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And Finally Artist News
Ed Sheeran and Cradle Of Filth’s long-awaited collaboration could arrive this summer
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 27 March 2023
It’s now more than a year and a half since the idea of a collaboration between Ed Sheeran and Cradle Of Filth was first mooted. Have we heard anything yet? I think you know the answer to that. However, by the time the two year anniversary rolls around, all that could change.
“Ed’s done all his parts”, Cradle Of Filth frontman Dani Filth tells Metal Hammer of said collaboration. “It’s just bass and vocals for me to do on my return to England after Easter. It’s exactly how you can imagine it’ll sound, if you can imagine Ed Sheeran with Cradle Of Filth. He plays acoustic guitar on it, but it’s heavy: it’s got a blast beat in there. The plan is to do it as a charity single. We’re hoping for it to be out by the summer”.
This all started when Sheeran said back in 2021 that he “would not be opposed” to recording a bit of heavy metal. Dani Filth scoffed and Sheeran called his bluff, sparking the unlikely collaboration. Six months later, the project was still just talk, but then in August last year we were assured that Sheeran had “done some of it”.
Of course, somewhere in all this Sheeran did actually go metal already, recording a new version of his song ‘Bad Habits’ with Bring Me the Horizon. But a collaboration with the more extreme Cradle Of Filth still seems like an unlikely pairing – despite Sheeran professing to be a longtime fan of the band.
And for those of you who still don’t believe this tie up can possibly be true, Filth has twice now posted photos of himself and Sheeran hanging out in Suffolk pub The Four Horseshoes – first for a Christmas dinner and then earlier this month to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
Filth admits that his friendship with Sheeran is “weird”, but says: “I’ve spoken to him very regularly over the last two years. Like me, he’s a real Suffolk boy. When he came to the studio that day, he didn’t come down with a cavalcade of reporters: he turned up on his own guitar on his back, Cradle Of Filth hoodie on, and got on with it. It was fucking great”.
Cradle Of Filth are currently on tour in the US with Devildriver and will release their first live album for 20 years – ‘Trouble And Their Double Lives’ – on 28 Apr. Ed Sheeran’s also doing some stuff.
