One of last year's most bizarre metal stories was when pop mega-star Ed Sheeran outed himself as a lifelong metalhead who grew up listening to genuinely extreme bands like Cradle of Filth and Slipknot. It's not every day that a chart-topping singer-songwriter expresses their love for black-metal, and now Sheeran has gone one step further and actually collaborated with Bring Me the Horizon frontman Oli Sykes and his U.K. metalcore bandmates
Last night (February 8th), Sheeran — armed with BMTH as his backing band — performed a heavy, metal-inflected version of his Billboard-topping smash, "Bad Habits," during the annual BRIT Awards at the O2 Arena in London — with Sykes making a special appearance as a prominent back-up singer. The BMTH vocalist trotted out onstage among the elaborate dancers, lights and special effects, and crooned along with Sheeran for a few verses before echoing the song's refrain with brutal screams.
Again, this is one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time collaborating with a raging metalcore band during a highly-publicized performance at a mainstream awards show. Fucking insane. Watch pro-shot footage of the dazzling spectacle above via YouTube.
