As one of the most popular musicians in the world, Ed Sheeran has been on the road pretty constantly since 2011. However, he did take 2016 off from touring, and now we know the reason behind that break. In an interview that will air on Saturday’s episode of The Jonathan Ross Show, Sheeran says he saw himself heading down a bad road with substance abuse, so he had to step away from life on tour for a bit.
“I think you need to, when you get into the industry, adjust to it — and I didn’t adjust because I was constantly working on tour,” he said. “And all the pitfalls that people read about, I just found myself slipping into all of them. Mostly, like, substance abuse. I never touched anything. I started slipping into it, and that’s why I took a year off and buggered off.”
Sheeran says he “didn’t really notice it was happening,” but after realizing what was going on, he took time away and spent time working on his craft:
“I focused on work, and I can’t work under the influence, I can’t write songs under the influence, I can’t perform under the influence — so the more I worked the less [that happened]. I’ve worked my whole life to get to where I am and you can’t lose that over something that you do in your spare time. I didn’t really notice it was happening. It just started gradually happening, and then some people took me to one side and were like, ‘Calm yourself down’ […] It’s all fun to begin with, it all starts off as a party and then you’re doing it on your own and it’s not, so that was a wake-up call and taking a year off.”
Sheeran didn’t say what sorts of substances he found himself involved with, although in a Rolling Stone interview from earlier this year, he said that he drinks beer “almost every single day,” but that he doesn’t “depend on drink.” He says that now, living with his girlfriend has helped “ground” him, saying, “I was a 25-year-old in the music industry on tour, so I just needed someone to balance me out.”
Now Sheeran has to take some more time off from tour, since he currently has fractures in both of his arms and had to cancel some shows.
