No point using Ed too soon

LEWIS DELAYS THEIR COLLAB

THEY’RE thick as thieves but Lewis Capaldi refused to release his Ed Sheeran collaboration.

Arguably Britain’s two biggest songwriters created a track called Pointless, but Lewis begged his label NOT to make it a single earlier this year.

Lewis explained: “I think he’s the best British songwriter of the last 20 years, but I had reservations about putting out a Sheeran co-write as the first song because it would be portrayed as ‘Ed Sheeran wrote my first single back’ and I didn’t want that to be the takeaway. He understood where I was coming from.”

Nevertheless, Pointless is expected to become a single soon, and it’s a song Lewis had needed to rescue.

He revealed: “I went into the studio with Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac and at the end of the first day they said, ‘We wrote this verse with Ed, but we couldn’t think of a chorus to save our lives, do you want to have a look?’

“So I gave it a listen, did my interpretation of a chorus and a middle eight and it came together well.”

Lewis has also been a source of support for another major Brit hitmaker, Sam Fender. The Geordie cancelled a bunch of US shows to take care of his mental health recently – something Lewis understood.

He told Music Week: “I was on the phone to him the day he announced that, and you could tell from the way he was talking that he was just drained.

“Seeing someone like him pull tour dates for mental health reasons is good for so many newer artists, because I think there’s a fear of cancelling gigs and missing your chance. But that shows you can do it and still be successful. Sam’s really good at putting his health first and to see him do that was inspirational, even for me.” Lewis returns with second album, Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent, in May.