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![\"Ed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768509428_88_maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEd Sheeran Performs Drive with Dave Grohl, Blake Slatkin, Rami Jaffee, Pino Palladino & John Mayer! – YouTube
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Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n John Mayer<\/a>, Dave Grohl<\/a>, and Ed Sheeran formed a perhaps unlikely triumvirate when they collaborated on the song Drive, featured in Brad Pitt’s racing movie, F1.<\/p>\n Now, Mayer and Sheeran \u2013 together with all-star producer Blake Slatkin \u2013 are taking fans (and songwriting aficionados) behind the scenes on how the collaboration came about \u2013 and what exactly went down in the studio.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI was called by my friends at Atlantic Records who were working on the soundtrack, and they had me come in and see the movie,\u201d relates Slatkin in an interview with Variety<\/a>.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I watched it, and got the feeling of watching the movie, which is just insane adrenaline, and like, \u2018Holy shit. This is gonna be the biggest thing in the world, and people are gonna love this.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI literally walked out of the screening room and called Ed and John at the same time, and was like, \u2018We have to make a song for this.\u2019 Obviously, some of the greatest musicians in the entire world would be my first call. And luckily, they were down, and we all got into John’s room at Henson [Studios] and started it.\u201d<\/p>\n As Mayer details, as soon as they got together, there was no, \u201c\u2018Well, let me just kick this around.\u201d Instead, they all got straight down to business.<\/p>\n \u201cEd said, \u2018What about this?\u2019 And he kind of hummed the semblance of a guitar riff<\/a>. He just starts writing. The distance between not having a song and having a song for Ed is a millimeter,\u201d he quips.<\/p>\n Ed Sheeran & John Mayer – Drive from F1: The Movie | Behind the Song – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThis is within 10 minutes of the session starting \u2013 Ed saying to John, \u2018Give me a rock riff,\u2019 kind of humming something,\u201d exclaims Slatkin, to which Sheeran adds, \u201cJohn\u2019s got this toolkit of unwritten rock riffs, really. I wouldn’t say that you\u2019re, like, out and out, AC\/DC<\/a> rock \u2013 the music that you make \u2013 [but] you could easily do it.\u201d<\/p>\n And for the keen-eared guitar geeks, there\u2019s a spattering of blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-\u2019em Easter eggs that Mayer reveals, including \u201cthis harmonic kind of whistling thing, and it’s rhythmic \u2013 you can’t tell what it is. It\u2019s the speakers of Ed’s first take of the vocals coming through that guitar part [through the pickups].\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s also \u201cbig dive bomb [in the bridge]. You know, the guitar’s got the \u2013 whether people call it the whammy bar<\/a> or the sort of Eddie Van Halen<\/a> style whistle.\u201d<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n As for the other star collaborator (or should I say collaborators?), the track also features Dave Grohl back on drums \u2013 as well as session maestro Pino Palladino<\/a> on bass<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we thought who should drum on this song, the first name was Dave Grohl,\u201d explains Slatkin matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n \u201cI texted him,\u201d Mayer pipes in. \u201cThese things are too intriguing to say no to if you\u2019re in town. Same way it got passed to me initially. \u2018Hey, do you want to write a song for F1 \u2013 the big summer movie coming with Brad Pitt?\u2019 I think everyone kind of knew this movie was coming. I’m pretty discerning. I like staying at home. I like doing minimal stuff. And that’s one of those things you go, \u2018Yeah.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, since the day I’ve met both of these guys, anytime I would get a call from them, I’m there,\u201d Sheeran concludes.<\/p>\n \u201cAnytime that I\u2019ve worked with John, he can take an eight out of 10 and make it 10, instantly. But he is, honestly, one of the greatest musicians of all time… I\u2019m sort of sat in the middle of this, just kind of grinning. It\u2019s been great. It\u2019s been a really fun process.\u201d<\/p>\n And, speaking of notable collaborations, following last year\u2019s breakout performance at Black Sabbath<\/a>\u2019s Back to the Beginning<\/a>, Yungblud continued his winning streak by teaming up with both Aerosmith<\/a> and the Smashing Pumpkins<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed Sheeran Performs Drive with Dave Grohl, Blake Slatkin, Rami Jaffee, Pino Palladino & John Mayer! – YouTube…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-235188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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