Watch Ed Sheeran team up with Bring Me The Horizon for a heavy reimagining of his dance hit, Bad Habits

Ed Sheeran recruited Bring Me The Horizon to perform an unexpectedly heavy version of his UK chart-topping dance hit Bad Habits at the 2022 Brit Awards last night (February 8).

Fans of the original probably thought they knew what they were in for: Sheeran strumming on his Lowden acoustic guitar, supported by electronic drum beats and synth-y melodies. However, that’s not what they got.

Instead, Sheeran – with the help of the Bring Me The Horizon clan – ditched the Lowden in favor of a PRS Hollwbody II Piezo, dialed up the overdrive and reinvented his chart-conquering club number as a metalcore-inspired thrash-a-thon.

It starts off fairly standard, though the audience would’ve been aware that it was to be a Bad Habits performance like no other as soon as Sheeran started tamely chugging through the verse’s chord progression.

The biggest differences, however – aside from Sheeran’s six-string selection – occurred during the track’s chorus and outro. 

With BMTH frontman Oliver Sykes fleshing out the lyrics with some guttural vocals, the band’s drummer Matt Nicholls drops the feel of the main hook, while Sheeran and fellow guitarist Lee Malia delve into a drop-tuned fretboard throwdown.

Swarmed by an entire army of onstage dancers – some of whom were suspended via wires above the stage – Sheeran and co continued their Bad Habits reinvention, with Sykes serving up some trademark growls that floated atop a wall of gain-riddled guitars.

You can hear the track in all its heavy-leaning glory in the video above.

Bad Habits was released as the lead single from Ed Sheeran’s 2021 album, =. As most Sheeran songs do, it skyrocketed to the top of the UK charts, where it remained for 11 consecutive weeks.

It wasn’t the only notable guitar performance of the evening, though – not by a long way. At the very end of the ceremony, UK rapper Dave delivered one of the most surprising performances of the whole show: a fiery rendition of In the Fire, for which he wielded an insane flame-throwing Gibson Les Paul.