Ed Sheeran Talks New Music, “Gap Year” and “Game of Thrones”

January 6, 2017 Andrea Dresdale

Greg WilliamsAfter dropping two new singles — “Castle on the Hill” and “Shape Of You” — early Friday morning, Ed Sheeran guest-hosted the BBC Radio 1 morning show Friday. On the show, he revealed that one of the new songs, “Shape of You,” wasn’t intended for him at all: it was meant for Rihanna.

Ed said he’d gone into the studio with his collaborators to “write songs for other people.” “We were writing this song and I was l like, ‘This would really work for Rihanna,’” Ed recalled. “And then I started singing lyrics like ‘putting Van the Man on the jukebox’ and I was like, ‘Well she’s not really gonna sing that, is she?’”

“Van the Man” is a reference to legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Van Morrison, one of Ed’s heroes.

Ed also shared that among the people who got the first listen to his new music were the cast members of a certain Emmy-winning HBO series.

“I ended up going to a party where a load of the Game of Thrones [cast members] were at and they all ended up back at my house,” he laughed. “And I had never met some of them before and I was like, ‘Do you wanna hear some new songs?’”

As for what he did during his extended hiatus from music, Ed says he went traveling, everywhere from Australia and New Zealand to Iceland, Japan and more.

“I kind of said to myself, ‘I tour, that’s kinda traveling,'” he explained. “But I never really saw anything other than a hotel room, a venue and a bar. So I just wanted to go traveling properly, like, do a proper gap year.”

Still no word on when Ed’s new album will be released.