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Ed Sheeran campaigns don’t stand much chance these days, but his label deal really did come about through a random encounter.
Call it a tale of two Eds: Ed Howard, head of A&R for Atlantic imprint Asylum Records, first met the superstar singer-songwriter at a 2010 Bruno Mars gig in London. They got chatting and Sheeran, who famously didn’t have his own place at the time, crashed on Howard’s bed and played him some of his songs.
Howard duly signed him to Asylum – at a time when most labels had passed on Sheeran at least once – and was there every step of the way as Sheeran became one of the most successful artists in the world.
Howard has also moved on – he’s now co-chairman of Atlantic UK, with Bryony Turner – and has a roster of hits including Annie-Marie, Maisie Peters, Joel Corey and Tione Wayne. It continues in A&R Sheeran, and is recognized DiversityHitmakers issue for their work on Sheeran’s monster hit, “Shivers”.
to celebrate, Diversity caught up with Howard in London to talk about his working relationship with the man he calls “the best songwriter of this century.”
You have worked with Ed for a long time. How much A&R-ing does he really need these days?
Ed is always asking people for their opinions, not just those who work as A&Rs. He plays a lot of music for a lot of people – friends, family, musicians, songwriters – making decisions he needs to make musically. That is its real power. He’s very open-minded and curious, and it’s really helped him in his career. A big part of A&R is about encouragement and being a sounding board, and Ed is always coming up with ideas. When he asks for your opinion, he’s really asking people he trusts, not lip service. He’s always appreciative and respectful, but he’s also very capable of saying, “No, I made this decision for this reason,” and that’s a very healthy trait.
Do you wish all artists were like this?
It’s a bit of a dream, which doesn’t mean it’s an easy or smooth journey, because how could it be, otherwise everyone would be doing it! It’s definitely a career highlight and a huge joy – he’s a lovely man.
Ed has been the UK’s most consistent hitmaker in recent years. What is its secret?
He writes songs all the time. If you focus on a particular craft and you bring so much talent to it – he says it’s not talent at all, he says he just loaded it! Obviously, I don’t agree with him, but he has worked on it. If you’re trying to make music that goes around the world, You have to write a few specific songs to find three or four exceptional songs. You have to put in the work in terms of trying different things, being open-minded and pushing your boundaries. And obviously there’s a huge component of innate musical talent and understanding that he brings to it.
He also collaborates with a wide range of artists…
He went from a Christmas record with Elton John to “Bad Habits” at the BRITs with Fireboy DML, Taylor Swift, Camila Cabello and then Brit Me The Horizon… It’s a unique cross-section of artists. I don’t think anyone else can credibly touch those artists. It is significant.
Do you tailor your A&R approach to each artist?
absolutely. You have to think about what each artist wants, and it varies a lot. Ed was 18 when I met him, and he still needs different things. Often, over time, artists naturally need less input. They grow more confident, meet more people and make more decisions about what they do and don’t want to work with. When they start, often we introduce and help that person. Everyone needs different levels of encouragement vs. ideas vs. reality vs. editing vs. musical help. But we definitely try and keep it positive, because we want actors to operate in a healthy headspace and have the support of their team.
Where does music get discovered these days?
on many different platforms. It is important to understand the potential of friend recommendation and peer-to-peer sharing and what happens before and during the work that artists do with TikTok, Shorts, Reels and DSPs. That kind of activity is super-important in terms of discovering music and understanding that it’s not just about the song. If an artist is trying to build their fan base, the song itself does not make a fan. It would be something else the artist does, like a piece of content that goes viral. If you’re getting it right, music creates a background for other things. And I don’t think it devalues the music in any way. It simply highlights the creator at the center of the conversation. If you think about Madonna or Elvis Presley, they are not just about music, and yet they are timeless, immortal musicians.
What is the biggest music industry issue your sector is facing right now?
[The U.K. has] It has to come back to the music [we can] Exports Now I see our artists traveling again, I see Mahalia, Macy Peters and Fred Again playing sold-out shows and I think, “Obviously, [the pandemic] Cutting it off for a few years didn’t help, but actually when they’re on the ground there, it feels really exciting and meaningful. So I hope that, even though we have competition from amazing musicians from Latin America, Korea and other parts of the world, we can and we will come back to that.
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