Ethan Miller/Getty Images via ABCHere’s the good news: Ed Sheeran‘s already hard at work on the follow-up to his smash album, Divide. Here’s the bad news: he’s been working on it for six years already, and we probably won’t hear it until three years from now.
Speaking to the British paper The Sun, Ed says of his fourth album, “I’ve been working on this one since the same time as [my first album] Plus. Every year I write a song that will go on it. So I have about six, seven at the moment.”
But, he explains, “It will potentially come later, because it’s been about six years in the making and it might be another three or four. So I might put other stuff out before then, just to have something out.”
And when the new album does come out, Ed says, it’ll sound quite different than his other albums. “It’s not necessarily experimental, but I don’t think there’ll be any hot radio songs on it this time,” he predicts. “It’s a very acoustic record…very acoustic.”
When asked if this mysterious stripped-down album will be called Subtract — to go along with his albums Plus, Multiply and Divide, he says with a smile “It’s within that vein.”
As for the “other stuff” he wants to release before that album, Ed says he’s interested in working with DJ Khaled, as well as with Justin Bieber, with whom he collaborated on the song “Love Yourself.”
“I’m always, always up for working with Bieber,” he says. “…when he wants to start making another album, I’d love to be involved. I’ve got some ideas. I think he’s really talented. And his head’s screwed on properly now.”
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