ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley - Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley Podcast - Ed Sheeran!

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley were blessed to head to Wellington to attend the Ed Sheeran Press Conference, ahead of his record breaking show at Wellingtons Sky Stadium!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ZM Podcast Network. Play ZM's Fletch, Vaughn and Hayley. A late night last night for 48,000 people here at Wellington Sky Stadium. Ed Sheeran played. That is the record, by the way, for a concert going at Sky Stadium. It beat Eminem, held the last record. Now, Eminem also had 16 arrests at that concert. I saw two last night. We at that concert I saw two last night We saw two last night. One of which

had like 8 cops carrying someone out and they just shrouded that person. You could barely see. Yeah and then they were gone. I was like who's getting that bloody rowdy at Ed Sheeran? I'm beginning to think some people shouldn't drink Is it that? Yeah maybe. I think it might be a bit of a problem. Yeah. So alcohol could be a huge

societal issue. Ed Sheeran beat Eminem by about 1,500 concert goers. Now, the stage in the middle, so that helps because... No bad seats. There's no bad seats. And so many screens as well. It's an incredible setup, if you've seen on social media. Now, there are still tickets available for Friday and Saturday.

This is next Friday, next Saturday at Auckland's Eden Park. Ticketmaster for those. It's incredible. If you're on the fence like you said before, 100%. We've got a wedding next weekend, but I was saying to Sade, who I am married to and have been for 12 years for new listeners. This is my wife. She's very attractive.

My wife. She's very attractive. People say, how do you do that? And let me just tell you, it's my tackle. Ah, is it? Your tackle box. It's very attractive. People say, how do you do that? And let me just tell you, it's my tackle. Ah, is it? Your tackle box. It's my tackle box. You've got sinkers. Sinkers, hooks, jigs.

She loves flies. Claw fates. The feathery ones. The feathery ones. Burley. All sorts of fishing. She loves burley. I said, we would have totally taken the kids.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, it was two hours, and the dude didn't stop once. I know. Not even for a wee-wee. Yeah. Like, it was two hours, and the dude didn't stop once. I know. Not even for a wee-wee. Yeah. And he's looking good, isn't he? He's looking spelt.

Yeah, he is. He is. He's been resting up in New Zealand. And we said, like, he's got a band with him for some songs. But even then, like, they hardly played any. It's all him. It's all loop pedal, and it's insane to watch. Like, he's incredibly talented.

Screens and everything that go with it. It's like a multimedia presentation. It's incredible. Now, we got some time with him yesterday before the show, didn't we? We did. We were just metres away. It was like a press conference. Yeah.

So he stood up on a microphone and then there was like a media scrum. There was a media scrum. Now, I was quite excited because this would have been kind of our first media scrum, right? Vaughan, would we have? It was mine. Like, we've been to events, but you don't, like, it's not like okay, everyone has a question. Yeah. It was like, you know, a COVID press

conference. It was like a 10 over Jessica, back to Tova. I know. I was expecting Tova to be there. I was expecting Jessica March. And then we would have to let them go first because that's what you do. I know, but I was standing next to Vaughan and Vaughan pushed his way to the front rather violently. He was trotting on people. I said men

first. I said man first, man first. Yeah, women and children last. And Vaughan got his hand on the mic and asked our first question. Hey, when we first saw you at the Auckland Town Hall, that was like a small, intimate venue. Next time we caught up with you, you played Spark Arena. Now you're playing at a record-breaking 48,000 crowd in Wellington.

What's next? I don't know, really, because I sort of felt like on Divide that was where it got as big as it could get. So I feel like on this tour it's more just about maintaining it and coming to play songs for people that want to come and hear them but i feel like i've done my quote-unquote record-breaking tour and now i'm just enjoying being on tour back to pubs and stuff well no but this is the thing like i'm really enjoying like doing the warm-up shows here at the opera house like that is something that's really exciting me now getting

back to playing small venues i played the shepherd's bush empire for my 10th anniversary of plus and it was like the biggest buzz i'd had in such a long time so i think i'm gonna always manage these big venues by playing small venues and have the excitement because i just love playing live it doesn't really matter where it is tonight will be more special than the opera house because it's a one-off night the staging is insane and the production is insane and blah blah and you play all the hits with fireworks and stuff like that but it's nice to have a balance. Yeah. Cool.

Well, if you wanted to scale it right back, I just built a new garage that could... There we go. ...put some hay bales and stuff. But again, something like that would be fun. Well, yeah, okay. I'll check in my details and we'll sort that out. You invited them to your shed. The acoustics are terrible.

Yeah. We're going to get a lot of hay bales. Also, the old egg cartons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To put up on the wall. Bit of that. But he has been in the country where he said, Ed, what have you been up to for the last seven days?

I've been staying just out of Wellington in the countryside, sort of exploring, adjusting to jet lag with my kids. Paw Patrol and such. Yeah, of course. A lot of Paw Patrol when you're adjusting to jet lag. And we also, I don't know, I personally don't know why other journalists weren't speaking up at this time. Because you were like holding the mic like anyone else and they were all so shy.

Oh, no, you're doing such a great job. You ask all the questions. I said, all right, then what do you like about the New Zealand music scene? I find it's kind of like any, like the UK is sort of the same and Ireland in terms of it's not like massive, massive, massive like America. So talent tends to have more opportunity to grow and experiment so i find that the music in new zealand is always like really really great and really really interesting um because i feel like when a country's bigger it takes so much longer for people to get noticed and recognized whereas you can just be great here and be noticed so all

the while he was answering that, I was like offering the microphone to other journalists. It was weird, they were all there, like big news organisations, but they didn't ask any questions at this stage. You've got such great rapport, they just keep going. Even though they did say to us we were only allowed one question, we were just like, well, we'll just keep asking. Just keep asking, yeah. Our questions are going to be dumb.

I was like, alright, I'll take care of it. And then I looked around like I was really disappointed in them, and I asked, are there any songs that you've written for other people that you wish you just kept for yourself? No, because I think you can always write more songs. Like, and I think that it's exciting to have other people sing songs that become successful and go worldwide. Like, yeah. I mean, songs like East Side that I did for Benny Blanco, Khalid and Halsey. Like, that is a song that I wouldn't have used. That was a song that

me and Benny wrote and went elsewhere or like Love Yourself for Bieber was a song that was like on the maybe list for Divide and these songs go on and become massive hits because they're sung differently and they go to different fanbases and stuff, so I think it's good. I think it's good. I like writing songs

and I'm not sort of planning on just like writing ten songs and giving up. Like, I want like i want to keep writing at this stage that i as a sort of a on the spot journalist looked to my uh left i saw hayley and i thought hayley's gonna get married isn't she yes yes yes yeah he loves a wedding song if he was to play at a wedding what song of course would he have to play um well i think if i was playing a wedding and I didn't play perfect I might get sort of laughed out of the venue so yeah probably perfect and thinking out loud but it's interesting when I sort of get wedding requests

it's usually for some album tracks like Tally Reeves Sea or Kiss Me and stuff that weren't necessarily the big singles so yeah it's always interesting. Of course where would we be if at this stage by the way the journalists still were cowering in the presence of greatness. There were big news organisations there and they didn't want to ask him anything, so we just kept going.

One news was like, we simply couldn't. Just let them do it. Just let them do it. They're great at it. And I said, how have your music and influences changed? Well, I think music continues to just evolve subject matter-wise just because you get older and things that mattered when you were 21 don't matter as much when you're 31, I think and yeah obviously i've become a father of two two wonderful little

girls and i'm married and sort of settling a bit more so you know your subject matter just changes i think uh but i don't think musically my influences have changed i still listen to all the same sort of music i mean obviously there's lots of new music coming out that's exciting but yeah i usually go back to all the old sort of music. I mean, obviously there's lots of new music coming out that's exciting, but yeah, I usually go back to all the old stuff. It was probably at this stage that fellow journalists, well, I say fellow, but I wouldn't even count them as peers because they were cowering.

A journalist needs to get in there. And they just heard he was married with two beautiful daughters, like me. So we're obviously, at this stage, no one else was even involved. And I thought, here's a guy overseas. I said, what do you tell your mates back home about Aotearoa and Kiwis? Well, I mean, it's no secret that I'd say I basically married a girl from my hometown

and our parents live within 10 minutes of us. So that's why we live there and we're situated there and all our friends live there. But if that had never happened, I would live in Wellington. Like I love Wellington so much. My favourite professional memory, I think, was getting asked to do the song for the hobbit desolation of smalg and flying over here staying here like it is the first time because it feels it feels like a small town even though it is a city and it's also on the beach and everyone's just really relaxed and chilled i never really get like bothered or there's no weirdness here i never feel like i'm

about to get into loads of danger it's just very relaxed and chilled and i do like the chocolate good to see you and do you see what it is did you say whitaker's special made him his own block because in 2015 he said he didn't like the chocolate apparently just new zealand which is new zealand because when you go to britain or any like australia the chocolate's yuck. Trash. Australia need to address their chocolate. It's bad. It's trash. It is.

It's trash and it needs to get in the bin. It was going to be a massive show last night and with all the records he's released, we wanted to know how he picked his set list. It's pretty easy. The crowd kind of decides for you. Like you, I've sort of whittled down the set list and some songs are for the chop pretty soon.

You sort of play them and you feel the reaction. you know sometimes it's like big songs that have i have a couple of songs that have streamed a billion times on spotify that i don't play that are just like you play it and the reaction's like so it's it's pretty easy to decide what's for the chop um but yeah songs like shape of you bad habits thinking Perfect, A-Team, they're always going to be songs. But yeah, you feel the vibe. Yeah, all played last night, all those songs are amazing. So one last question, and at this stage, journalists still didn't want to ask him. Well, they'd started leaving.

They'd started leaving, yeah. So we were there with the last question of the press conference. What is your own personal favourite song of your songs? I mean, my personal favourite song of your songs? I mean, my personal favourite song is Perfect because it's sort of like, I don't know, it was after my second album, I feel like lots of people were like, I don't know if that will happen again.

And Perfect, you know, I wrote in a basement in London and put on the album and it ended up being bigger than Thinking Out Loud and stuff like that. And I feel, I don't know, I like that song a lot. And the Torches came on for that song last night too. Did they what? Did they what? Anything he asked for, he got.

So he'd be like, clap like this and within one beat, everyone was clapping. They were like, turn your torches on and the whole stadium would go, ruff. God, it was a good night. You can catch the video on our socials, FBHZN. And if you're on the fence, the next Ed Sheeran shows in Auckland, Eden Park, next Friday and Saturday.

Still some tickets left. Ticketmaster, incredible. Absolutely worth it. Just amazing. And as always, he's just a gentleman. I know. I just wish we could have a beer with him. You know what I mean?

Just sit down with a beer. There's not too many people, celebrities, where you're like, I think I could have a beer with that person. Yeah, win them over in the friendship thing because I could play it cool. But I reckon I could almost do it with Ed Sheeran. Yeah, well, you're a nerd as well. Yeah, I know.

You just start with Pokemon. Daughters. Hot wives. There's parallels. Hey, remember how You just gave that Uber driver five stars Because you wanted Five stars back

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