Ed Sheeran’s “Bad Habits”—His Most Dance-Driven Track Yet—Came About “By Accident”

Ed Sheeran opened up about the techno influences underpinning his most recent release.

In a new interview with Apple Music's Zane Lowe, Ed Sheeran discussed the full story behind the making of his latest single "Bad Habits," which saw the singer-songwriter channeling dance music influences in ways he hadn't previously.

Sheeran had been preparing to wrap up the content for his forthcoming album Minus when he was approached with an opportunity. He was writing a song with producer Fred again.. and his brother, who are in a duo called Rain Radio. The goal was simply to make the perfect dance music track that could be played by Rain Radio in a Las Vegas club.

"It was just like, I'd never really written dance music properly,"Sheeran recalled. "I've never really like gone put my head to it and let's make it."

Despite navigating a new creative lane, Sheeran was pleased with the outcome of their work. "And then when we finished it, I was like, 'This is actually quite good,' he said. "Played it to my manager. He was like, 'Let's make this more…' Because it was really like techno, so we kind of brought it into a space where… What I loved about it is Fred's approach to the vocals. It's barely a whisper. No, Fred's approach is basically just a whisper on the mic. He just said like, you have this massive bass-y chugging and you have this tiny vocal that you make huge."

"Bad Habits" then landed on Sheeran's album—and as a lead single, no less—almost entirely by accident. However, he told Lowe that this phenomena has been par for the course of his last handful of albums, with tracks such as "Shape of You" and "Thinking Out Loud" both arriving in the final moments of his prior album cycles.

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