Ed Sheeran Quotes

So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts.

I have no problem paying my dues and I have no problem going out and working the club circuit.

I started writing music when I was 15 in my bedroom, and I'd post them on MySpace, and from there it shifted to doing covers on YouTube and building my Twitter.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I'm doing new stuff all the time.

I understand the rock star deal having been one and still going out strapping my guitar on and performing. Now, I probably do 30 or 40 dates a year and I get to relive how I felt at 19 when I played in some really bad bands.

In 1972 through '74, right before we hit it big, we were hauling our own equipment into the club and setting up and playing for, I don't know, a hundred bucks a night.

My parents were serious working musicians, but they were not stars - not like pop stars that you have now. They had to make a living and that meant touring, working hard, going on the road - and we were roped in.

You have to spend a lot more time on the road these days if you want to make a living with music.

Way before we got a record deal, we were playing clubs seven nights a week, three one-hour sets a night. Then we got the record deal, and we took off on the road and stayed out.

Do I love the road? Honestly? No - but it's how I earn my living. I also don't have the blues, like it's some kind of fever. The blues is my job. It's what I do.

Being a rock n' roll star ain't a part-time gig.

Playing live and making a living from music was always the only goal.

I'm on the road earning my money. I didn't get any million pound record deals. Not unless you're Jedward! I'm doing very well, but I still have a mortgage to pay off. So I'm on the road.

In our early period we pretty much survived or perished on our capacity to reach people, and on getting into the pattern of having no money and playing lots of shows.

Touring and putting out records is fun and cool, but I've been doing it for a long time.

Basically, I live to do gigs.

Nowadays, it's like two different arenas, recording and touring. When I started way back in the day, doing both was nothing, you didn't have to think about it, the road and recording.

When you make your living as a singer, you have to go where the gigs are.

When I was little kid, I used to want to be a rock star.

I spent my youth playing music, and I worked a lot in New Jersey and New York clubs. At 18, I worked all around Hudson, Essex, and Bergen counties.

I'm just thankful for gigs.

You don't write on tour; it takes all your concentrating to make the gig - that's survival technique. Afterwards, you run around town to find interesting hipsters and go to all the interesting spots. You got to go to every hotspot until everything has closed down.

We didn't have music videos. You weren't an overnight sensation. You had to work at it and learn your craft: how to take care of your voice, how to pace your concerts, all that trial and error.

Music doesn't have to be fancy. I work hard and enjoy the fact that people want to come to my shows. That's simple, but I'm pretty blue-collar about it.

Now, to be a mainstream act, you have to be firing on all cylinders on so many different platforms. You've got to have a social media voice. You've got to do promo on TV. You've got to tour everywhere.