Ed Sheeran On Working With Zara Larsson & Anne-Marie: They Nailed It

Ed Sheeran is pop’s man of the moment, with two new songs that just smashed a Spotify record. Not to mention, he’s still riding high from writing Justin Bieber‘s “Love Yourself,” which is up for a Grammy. So it’s a big deal when a newcomer collaborates with the British singer, and recently Swedish star-in-waiting Zara Larsson and Anne-Marie, who broke out on Clean Bandit‘s “Rockabye,” got to hit the studio with Sheeran.

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Speaking with Capital FM, he talked about how both singers “nailed” their sessions together. “I don’t know if either are on [their albums], but I did do two sessions,” he explained. “And they’re really, really talented. I’ve never been in the studio with two sort of new singers who just nail it the first time. They literally walked in, sung it, and walked out.”

As for Sheeran’s process of writing for other artists, he outlined his concept of “song jail”: “Sometimes I finish a song and it goes into this little thing on my laptop called Song Jail. Which is not going on any one of my albums…and then someone comes to me and will be like ‘have you got any songs’ and I’ll have a look in Song Jail and release one of the inmates.”

Larsson’s debut album is scheduled for Q1, so she could be the next artist to benefit from one of Sheeran’s musical inmates, like Bieber (“Love Yourself”) and Major Lazer (“Cold Water”) before her.

Watch the interview below.