There isn’t much left to chance in Ed Sheeran’s campaign these days, but his label deal actually stemmed from a random encounter.
Call it a tale of two: Ed Howard, head of A&R for Atlantic Imprint Asylum Records, first met the superstar singer-songwriter at Bruno Mars’ 2010 concert in London. They started chatting, and Sheeran, who reputedly didn’t have his own place at the time, ended up crashing on Howard’s couch and playing some of his songs.
Howard duly signed him to Asylum—at a time when most labels had already passed Sheeran at least once—and he was there every step of the way as Sheeran became one of the most successful artists in the world.
Howard has stepped up too – he’s now co-head of Atlantic UK, along with Briony Turner – and has a roster full of well-known artists including Anne-Marie, Maisie Peters, Joel Corry and Tion Wayne. A & R Sheeran continues, and is known at diverseThe Hitmakers issue for his work on Sheeran’s monster hit, “The Shivers.”
in order to celebrate, diverse He met Howard in London to talk about his working relationship with the man he calls “the best songwriter of this century”.
I’ve been working with Ed for a long time now. How much A&R-ing does he really need these days?
Ed has always asked people for their opinions, not just someone who works nominally as an A&R. He plays a lot of music for a lot of people—friends, family, musicians, songwriters—in the run-up to the decisions he needs to make musically. It’s a real strength for him. He is very outgoing and very curious, and that has really helped him in his career. A big part of A&R is about cheerleading and being a sounding board, and Ed comes up with ideas all the time. When he asks you for your opinion, he’s asking him honestly about the people he trusts, it’s not talk. He’s always appreciative and respectful, but he’s very capable of saying, “No, I made this decision for those reasons,” and that’s a very healthy trait.
Do you wish all artists were like this?
It’s a little dreamy, which doesn’t mean it’s easy or smooth sailing, because how could it be, otherwise everyone would do it! It’s definitely a highlight of his career and to my great joy – he’s such a lovely guy.
Ed has been the UK’s most consistent hitmaker in recent years. What is his secret?
He writes songs all the time. If you focus on a certain craft and bring that much talent to it – he says it’s not talent at all, he says he just did it! I obviously don’t agree with that, but he worked on it. If you’re trying to make music that travels the world, You have to write a certain number of 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 limits. And there is clearly a great element of innate musical talent and understanding that he brings to it.
He also collaborates with a wide range of artists…
Going from a Christmas record with Elton John to Fireboy DML, Taylor Swift and Camila Cabello and then “Bad Habits” on BRITs with Bring Me the Horizon… this is a unique cross-section of artists. I don’t think anyone else can credibly touch these artists. It’s great.
Do you design your own recovery and collection approach for each artist?
definitely. You have to think about what each artist needs, and it changes a lot. Ed was 18 when I met him, and he needs different things from now to then. Often, over time, artists naturally require less input. Their confidence increases, they meet more people and make more decisions about who they work with and who they don’t want to work with. When they start, we often make introductions and help that person out. Everyone needs different levels of encouragement versus reality versus ideas and musical assistance versus liberation. But we definitely try to keep it positive, because we want artists to work in a healthy space and know that they have the support of their team.
Where is music discovery happening these days?
on a lot of different platforms. It’s important to understand the power of friend recommendation and peer-to-peer sharing, and this aspect of it happens before and during the work artists do with TikTok, Pants, Reels, and DSPs. This type of activity is very important in terms of musical discovery and understanding that it is not just a song. If the artist is trying to build a fan base, it won’t be the song that creates fans on its own. It would be something else the artist does, like a piece of content that goes viral. If you do it right, music creates a background for other things. And I don’t think that devalues the music in any way. It only highlights the creator in the conversation center. If you think of Madonna or Elvis Presley, they are not just about music, yet they are timeless and timeless musicians.
What is the most pressing music industry problem your field is facing right now?
[The U.K. has] I have to get back to the music [we can] export. Now I see our artists traveling again, I see Mahalia and Maisie Peters and Fred Again playing sold-out shows and I think, “Obviously, [the pandemic] Cutting that out for a few years didn’t help, but actually when they’re on the ground out there, it’s still really exciting and rewarding.” So I hope that, even though there is competition from great musicians from Latin America, Korea and other parts of the world, we can and will come back to that. .
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