Ed Sheeran was inspired by ’70s rock music when working on Drive for the F1 movie soundtrack.
The 34-year-old star joined forces with Dave Grohl and John Mayer for the song and with Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love opening the film, they wanted their track to have a similar vibe.
Ed’s producing partner Blake Slatkin brought the project to Ed, who wanted to work with the theme of the movie by having the song sound “like an engine starting”.
Ed told Variety: “I sent a voice note to Blake which was essentially the chorus mumbled. I wanted it to sound like an engine starting.
“We wanted it to make it feel in the zone of very riffed-based ‘70s rock music.”
And Ed relished the chance to try a new musical direction.
Slatkin said: “People don’t know that Ed can rock like this. We had so many times when we were making music…but it never really fit the record.”
Ed added: “It needs to have this riff to start off with. The drums need to come in at this point. The chorus needs to come at this point.
“You’re singing vowels and words form themselves in those points. When you have bullet points of lines from the film, that will actually make up lyrics of the song, it’s quite easy to put song lyrics together.”