Ed Sheeran’s work ethic is unmatched.
The Grammy winner’s eighth studio album, Play, comes out on Friday, Sept. 12 — but in a new interview with iHeartRadio Canada, he revealed his next album, Rewind, is already almost finished.
“I made Play and Rewind at the same time,” said Sheeran. “We finished Play first because it felt like the most exciting one. So, Rewind is… I’d say two months off being totally locked and loaded and ready to go. And I guess at some point in the next 18 months, it will come out.”
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The “Azizam” artist continued, “But yeah, they’re very much like twin albums, I guess. One was one lent more into Indian culture and one lent more into nostalgia. So they kind of veered off in different directions.”
In another recent interview with Condé Nast Traveler, Sheeran opened up about finishing Play in Goa, India and how the culture inspired the album.
“Everyone I met on my travels in India was so kind, welcoming and joyful, and that energy influenced a lot of the album’s direction,” he explained. “I wanted to create joy and technicolor in the music I was making and explore cultures in the countries I was touring in.”
Play marks the first in Sheeran’s new series of albums, and he explained the concept on The Tonight Show in April. “When I was like 18, I had an idea for like 10 albums,” he said at the time. “It’s Plus, Multiply, Divide, Subtract, Equals, and then Play, Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind and Stop.”
The “Thinking Out Loud” musician spoke about his plans to release a posthumous record in the same interview. “I kind of want to make an album for the whole of my life where you put different songs on and then it’s in your will that it comes out the day you die, and it’s called Eject,” he said.
“Imagine if when [Paul] McCartney passes away and there’s a record that he’s made that has a song from he’s 16, there’s a song from when he’s 20, there’s a song from when he’s 30,” detailed the “Shivers” artist at the time. “It’d be fascinating.”
Sheeran then quipped, “There’ll be lots of people who are like, ‘Still, from the grave he’s f—ing with us.’”
