Ed Sheeran has worked a bunch of different styles into his music over the years, from folk to dance-pop to hip-hop. One frontier he has yet to explore, though, is death metal, but he’s open to the idea.
He made that reveal recently, telling The Sun, “I was really into death metal as a kid. I listened to Cradle Of Filth and Slipknot and all that stuff. I’m not saying I could ever step into that world. I learned all those riffs on guitar as a kid. That’s something I’ve never thought about doing, but something I would not be opposed to creating.”
It didn’t take that long after that quote surfaced for Sheeran to get a response from Dani Filth, of the aforementioned Cradle Of Filth, a long-running metal group that, like Sheeran, hails from Suffolk, England. Filth shared a screenshot of an article about Sheeran’s quote and wrote on Instagram, “I’ll believe it when I see it. Fellow Suffolk lad could come good in the end. ‘Dracula’s Castle On The Hill’ anyone?” The post also tags Sheeran and features a bunch of hashtags, including “#suffolklads,” “#sadhabit,” and “unlikelycollaborators.”
Perhaps the closest Sheeran has come to making metal music so far was a 2015 sketch on The Tonight Show, when he re-branded as Death Sheeran and covered songs by Slayer and Cannibal Corpse.
Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.