Name: "Just Get In and Do It” | Ed Sheeran on Creativity
Uploaded: 2024-06-25T19:28:40.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video '"Just Get In and Do It” | Ed Sheeran on Creativity' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-06-25. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video '"Just Get In and Do It” | Ed Sheeran on Creativity' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-06-25. Transcript available.

- But I was gonna say,
are there things you started to do like in your career
that you started, like it was another like thing
you wanted to start to learn, like learn a language.
You know, like Joe Rogan told me one day, he's like,
when I'm done with doing this job, I wanna paint.
And I never thought I would hear him say, I was like, huh?
- Yeah.
- But I just think about that.
- Howard Stern paints really, really well.
Howard Stern does like amazing watercolors.
Like you see them and you're like, holy shit, yeah.
- Dude, "Silence of the Lambs" paints, dude.
That guy, what's his name?
- Anthony Hopkins.
- Anthony Hopkins, dude, bring him up.
- Oh, wow.
- He paints, brother.
- That's amazing.
- Did the Lambs stop painting?
- I paint as well.
- Oh, really?
I didn't know that.
- Actually at the front of the pub,
there's a painting that I did, but it's less, it's more,
it's more, I just go into a studio with canvases on the floor
and just splash loads of color.
And when it's done, it's done.
But that's more like, I started doing that when I finished,
I did this tour that ended in 2019.
And when it finished, I was like,
I don't want to do music for like a month,
but also I want to carry on being creative and do stuff.
So I started painting then.
I learned Italian as well.
And that was like, I bought a place in Italy
and no one speaks English there.
So I was like, I have to learn Italian.
But those are like the two things that if I wasn't doing music,
I'd like to put more time into, and honestly, like discover,
I love movies, discovering new things.
- Yeah.
- Like movies, like different artists, albums.
- Will you listen to something or watch something
to sometimes put you in like a mood
to like create your own music even, or to write songs?
- No, my creative process is just basically like, do it.
Like just get in and do it.
And if it's bad, forget about it and move on.
So I've tried to be creative every single day,
write a song every single day,
or two songs every single day,
and not worry about whether it's good or not.
Like not be like,
I feel like some people think that like writer's block
is a thing where you're like, oh, I can't write songs.
But you can write songs, you just can't write good songs.
So just like keep writing.
- Get the bad ones out.
- Exactly, yeah.
So "Shape of You" was written on a day
and we wrote four other songs that day
that no one's really heard.
And "Shape of You" came out of that.
And if I hadn't written the four bad songs,
I wouldn't have got the one good song.
So yeah, just a process of just constantly doing it.
But I don't think I've ever really watched.
The only movie that I've watched to create something
was I did a song for "The Hobbit"
and they showed me the movie.
And then they went,
this is the point where the song comes in
and your song has to convey this
and bring the audience out of the movie.
And it was a point where Smaug's going to the big town
at the end and he's going to destroy it
and cover it in fire and flames and blah, blah, blah.
So they were like,
we need this chaotic bit and then a calm bit.
And you basically taking the audience out of the cinema.
So that was the first time I've been like,
inspired by a movie, I guess.
- Wow, that's a pretty cool task, huh?
- Yeah, really cool.
And also in that process,
you're essentially working in a creative medium
that you don't really know anything about.
And you're so excited.
Like I was so geeked out to be working with like Peter and Fran,
and then getting to do the press tour
with all of the actors and stuff.
And you're suddenly there in a world
that you don't really belong in.
But it's like, it's like what the reason,
musicians are obsessed with sports players
and the sports players are obsessed with musicians.
And it's because each can do something that the other can't do.
- Yeah.
- But there's still like a level of dedication
you have to do to get to that point.
- Do you feel like you'll make different music
since you have like a family and stuff now?
Does that start to like-
- I definitely did.
- I guess it's kind of a silly question, but it's like-
- I made an album that my fans weren't like over the moon about,
because I feel like I was in quite a happy point of my life.
And so the album didn't have much tension.
It was just, I made a record.
But yeah, I feel like my, you know,
just because I'm married with kids doesn't mean that like,
you don't have tension in your life.
I feel like even more so there's been things in my life
that have happened over the past two years.
So I think the music that I'm making at the moment
is more like the music I was making in my early twenties,
when there was a lot of tension going on in my life.
But you definitely, you go through periods of time, don't you?
I'm sure you go through periods of time where you're like,
things are good.
Yeah, I feel quite settled, quite happy.
And then suddenly a bombshell happens and then you have to-
- Yeah. - Yeah.
So I feel like that's, for me, always creating music.
I can see like back on my albums,
there's like a lineage of like,
this is where I was at this point,
this is where I was at this point.
And I feel like if all of the albums sounded the same,
it'd be boring.
- Yeah, you have to evolve in some sort.
- And it's good to have like,
this is the album when I was like the album,
when I made an album in COVID quite settled, quite happy.
We had our first child.
And yeah, I listened to that now and it's not,
there's no like heartbreak songs on it or sad songs or blow.
It's just kind of, it is what it is.
- Yeah. Cause a lot of times it's like,
rip my fucking heart out, Eddie, you know?
- Yeah.
I think I'm getting back-
- Okay, good.
- On this one.
I think-
- That's what we want, man.
- But this is what you're saying about taking time off.
You have to take time off to actually live life.
Like if I'm on the road, I think this is another thing why people who get
successful early,
have their age freeze.
Cause when I'm on the road, life does just pause.
- Yeah.
- Cause you like today you wake up, get on a plane, you fly here, we're doing
an interview.
You might go out for dinner tonight.
There's no like actual real, real life interaction in your actual personal life
being lived because
you're constantly working.
So you'll go back.
I always found this, you'll go back home and you'll press play on your life
again.
And then you'll be like, holy fuck, so much has happened.
How do I keep up with this?
You've, your friend who was dating this person is now not dating this person.
You've missed that whole thing.
Your dad might be going through something.
You've missed that whole thing.
Like your brother's doing this.
- It is weird.
That's a really great way to say it too.
Yeah.
- You just put it on pause and you go and do your thing and you come back
and you, you press play on you, but it's like the whole world has been pressing
play.
Yeah.
- And I think, I think everybody can even relate to that too.
I mean, going and touring and that kind of thing is a little separate,
different.
Cause you kind of get taken out of your life almost and then go and then you
just drop right
back into your life.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think sometimes the tough parts are like, sometimes I'll drift out of what I'm
actually
doing when I'm on stage.
I don't even know what it is.
It's not like I'm daydreaming, but sometimes you'll just, I don't know.
I'll kind of go on autopilot.
Not cause I want to, it just sort of happens and you have to drop back in.
You know, I do that sometimes.
I did that.
I do it quite regularly on perfect.
Cause it's just acoustic.
I'm not having to think about what I'm doing with, with, with my feet.
And occasionally I just dropped the second verse by accident.
And I just kind of come to, and I'm like, oh, I've just, just not sung the
second verse.
And the song's now like minute and a half long, but you do, you get in a,
there's certain things.
I'm sure there's certain routines that you just know so well that your mind
just sort of wanders.
- Yeah. And then how do you make them feel new and to surprise yourself too,
you know?
- I think it's good every now and then to completely rip up the rule book
of what your performance is and just add it as well.
- Yeah. That's a good point.