"People have heard it and loved it." We have an update on that Cradle Of Filth x Ed Sheeran collaboration (and we may still be waiting a while to hear it)

Photos of Ed Sheeran and Dani Filth performing onstage — (Image credit: Simone Joyner/Getty Images | Venla Shalin/Redferns)

The collaborative song between Cradle Of Filth and pop megastar Ed Sheeran won’t be released for approximately another year, according to Cradle frontman Dani Filth.

Filth, 50, recently spoke to Poland’s Pełna Kulturka about the upcoming Sheeran team-up.

“We actually did the song with Ed over a year ago now,” Filth said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).

Of an expected release date, the vocalist added: “So, it’s been about two and a half years [since the initial idea of the team-up], and it’s probably gonna be three and a half years before anybody actually hears the song.”

Filth also revealed that the Sheeran song will be a part of Cradle’s impending 14th album, the followup to 2021’s Existence Is Futile.

“It’s gonna be on the album,” he said. “And people have heard it and loved it. But it is what you imagine – it’s Cradle Of Filth and it’s Ed Sheeran. It sounds like Ed Sheeran, it sounds like Cradle Of Filth. There’s a blast beat in it.”

Of the album as a whole, Filth added: “I think it’s gonna surprise a lot of people, the album. But it doesn’t necessarily mean the album is commercial. It’s a very heavy record. We just upped the game as a band. We moved one step further toward the future from our previous record.

“We see everything as an evolution, everything as an evolutionary step, everything as a necessary link in the chain. And this album's gonna be an important record for us – our first for Napalm Records, if you discount, obviously, the live record [2023’s Trouble And Their Double Lives].”

Filth stated that the lead single of the album should be expected “probably about September, October time”, but did not specify whether said single will feature Sheeran.

Filth previously spoke about the Cradle x Sheeran song in an August interview with Metal Hammer, and the frontman revealed he’d developed something of a friendship with the pop star.

“I’ve spoken to him very regularly over the last two years. Like me, he’s a real Suffolk boy. When he came to the studio that day [for our collaboration], he didn’t come down with a cavalcade of reporters; he turned up on his own, guitar on his back, Cradle Of Filth hoodie on, and got on with it. It was fucking great.”

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.