It sounds like Ed Sheeran might be interested in more than just performing at the ACM Awards.
In an interview with Billboard while in Texas for tonight’s ACM Awards show, he told the outlet that a yet-to-be-revealed artist invited him to sing a song with them, and Ed will also be playing his original song “Life Goes On,” from recent record – (Subtract).
And Ed also told the outlet that he would actually “love to transition into country,” and he talks to his wife about it all the time, adding that he’s drawn to the “brilliant” songwriting:
“I talk about this to my wife all the time. I would love to transition into country.
I love the culture of it, I just love the songwriting. It’s just like brilliant songs.”
He added that living in Nashville on two separate occasions in 2013 and 2018 helped him understand and appreciate the craft of songwriting and how important it is to the genre:
“It’s like a community. There’s not really a place in Europe where you could point and say, ‘That’s the home of songwriting.’ It’s not just for country music.
Nashville is just a hub of incredible songwriters, incredible performers. And I really felt inspired just being there being around everyone.”
And it’s no surprise that his friend, mega star and former country girl Taylor Swift, really helped get him into it after he opened for her on her Red tour many years ago, and now, he says he only listens to the local country station in England:
“There’s a radio station in England called [CountryLine Radio] that me and my wife have on all day, every day in the kitchen.”
While it’s easy to roll your eyes at something like that, at the very least, it’s cool to see someone with a platform like he has saying such positive things about country and the importance of the songs.
We’ll see how serious he is, or if he ever decides to really put out a few country songs or even an album, but I guess he meant it when he said “the brits have a little bit of country in them…”
Of course, Sheeran is a worldwide, multi-Platinum pop star and has won multiple Grammy awards, and is known as a pretty prolific songwriter himself (especially for the pop genre), so it’s not shocking to hear that he really respects the songwriting and storytelling aspect of country music.
Sheeran previously collaborated with Chris Stapleton and Bruno Mars on “BLOW,” and he’s actually become pretty good friends with none other than Mr. Luke Combs, who covered Ed’s song “Dive” and even brought him out on stage for a duet of it back at C2C fest in London last year.
If I had to take a wild guess, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him taking the stage with Luke, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens tonight.
The 58th ACM Awards will be livestreamed at The Star in Frisco, Texas tonight exclusively on Prime Video at 8:00 PM EDT. Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks will co-host the show for the first time.
Zach Bryan and Hailey Whitters are already early winners, taking home the New Male Artist of the Year and New Female Artist of the Year awards, respectively.
You can check out the full list of nominees HERE and all the performers HERE.
“Blow”
“Dive”