Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth addressed the long-rumored collaboration with Ed Sheeran in a new interview. He discussed the band’s latest album “The Screaming of the Valkyries” and shed light on the fate of the mysterious track, as reported by Craig Reynolds.
The conversation touched on why the collaboration has taken so long to surface and whether fans will ever get to hear it.
When asked, “Is the Ed Sheeran song actually happening?” Filth gave a detailed response.
“Well, it always happened,” Dani Filth said. “And it was just there were things, you know, we talked about it. Things that meant that it had to be. I thought it was coming out sooner than it did. So I banged on about it in the press and of course the press jumps on it.”
He went on to explain how the early publicity affected the project.
“Then the kind of you know the magic and surprise has been sucked out of it and then we felt that was going to overshadow the last record,” he continued. “So that was part of the reason as well.”
Filth also pointed to timing issues on Sheeran’s side, as well as concerns about public perception, as factors that delayed the release.
“It was more the fact that he was um there was a part of his career where they decided to, I don’t know, take some time off and whatever and then he was doing something else and it kind of collided with that,” he said. “And of course, if you’re trying to, I don’t know, do something new in a new area, you don’t want to be tiled with the brush of like, as they would say, playing with a death metal band. That’s what they would have said, you know, death metal.”
Despite the delays, Filth confirmed that the song has not been scrapped.
“It will be on the record,” he added. “It won’t be a single because that’s a deal that we did. But it’s a really good song.”
This saga has spanned years. It reflects a pattern of careful timing decisions on the part of both artists, rather than a project that has ever truly stalled.
The idea for the pairing first took shape back in 2021, when Sheeran spoke publicly about his admiration for extreme metal and named Cradle of Filth among the bands he grew up listening to. That offhand comment set off years of speculation, eventually leading the two camps to connect and explore a collaboration, a process that has unfolded gradually ever since.
By the time work on “The Screaming of the Valkyries” began, the Ed Sheeran track had already been recorded and mixed. The band chose to hold it back for release rather than let it overshadow the album.
“The Screaming of the Valkyries” stands as Cradle of Filth’s 14th studio album, produced by Scott Atkins and released through Napalm Records.
Taken together, these details help explain the extended timeline behind the collaboration. What began as a casual remark from Sheeran evolved into a fully realized song, and the band ultimately decided that patience, not publicity, would serve the music best.
