I've only met him a couple of times, but I think the moments that he knew to take his foot off the gas and be at home and be a dad is the thing that's inspiring me the most because in this industry you can just go, go, go, go, go, go, go until you're 90 and you've missed everything and I think the balance that I'm trying to strike at the moment is knowing when to put...

44:30Like I'm going to Mexico tomorrow for two days and my foot's going to get fully on the gas and fucking 100 miles an hour and do all the work. You'll be back on tour. No, I'm just going for two days, going to do a bit of promo. And then when I'm home, it's my daughter's birthday. You take your foot off the gas. You live at home, your dad, and you don't let work enter into that. And I think he fully stopped touring when his kids were in full-time school. And he was just at home. I might be wrong saying that, but that's the... He definitely seemed to step back, didn't he? And he was the biggest star on earth in the 80s.

44:59He was like the musical analogue of Sylvester Stallone. He seemed to represent a muscular American attitude, which wasn't actually quite who he was in a way. And then it felt like he stepped back a bit. Yeah, and I think in terms of people who I would try and model my career off, just because I could do this 100 miles an hour for the rest of my life and I could achieve lots of things, but I feel like I've achieved enough now that I can be happy with missing some achievements for the next 15, 20 years, you know, and like every now and then dip back into it. But what kind of achievements? I mean, you've kind of scaled the heights.

45:39I'm not trying to shine you on too much. Well, I want to find new things to be excited about and to be happy about. Because as you said, like I've scaled the heights, which were fun. But like I want to scale the sides and the depths. And I want to scale different things. So I'm having a lot of, we're taking a portable pub around the world at the moment and doing random gigs in it to 30 people. And that is so fun to me. I'm having so much fun doing that, that that's my new Wembley Stadium. But it's more just doing that for fun and promotional. It kind of has some promotional value, I suppose. Yeah, I think when we were talking about promoting this album, I said I don't want to do anything that isn't exciting and fun.

46:17And there's a pub in London called the Devonshire that does a folk night every Tuesday that when I was living in London in between tour last year, I'd just go and play the folk night. And you'd be playing to like 20 people, but with these amazing folk musicians. and just I would be buzzing when I finished it, just like the most fun. And I just wanted to replicate that but also tie it in with promoting music because, you know, the Devonshire has it every week but we were playing in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which hadn't had it. So it was nice bringing it there and doing travelling with it. What's the largest crowd you've played to?

46:52It was 110 ,000 people at MCG, Melbourne Crooked Ground. What's that like? it's sort of not too dissimilar to playing to 70 ,000 people or 50 ,000 people or I think past a certain point it's just a lot of people I did a show at Hockenheim in Germany that was my the last one that was big that was like 108 ,000 people I remember just looking out being like sure like lots of people couldn't couldn't tell you how many there were it was just a lot of people does it feel disembodied like it's sort of hard to get your head around on one level I don't know. I like it. I like it, but I like the balance of both.

47:33I like doing my last tour in America. We would play a theatre on a Friday and then play a stadium on a Saturday. And I love the juxtaposition of that. The way that when people talk to me about it and they're like, why would you do it? Because obviously it's like financially you would lose money doing a small show versus a big show. But for me, it's the if you had a no matter how good the steak was every day, say a stadium's a steak, no matter how the best best best steak of your life every single day eventually you'd go i think i want a dirty burger and i think having the variety of like i'll build a pub here and do a gig or i'll play a theater or i'll pop up and play with this i also love jumping on stage with other artists and doing something different and playing to a different audience i think just always keeping life exciting rather than just being a stadium artist for the rest of my life i just want to be someone who plays shows and having the choice to do all of them is like great uh do you do you love to perform yeah i realized this um the other day actually the two joys of my life uh professionally are writing songs and performing and actually everything into it i fucking hate releasing music i'd really like find the whole process quite like uh stressful i think because also you love the songs so much and then suddenly you're putting them out there and that might change your relationship with them if other people don't like them.

48:58And I'm trying my hardest not to let that happen. And I find that when you've written a song, there's so much like possibility and what if, and like, I love this, and you're playing it to people and getting excited about it, that maybe some songs should just remain that. Yeah, I find like releasing, it just kind of sucks the joy out of it. It sucks the joy out of the creative process and the gigs, but you can't really do the shows without the releasing part. Why does it suck the joy out of it? I think just like if you release a song that you love that either gets like critically savaged or doesn't do well commercially, you then start to like doubt the song, even if you love the song.

49:36And I'm trying to really take myself out of that and just be like, I like the song and that's what matters. But you can't help but be swayed by public opinion, I guess. you have had um you've never like been massively loved by the critics no although i had one album that was really loved by the critics that's my least commercially successful album um or variations it's a good album thank you but like that was the one that they were all like we like this and no one else did because it felt maybe what what was it about that that one that appealed to people do you think? Not to the people. Why did the critics like that one?

50:14No, I don't fucking know. Probably. To be honest, like, I... It felt very personal, I think. Yeah. I think that record was really fun to make because it felt like a no-holes-barred sing-whatever and, like, there wasn't as much of, like, a thought process in putting it together. Like, this album, Play, I wrote hundreds of songs for and whittled them down. Do you care how they do? I'd say, yeah. But I'd say you have to put it in perspective of what the record is. So play is a pop album. So I'm trying to make popular music. That's why it's a pop album. You want it to connect with people. Yeah. And I want people to dance at shows and have fun.

50:56But whereas Autumn Variations is very much an introspective album that I made, I put out my own label and that was kind of it. It lived a life for two weeks and then can be discovered by other people. So with that record, it was a bit less of I care about how this is. Obviously, there's like certain elements of like, I obviously want people to like it. I'm not still a UK number one, wasn't it? Yeah. Who who in the pop ecosystem do you regard as something of a peer or a rival? Arrival is a weird word because it's a bit loaded, isn't it? I've always Elton taught me this actually was whenever a new because I remember Shawn Mendes came out.

51:382013 and I had had my time as the new artist and Sean was coming out and being the new thing and uh and I remember sort of wondering I was like oh Sean's coming out Sean all the kids love Sean shit is that does that mean it's over to me um and I remember I knew him at the time I did I again I tried to I'd spoken to him about signing him and um and I remember being like but I really like him I'm really happy for him and he's 15 and actually that's a great thing that he's coming through and I remember having that approach to it and then I was speaking to Elton about it and Elton just being like whenever that happens just like get to know them because you'll always want to root for them so every time that there's been a new singer songwriter that's come come through like every there's one every single year there's always like a new great singer songwriter that comes through I'll take them on tour or get to know them in other ways and feel like we feel like a community and that you can root for them rather than feeling threatened because it's like This is what I'm saying about a rivalry thing.

52:38There's not rivalry in music. It's not like the Olympics where you race and someone gets the gold medal. It's a career and you can release music and people can like it and they can come to your shows. But no one is not coming to my show because they're going to a Sean show. They'll go to both. It's not zero sum. There's times in my career where other male artists have done better than me at the time, but it hasn't stopped me doing music that I love or people connecting with it. Just because someone has done better at that time doesn't mean that the music that I released at that time wasn't received favourably amongst fans and I think that the rivalry element of it is everyone has their moment.

53:20It's peaks and troughs. I've had years where I'm massive. I've had years where I'm not. I go up and down but there's a consistency of people always to come to the concerts and they always end up listening to the music eventually. And the rivalry thing, yeah, doesn't really like enter into it. And to be honest, I don't want to have that energy. If I go to an award show, I don't want to like have energy in the room of like someone that I don't like. I'd rather like go there. They're uncomfortable enough anyway. I'd rather go there and be like, oh, my mates are here. This is great, which is what it's been for, you know, the whole time.

53:55Like I'd actually, I'd never met Sam. Sam Fender came through maybe like five or six years ago and I'd never met Sam, but I'd heard Will We Talk in the Morning, that song. And I remember just being like, I like this song, therefore I'm going to tell him I like this song just so he knows that I like this song and hopefully we'll meet somewhere down the line. So I messaged him just being like, I really like this song. I still haven't met him, but I at least know that there's a connection somewhere of like, I don't know, mutual respect, I guess, you know, rather than like unknown. And yeah, I think it's the healthiest way to be.

54:57How are you doing? Are you good? I'm good, you're good. That wasn't a threat. I was just pointing my finger at you. Yeah, I'm good. I felt like I needed to put my finger. We're in no rush, by the way. I'm not in a rush. I appreciate that. Yeah. One thing, because I've never seen you, this is a little embarrassing, I've never seen you perform live. That's not embarrassing. It is what it is. I'd love to. But I didn't realise before prepping for this that you basically perform a lot of the time just on your own. Like there's no backing band, no backing vocals. you do it with a loop pedal. Yeah. Feels like a bit of a high wire act.

55:30Like you're just kind of doing each bit and then if it goes wrong. I love that though. It's real, real high stakes whenever you play and it's not, you can't ever like sit back. It's nerves and this has to go right. Like if you mess up one thing, and that's also what's great is if you do mess up, the audience love it. They love human elements of a show. So I'll mess up and go, at least you know it's live and then you start again and people love seeing the process of building it again so it's i love it i think there's there's no no better feeling song-wise than trying out a new song and being like this could go terribly and then getting it right it's kind of i guess it's kind of like riding a bicycle for the first time and it being a little bit shaky and then getting on the track and then suddenly you're really excited it's fun they i get so frustrated learning them though because it's kind of like not sudoku but like you kind of it's so in a in an order and if you mess up one of the order you then have to start again i was going to say like if you if you mess it up what do you just erase that yeah but i practice it enough times that when i do it live hopefully that doesn't happen but it's um yeah it's an order of like 27 different components that you have to do in order in exact timing and if you fuck any of them up you have to start again um how are you what do you have thoughts on ai uh yeah i do have a lot of thoughts on it actually i think that um on the macro level and this is sort of comedic but also true after like 70 years of making movies about ai killing us why the fuck are we still funding it like what and also on the other side of things if you're taking lots of jobs away from human beings and there's lots of human beings being created every single day that's not going to make for a great world in 20 years time if there's a lack of jobs as well as like i don't know technology that's smarter than us i just i i don't know what what's that wrong with just like sticking at a certain point there's a certain point where it just kind of goes too far and i think ai is getting to a point especially like with music and and art and films and you know they had the hollywood strikes because uh extras were just going to get cloned and put in move like that's would be cloned writers would be replaced like first drafts that's not done but that's not healthy like that's not like just regardless of the product because the product itself would be shit anyway i think that all things need heart in them and it needs human heart and i don't think ai can replace how you how you feel on that day or how you feel writing a thing or making a movie that makes moves you i don't think that that's ever going to be a thing but just aside from that people need jobs don't take those things away like if you're an extra that's your fucking bread and butter and then suddenly you're going to be replaced by a computer like it i guess it's all a cost thing at the end of the day but yeah it's i find it just a bit creepy really you know especially like all these fucking i saw a picture of me and my wife holding up a baby scan yesterday saying that we were having our third baby someone found it on facebook i'm not i'm i'm not on facebook but i got sent this thing on facebook just saying we're having our third baby and it was this weird ai picture and even just stuff like that it was faked up it's faked up and it's such a obviously a small thing like but stuff like that misinformation everywhere i just don't think it's healthy it's so weird yeah you know have you used any of the AI audio apps?

59:06No, I did. Do you know what happens if you put in, make a song that sounds a bit like Ed Sheeran? Oh, do you know what? I was being shown one by a friend of mine and it is freaky, like freaky. We wrote a song that we were going to pitch to an artist to sing and they said, oh, we can just put their voice in it and hear how it sounds and it's me singing but it's this other artist's voice and that was like very freaky. Because when I tried it, it wouldn't do it. Yeah. It was like, it said we can't, I said, make a song about Ed Sheeran appearing on the Louis Theroux podcast in an Ed Sheeran style.

59:43And there were two things. One was like, we cannot put in Ed Sheeran. Like, it was like, it's a copyright issue. We cannot do in the style of a specific individual. So I was like, okay, fine. Upbeat, poppy folk style. Right. and it kind of got past the gatekeeper, but it still sounded quite weird. Maybe that's reassuring. I don't think that they're ever going to be able to replace feeling and heart, and I don't think you're ever going to watch anything on TV that's made by AI that's going to make you cry, personally. One of the criticisms that's levelled at you by the critics is that, oh, it's safe, right?

1:00:24It's middle of the road. By the way, I read that on Azizam, on that it was middle of the road and safe. There's not much in that song that felt safe. When I said I wanted that to be my first single, everyone said that's a real risk to do. Who said that? All of the record company. Really? And it felt like a risk, and I put it out there. And I feel like the critics sometimes, the go-to thing to say is, oh, it's bland. But I don't know. I think if you listen back to my discography, at the beginning of my career, I was an acoustic singer-songwriter who, as you said, like a folk balladeer. And I'd say there's loads of different tunes that I've put out that are not that.

1:01:10And that in itself, for me, is pretty interesting. Do you care what they say? I don't know. I got in a bit of hot water about two years ago because I said I didn't really think that there was a place in the world for music reviewers at the moment when stuff like Spotify exists and you can just listen to something yourself freely. And I had a load of music reviewers come out and sort of like have a go at me for that. But there's nothing to be gained by picking a fight with the critics. There's no battle. I have an opinion on them. They have an opinion on me. It's how the world works. How many streams has Shape of You got?

1:01:51Over four billion. Is that on YouTube? No, it's got over six billion on YouTube. That seems quite a lot. It's quite a lot. Not as much as Baby Shark, though. How many has Baby Shark got? I think Baby Shark's the most. Baby Shark used to be like the hit of Our House, and now my kids are on to Moana. It's a good movie. I love those songs. You were the most streamed artist in the world. in what 2014 and 2017 and then not not since but i kind of feel like i had my peak with divide and i'm kind of coasting now i don't know if i'll ever get back up there again but i'm kind of the the level of fame that that was was that was like my unhappiest yeah i know that's like a very cliched thing to say but i'm much more happy with the balance that i've got now why were you unhappy at that time?

1:02:45I didn't really go out and do anything. I felt very claustrophobic. And when I was going out, I was working. So I didn't really like live life. And that was more of a mental thing rather than an actuality of me not being able to go out. There was like a block in my head that was just paranoid and felt like the world was out to get me. Because you were so in demand or? I would say the first six or seven years of my career, just shifting who I am, I guess. And I think, you know, when people get famous and everyone goes, oh, they changed. Like, I don't think I did at the beginning. And I think it took me seven years to change and prioritise different things.

1:03:26And I think that's what led me to like being more like balanced and happy. Because you're saying that when you're really super successful, I mean, you are obviously super successful, but at that time when you had your first experience of globe-bestriding success, like overwhelming, biggest artist of your type in the world that you felt like you were changing or people around you were changing? People around me were changing, which I think then led to me changing. So I think I started off trying to be like so adamant that I wasn't going to change and that I would do everything that everyone asked and just be available the whole time.

1:04:04And I don't know, there are certain people in your life that are there to look out for you and look after you and certain people that are there just to abuse the trust and friendship and bleed your joy, I guess. Professional people or friends? I think both. I think it's a minefield. I think it's a minefield. I think celebrity and fame affects people in different ways. One of the biggest effects was not even on me. It was on my family and friends. I don't know. I always feel weird that how difficult my brother has it wherever he goes. People are always asking about me and I just want him to live a normal life.

1:04:48My celebrity has kind of affected him, but he has no benefits of it. It's not like he has me. I get to go on stage and play the song that I'm promoting. He just kind of has the aftershock of that. And yeah, I feel really protective over my brother. He's a composer. Yeah. Of classical. Classical, yeah. so is it the sense of people around you um that you that you no longer fully trust your circle yeah circle family uh old friends that you've known for years that suddenly they do something that sell a story or yeah graphs or lots of things but it's like and i found myself just being really cutthroat with if ever there was like one thing that happened i'd be like right done with that person and being very very like protective by the end of it um can we talk about the trials for a second of course yeah i think that was a big thing for you um you know you could look at that as an outsider and like it's a music copyright case uh another day at the office kind of thing but it wasn't that was it it was some do you know i think it was it was really really necessary to do um it might not have been me who it was necessary to do it but it was really necessary for someone to do i think that it's for it's been a behind the scenes thing for ever since i've been in the industry you release a song this this happens to every single artist by the way and most artists settle out of court quietly and no one hears about it and it just sort of goes away um but you do that two or three times and then that just becomes the norm even when like you're so adamant you haven't done anything wrong and that had happened a few times where i was like i haven't done anything wrong should we sketch it out for the listeners what happened because a little bit of shape of you sounded like no scrubs was it no uh that was that was a weird scenario actually because we i basically made shape of you and it had an interpolation of no scrubs we went to clear it uh but the song was coming out too soon so it didn't get cleared in the time that it came out right then the song came click song came out and then we cleared it so it wasn't like there was a claim we had gone to them and said there's an interpolation in this song which actually helped us a lot in the court case because there were so many instances of if i had taken influence or sampled a song we'd sorted it out um so shape of you was in the british courts got you thinking out loud was in the american courts i got sued at the same time pretty much for both of them and i in my heart of hearts knew that i hadn't done anything wrong and i basically put my money where my mouth was and my time where my mouth was and said i'm gonna i'm gonna show that i didn't do anything wrong and thinking out loud was the estate of marvin gaye's no it was the estate of ed townsend right so ed townsend's estate said this sounds a lot like let's get it on i think that they basically had law i mean i know their law i watched their lawyers work like they weren't they didn't they weren't musicians basically and i think had they had musicians to give them advice once we were in court and you have professional musicologists uh like we had a brilliant guy called larry who basically sat up there and just laid it all out and everyone went oh yeah that makes a lot of sense said it's this is a common chord sequence and actually it's not exactly the same and all of that and it had been used prior to let's get it on um i don't know if it felt it felt really weird in both courtrooms and this it's such a toxic environment to be in as well because like i don't know there's just lots of hate in the room and i'm there because i'm getting accused of being a thief and i'm wanting to prove that i'm not a thief they're there because they think that i've stolen their song and you're kind of like having to say that but through two lawyers kind of shouting at each other whereas i don't know as i was saying in the court case it's like someone owning the color blue with with art you can't own a chord sequence there's if if you own that chord sequence then what about all the songs that came before that chord sequence can then they now sue you and then at what point does that end you go and find the first person that did the chord sequence?

1:09:10Or do you just go, chords can be put together and sung to? You know, it's a really dangerous precedent to set. I know your time is precious. Have you got another minute or two? Yeah, I was going to leave at five, which is like 15 minutes. Perfect. How's your work-life balance? Much better now. Much better now, I'd say. Better than when? Well, when I was 20, 21, 22. But do you think, you know that thing that hits you? Because in a way, when you're younger, you can be consumed by work. That has its own obstacles, but you don't have a wife or children who are going to take the hit. And then suddenly you have kids and you're actually, you know, you've got this centre of gravity to your life.

1:09:51Yeah. Well, and also there's like more meaning to the mundane. But would you have rules and whatnot? How do you manage demands on your time? I try not to do more than really a week away and not really like on the trot. and I always finish, if I'm in the studio, I'll work nine till three, so in school hours, so I can drop off and pick up or whatever. And I don't know, just always try and make time, I think. There's a great documentary series on Disney, four parts. What's it called? Some of it all. Some of it all. It was, what, two, three years ago? Yeah. And you were going through a difficult year.

1:10:33Did you watch it? Yeah, I watched all of it. Yeah, it's really well done. You were going through a lot. You were dealing with the loss of Jamal, your wife's illness, and then there's a moment in Union Chapel where you start crying on stage. This isn't really a question. It's an observation. Do you feel like you're out the other side of all of that? Yeah, I really do, actually. Way more so. When Jamal died, and it was at the same time as the court case, same time as Cherry was going through her stuff. And my friend Shane died literally like a week later. And it was, I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone about it just because, I don't know, I feel like I've got so many blessings in my life that when real life shit happens, like I can't unhear the, but look at, look at, everything's good.

1:11:28You know, like I can't unhear that. so I started seeing a therapist at that time and I stopped seeing her like a year ago and I feel like at that point I felt just a lot better and I had this like cloud period where I still have my ups and downs but I had a real cloud period where I couldn't get out of it Related to everything that we were talking about It triggered something and I just couldn't bring myself to feel any happiness or joy I just was always sad and I feel like I got out of that mostly through stuff like work-life balance and and music creation yeah I mean creating this album was so fun it's kind of like it's the balance of the both it's the creating stuff that you love during the day and then having a wonderful evening with your family or morning like mornings are the best man because you kind of your kids wake up and they're not knackered I've just did a jigsaw puzzle with my daughter this morning for an hour and that was enough.

1:12:29It was great. Bit of Lego. Yeah, they got into Lego. Yeah. I'm totally Will Ferrell from the Lego movie though. Like I'll help make the thing and then my daughters will want to just take it apart and I'll go and just have to let them. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's so like ingrained in me. I find like I'm doing the Lego and they're not really doing it and then one day you come down and you realise you're doing Lego on your own. It's good for the brain, isn't it? Kind of, but it's like I don't know. I just don't think my kids liked Lego as much as I did. And it was a strange... Yeah. My thing with Lego is you make a massive thing.

1:13:07Say, I made the Imperial Star Destroyer over Christmas one time. And then I was just sort of like, where do I fucking put this? That doesn't look really weird. What, that you made the Death Star? I have made the Death Star, yeah. I made the big Imperial Star Destroyer. And I ended up, I have a bar at home. That must take a while. It took a couple of weeks. I just put it on top of the bar and then it just lives there with the Millennium Falcon and the... But it... I don't know. There's some... I don't know. Can you display them in the house without looking a bit fucking weird? It's hard though because what else do you do with them?

1:13:39Danny Dye was on Desert Island Discs and they said... I loved his Desert Island Discs. Did you listen to that? Yeah, I loved his Desert Island Discs. Do you remember what his one luxury item was? It was the Lego Death Star so that he could make it. Over and over again. I'm taking him to the West Ham game in Ipswich. I slagged off I didn't slag off I said I was asked about fish and chips and I was like you kind of have to see the seaside to eat them and I wouldn't necessarily want to eat them in London and he got took a big offence to that and then said something about it and then what online somewhere?

1:14:10no I think he got interviewed it was a jokey affair he was like yeah he had a pop at me and I got in contact with him and just said come to Ipswich so you're going to do it? yeah it's going to be fun yeah I love Danny we used to have Danny Dyer nights on tour we had I went on IMDB got his whole filmography and we just went from the start to the end and watched every single Danny Darfell I'm interviewing him next week yeah I'll be seeing him Sunday you can give him a briefing the thing about Louis is he's a cheeky fucker no thank you man thank you appreciate it that was really nice of you to come by Ed Sheeran in the house

1:15:00OK, that was Ed Sheeran. Thank you, Ed, for coming by. Quite special, talking to someone at that level, that echelon, that altitude, if you will, a mountaineer of the heights of pop success. He's an absolute colossus of pop music. And yet, nevertheless, like all of us, a human, a human dealing with human problems, human travails of wanting to continue to be successful, wanting to put out good work and have it be liked. You know, there's little glimmers of, dare I say it, vulnerability, you know, when he talks about young bucks, young pups, interlopers, insurgents, the younger people coming in, hoppers we used to call them in the streets, young hoppers who come and want to, they think they can sell on your block.

1:15:56and I'm dangerously continuing that metaphor and then you're like, I'm the OG here or am I? Am I too old to survive? And you forget that. To me, I'm so old that to me, Ed Sheeran still feels like a new kid on the block. I don't mean literally like a member of that group. I mean, someone who's just arrived, still having hits, but he's so many albums in now. He's starting to feel that elder statesman energy. New additions to the bingo card. One is if I say, have you watched my documentaries? Or any variant thereof. Does it count if they bring up the subject? Yes, it still counts. If I go with it.

1:16:37If I say, like, I'd rather not talk about that, it seems big-headed, then don't mark it off. But if I say, like, I thought you'd never ask, even if it's ironic, or if I make any comment that seems to elicit further exploration of the subject of my work, check that off your bingo card and also Jiggle Jiggle coming up I think Have You Watched My Fucking Documentaries might turn out to be the easiest to mark off bingo item if you listen to the John Wilson episode it seemed to mainly consist of not just me saying Have You Watched My Documentaries but then in the outro me talking about nice to talk to someone who's watched my documentaries that was my main takeaway I have disappeared up my own bunghole Other Elton's I said I'll get back to you And I was forgetting guest of the pod Ben Elton Is it different if it's a surname?

1:17:38I don't think so Ben Elton definitely is called Elton There's a guy called Elton Wellsby who used to do ITV sports That was Aaron I won't tell you what he said it was so boring In the entire USA, approximately 15 ,505 people, children, adults and seniors, currently bear the name Elton. That is 0.00 % of all living Americans. I know, zero. That is statistically zero, but that's 15 ,000 people. Most famous people named Elton, number one is Elton John. But there is also Elton Britt, Elton Dean, Elton Hayes and Elton Jangees. Elton Jangees is a South African rugby player. We've got enough on Elton, I think It would be great if you could give the show a follow On your preferred podcast platform And if you're listening to the podcast Rather than watching it Shame on you Join me on Spotify, we're fully visualised It's like a shitty TV show Too much?

1:18:39It's like a kind of Punk TV show Punk It's like a TV show It is a TV show I've put some clips from this series on my YouTube channel To whet your appetite Whet with an H Why? Because it means sharpen Like wetting a knife on a stone That's at official Louis Theroux All one word if you want to check it out Whet, W-H-E-T Well done Millie for spelling that right

1:19:17Right, I think that's it. Apart from the all-important credits, the producer was Millie Chu, the assistant producer was Artemis Irvin, the production manager was Francesca Bassett, and the executive producer was Aaron Fellows. The music in this series was by Miguel de Oliveira. This is a Mindhouse production for Spotify.