October
Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Ed Shereen has hit the big time. Moving to London at the tender age of 16, he’d already played over 1,000 shows and independently released five Eps and albums before he was finally signed last year.
Marie Wood had a chat with Radio 1’s man of the moment.
You’ve had quite a big year you got picked up by a major and had the biggest UK selling debut single this year. How’s it been?
It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but it’s been wicked I’m really enjoying doing all these shows. It’s great.
How does it feel going from doing shows on your own to now having the backing of a major label behind you?
It’s very similar. I’m still doing things on my own, but I have a support team around me who help with press, radio, tv.
Were you surprised by how ‘A-Team’ took off as a single?
Yeah, I never really expected it to stick around this long; it’s still in the top 5 eight weeks on and I’m really grateful for that and I never expected that.
Your latest single coming, ‘You Don’t Need Me, I Don’t Need You’ seems quite autobiographical. Where did the song come from?
The song evolved over a couple of years, I wrote it five years ago and it evolved step-by-step. It’s just about the music industry.
Was it about anyone in particular as it seems quite pointed with the lyrics: “Call yourself a singer-writer, you’re just bluffing, your name’s on the credits, and you didn’t write nothing”
I think if you don’t write your own tunes and your name’s not on the credit then it would be about you, I guess. It’s not really pointed at anyone it’s just a general vibe.
When I wrote it I was being encourage to sing songs that I didn’t write and I didn’t want to, so I wrote that line.
Is there a songwriter that you would sing a song for if they wrote it for you?
I’m sure if Stevie Wonder wrote me a song, I’d sing it.
The video for ‘You Don’t Need Me, I Don’t Need You’, has a guy doing sign language and body popping. What was the concept behind the video?
I just wanted to make a video that no-one had done before. The song was all about lyrics and having it focus on two things, the lyrics with sign language make you listen to it more, I think.
The song also has the lyrics: ‘I’ve done about thousand shows, I haven’t got a house and I live on a couch’. Are you still couch surfing?
Yep. I’m kind of always on the road, so there’s kind of no point paying for a place to rent. Whenever I’m back in London I sleep on my manager’s couch.
Have you grown used to having quite a nomadic lifestyle?
Yeah, I’ve kind of grown used to it as I’ve done it for so long. I think it’s a comfort thing
Do you ever want to retreat home to your parents in Suffolk to have a routine for a while?
You know, I get home when I can but it’s quite rare.
You started off at 16 and you’ve been gigging ever since. What prompted that first move at 16? It’s a pretty brave thing to do to move away from everything you know, especially to London.
I just didn’t really want to do anything else and I guess the nature of the music industry being in London, that’s where all the industry, the gigs and all the people are I guess, so I just went out and started gigging there.
Wasn’t anyone around you concerned, like your parents maybe saying you should be doing A-levels or did you always have their support?
I mean people are always concerned, but it’s always played out in a good way. Thankfully, I have a work ethic and I think my parents are happy that I didn’t move and doss about but I moved and graft.
You do have an incredible work ethic, you’ve already released five eps/albums. Where does that drive come from?
To make it anything in any profession you have to work harder than your competition.
Were there any points where you got close to giving up?
Yes.
What spurred you on?
I got a different view of it; I went to America when I was stuck in a rut in England and did shows out there and got back into the swing of things I think.
What was it like out in America? You played at Jamie Foxx’s the Fox Hole.
Yeah, that was great, a really surreal experience, but really cool and fun.
Who else did you meet out there?
Just different musicians, poets and beatboxers.
How did it inspire you to keep going?
Just, because I wasn’t playing in front of acoustic audiences I was playing in front of soul audiences, hip-hop audiences; I did this one show at the Key Club in LA which is called RnB live I only played two songs in front of a full audience who were there to watch Bobby Brown. Just getting up in front of an audience and have them really get into it was really nice.
You are a genre-crossing artists; you’ve collaborated with grime artists, you rap and then you do traditional singer-songwriter tracks. What’s the difference in audience as you must play quite different and quite mixed crowds?
There’s no difference you still have to put on a good set; in America they recognise as music as much as people in England recognise music so there’s no type of discrimination if you get up and play a tune that is important to you and people kind of realise that there’s no type of difference.
You’ve done an astounding amount of shows something like over a thousand. Have you got any standouts of the best and the worst show?
It kind of differs from day-to-day, every single gig I’m doing has to be the best nowadays as they’re all really fun, I haven’t done a shit gig in years they’ve all been really kind of great, actually.
There must be one that stands out in your mind that was particularly bad?
I did a gig in Swindon in November last year where I literally played to the sound engineer and missed my train home and had to sleep in the train station – that was pretty shit.
You’re debut album’s called it +, why? It’s going to be a bit of a nightmare to Google.
If you’re on an illegal download site it’s going to be a bit of a nightmare to search that as well. It’s kind of a definition of every thing I’ve done so far, it’s the next, it’s positive as well; it encapsulates all that.
How did you record the record?
I just recorded it with the main people I’ve recorded everything with, a guy called Jake. We did it really DIY in his shed studio, it was a very relaxed recording process.
How long did it take?
Two months.
Jake’s a long-term collaborator, how do you split the work? What’s the dynamic like?
To be honest, I have most of the ideas we put them down and just write.
Would you consider writing with anyone else?
Of course, but I’ve got the next sort of 20, 30 years to work with other people. I’m quite comfortable working with Jake at the moment.
What were you listening to around the time of the album?
A lot of Eninem, Nizlopi, Damien Rice, Van Morrision.
You’ve had tracks before like ‘Wayfaring Strangers’ with just you and a loop pedal. Is there going to be tracks like that on the album that are just you creating on your own?
Yeah, I mean probably about 60% of the album is just me with an acoustic guitar there’s one song at the end, which is really acapella.
Does the album span as many influences as you’ve done before?
I hope so, yeah. The songs are my favourite songs I’ve written and they all sort of go well together and I hope do encapsulate that, but then at the end of the day I’m happy with it as a record and if certain influences don’t pop up here and there, there’s a reason.
