Last Tuesday night (February 8) Ed Sheeran stunned the crowd at the 2022 Brit Awards by bringing out Bring Me the Horizon for a super-heavy rendition of his UK chart-topping dance smash, Bad Habits.
Thrilled with how the performance went, Sheeran and the Sheffield, England quintet have now released a studio recording of their reimagined version of song, which you can take for a spin above.
While generally following the course of last week's live version, the recording is, unsurprisingly, a bit more polished, with Bring Me the Horizon frontman Oliver Sykes largely saving his throat-tearing screams for the song's outro.
Still, it goes without saying that it's the heaviest track the pop mega-star has ever released, with thunderous performances from BMTH electric guitar player Lee Malia and drummer Matt Nicholls giving it impressive, foundation-shaking heft.
“I really enjoyed the show last week and I think people will really like the new version," Sheeran said of the song in a statement. "Excited to get it out."
“From receiving the email asking whether we’d like to open the Brits with Ed Sheeran to us chatting and bouncing ideas to rehearsing and then performing and now releasing, this has needless to say been pretty mental," added Sykes. "But we are all about pushing the boundaries of our own and other genres, so this felt like the perfect challenge.”
Last week, Sheeran told the Daily Star how the unlikely collaboration – which was years in the making – came about.
"I got in touch with [Sykes] and we were going to write together but then the pandemic happened,” Sheeran said (via Louder). “So we were in touch – I've been a fan for a long time. Oddly enough that's the kind of music I grew up listening to – [I] had a Kerrang! subscription and I listened to it constantly.”
“The song [Bad Habits] is EDM and they've taken it and made it a whole new thing,” Sheeran added. “I was just like, you know what, these guitars are going to be great. It was a week's turnaround – we emailed each other two weeks ago, recorded it a week ago and rehearsed it three days ago.”
In the same interview, Sheeran added that he plans to write a new song with Bring Me the Horizon as well. Now that we've heard how the band interpret Sheeran's material, it'll be intriguing to hear how – or if – that sound carries over to a potential Sheeran/BMTH original. If we had to take an informed guess though, we'd wager it'll probably be on the heavy end of the musical spectrum...
