The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Sheeran tells Newman he will ‘nail’ Eurovision
Ed Sheeran told the UK’s Eurovision Song Contest act that he was going to “nail it”.
Brit Award-winner James Newman, whose track My Last Breath was released last month, revealed the chart-topper’s words of advice during an interview with Graham Norton.
The singer, from Settle in North Yorkshire, is hoping to improve the UK’s prospects at the annual event after Michael Rice placed last in 2019 with Bigger Than Us.
Newman is a close friend of the Suffolk singer-songwriter and penned Rudimental’s Lay It All On Me, which features Sheeran on vocals.
He explained how he met Sheeran through his brother, pop singer John Newman.
He told Norton: “I had written the song for Rudimental and they took it out live and they were playing it on tour when they were supporting Ed.
“I was with Ed one day and he said ‘I love that song’ and I was like ‘You should sing it’.
“He was like ‘I would love to, man’ so he came down to the studio. It was such a massive compliment that he came down and recorded my song.”
Asked how Sheeran had responded when he revealed he was going to Eurovision, Newman said: “He was like: ‘Go for it – you’re going to love it. You are going to nail it.”’
Newman moved to London to pursue music but said he had found himself working in bars and pubs before finding success with Rudimental’s Waiting All Night.
He was inspired to pen the Brit Award-winning song by his brother’s success with Feel The Love, which topped the charts.
He said: “I was like: ‘I need to write a song that simple and that amazing – I’m going to do the same’. In a restaurant I wrote the hook for Waiting All Night.”