Ed Sheeran. Sean Smith
not unique: many young people used singing as the best form of therapy – although not all of them chose The Marshall Mathers LP. Ed’s favourite track from it, and the one that had most influence on him, was the UK number one ‘Stan’. The song combined two elements that are very important in Ed’s music: a catchy melody line, which was sung by Dido, and a poetic, rhythmic rap by a master of the craft. Ed included the song in his Desert Island Discs and a separate list of his all-time favourites, which he gave to Rolling Stone magazine.
The song, which told of an obsessive fan’s suicide, gradually builds into a rage, then takes it back a step for the Dido chorus, which was basically a sample from her hit ‘Thank You’. Ed enjoyed its contrast of different emotions.
Even when so young, Ed seemed able to appreciate different musical genres. He still loved Van Morrison but now he was discovering new artists for himself. He noticed that Dr Dre, the producer of The Marshall Mathers LP, had a new album coming out entitled 2001, much of which featured Eminem. Ed, who earned pocket money from odd jobs, including washing cars, made sure he bought it, then widened his collection to include Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, who had been killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996, and the Notorious B.I.G., who had been shot dead in a similar fashion a year later. Hip-hop music seemed wild and exciting to a boy soon to start high school in a small Suffolk town.
Ed was fortunate in that his older cousin Jethro had similar tastes, which meant there was someone to appreciate his new music on family holidays. Jethro, who was brought up in Bristol, had been inspired to become a rap artist when he heard Tupac’s hit ‘Dear Mama’, a tribute to his mother whom he loved dearly despite her addiction to crack cocaine. Jethro was already fifteen when Ed first discovered hip hop but over the years the two worked closely together on each other’s songs, particularly when Ed was still learning his craft in Framlingham.
Tupac’s stories were grittier than those of Hollywood A-lister and rapper Will Smith, but Ed had become a big fan of the latter, too, when he discovered that The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was on TV after The Simpsons on a Sunday night. He lost little time in learning Will’s theme-tune rap. He loved it and is liable to drop a verse randomly into a song at one of his concerts.
Curing his stutter undoubtedly enhanced Ed’s confidence but he still had his problem eardrum. That was finally operated on when he was eleven, which was obviously a relief, although he would continue to have problems with it in the coming years.
While Eminem undoubtedly influenced Ed’s choice of more contemporary music, his love affair with the guitar was triggered by an old master on TV. He watched Eric Clapton performing ‘Layla’ at Party at the Palace, the June 2002 concert to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.
The concert became famous for Brian May playing ‘God Save the Queen’ on the palace roof, but Eric was the highlight for Ed. He had slipped unassumingly onstage after an unlikely collection of Emma Bunton, Atomic Kitten and Cliff Richard had joined Brian Wilson to perform ‘Good Vibrations’. He commanded the space, dressed immaculately in an expensive dark suit and playing a guitar that was itself a work of art. The renowned New York graffiti artist John ‘Crash’ Matos had painted one of Eric’s signature Stratocasters and presented it to him as a gift. Eric was delighted and commissioned others from the artist, who had made his name spray-painting trains across the city. The guitars became known as ‘Crashocasters’ and Eric played the original on a world tour. The big video screens to the side of the stage zoomed in on his hands as they moved nimbly around the musical work of art.
‘Layla’ is an iconic rock anthem that Eric has played thousands of times since 1970, when the track first featured on an album by his band Derek and the Dominos. An intensely passionate composition about love, the song changes halfway through into a much more melodic number that features a long, melancholic guitar solo.
Ed was spellbound by the whole magnificent performance – the majestic riff, the guitar and the sheer presence of Eric. ‘I was like “Wow. That was so cool. I want to play that.”’ Even at eleven, once Ed had decided to do something, he did it. Fortunately his parents would invariably back him up.
Ed was in danger of always being half a step behind his elder brother, Matthew, who played the violin and continued to progress as a young classical musician. Ed had started taking cello lessons at school and his parents initially wanted him to tread a traditional musical progression of passing exams. Ed went along with it, but even at eleven he saw a different future for himself. He explained in the book A Visual Journey that classical music didn’t inspire, excite or do anything for him whatsoever.
Instead, two days after watching Clapton, he walked into a pawnbroker’s in Ipswich with £30 in his pocket and came out with a black Stratocaster copy. From that moment, Ed spent the majority of his leisure time shut away in his bedroom playing guitar. For the first few weeks, it was just ‘Layla’. One can only imagine what the rest of the Sheeran household thought, hearing its famous riff played badly again and again … and again.
His parents decided he needed proper lessons and found a guitar teacher, Graham Littlejohn, who played with a local band and taught Ed to widen his repertoire. Under Graham’s guidance, he learned to play rock classics, including ‘A Million Miles Away’, a thrilling piece by the celebrated Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher.
Just a month after seeing Eric Clapton on TV, Ed went to his first live concert. He persuaded his dad to take him to see the enduring American punk band Green Day when they brought their Pop Disaster tour to Wembley Arena in July 2002. He was eleven, and due to start high school in a couple of months. It was the first of many occasions when John Sheeran would accompany his son – in fact, he would be with him on every step of his musical journey. Many of Ed’s friends were fans of the band, who were one of the biggest-selling acts in the world, and going along to see them in London earned him plenty of bragging rights.
Ed was pretty much a guitar geek by the time he started at Thomas Mills High School in September 2002, but not in an irritating way. He wasn’t a loner and found it easier to make friends than he had in the past, especially if they were keen on music, too. Many of the mates he already had, including James Mee, moved to Framlingham College and inevitably they lost touch. James, who went on to become head boy, was more academically minded than Ed and achieved nine A*s at GCSE.
Thomas Mills was in the town, meaning Ed could walk to school – which was a bonus. His first form teacher was Georgie Ross, a charismatic young woman who was also in charge of drama. She noticed Ed among the new boys and girls right from the start, not just because of his striking ginger hair and glasses but also because he had brought his guitar with him on the first day. She recalls, ‘It was his passion. That was the first thing I noticed about him. We had a getting-to-know-you exercise and he talked about his guitar. He was very funny and endearing, a jovial sort of cheeky chappie.’
Ed has never explained why, having been to fee-paying private schools, he moved on to attend a state secondary. He has intimated that he found Brandeston Hall sporty and competitive, adding, ‘The other kids had a lot of money. I didn’t enjoy it.’ The huge fees at Framlingham College may also have had something to do with it. His parents’ business was successful but was at the mercy of supply and demand, and there were no guarantees that they could afford the five-figure sum needed to keep two boys at public school for the next five years.
Ed has hinted that he was bullied during his school years but he has never been specific about when and where. He accepted that he was a ‘weird-looking kid’ and that everyone suffers ‘a bit of bullying at school’. A particularly unpleasant boy threw a milkshake over him from a car while he waited at the bus stop. Such treatment motivated Ed to beat them at life.
Thomas Mills had a growing reputation as a school that encouraged children to make the most of their talents, particularly in the arts. The school dates back to the eighteenth century but was established as a comprehensive in 1979 by the merger of the old Mills Grammar and Framlingham Modern schools. Matthew was already being noticed by the time his younger brother joined him. He had been praised for his crystal-clear singing of ‘Pie Jesu’ at an end-of-term prizegiving. Both boys were fortunate that they arrived at the