Ed Sheeran’s Childhood Dream Comes True With Offspring Collab on ‘Million Miles Away’ at BottleRock Fest: ‘Music Is a Wild Ride’
Ed Sheeran has basically been waiting his whole life for a moment like this. During the Offspring‘s set at this weekend’s BottleRock Festival in Napa Valley, Calif. on Sunday night Sheeran came out on stage to join the veteran Cali punks for blitz through “Million Miles Away” from their 2000 Conspiracy of One album.
In a video posted afterwards, Sheeran shared the moment he met his heroes, which began with Ed asking, “Have you seen the tattoo?” The singer promptly lifted his shirt to show off the Offspring flaming skull logo ink located just under his right armpit — in close proximity to a Rolling Stones lips and tongue logo — as singer Dexter Holland, guitarist Noodles and the gang yelled and clapped in glee.
“It was the first-ever album that I owned,” Sheeran told the group about their turn-of-the-millennium LP that debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 album chart at the time. And then, as if he’d rehearsed it his whole life in his head, Sheeran told Holland how the planned collaboration would go, saying, “So you always go first and third and I’ll always go second and fourth.”
“You’ve thought about this?” said surprised rhythm guitarist Jonah Nimoy. Sheeran laughed and the the whole crew rushed through an unplugged rehearsal in their dressing room, with the two men trading off lines, just like Ed had imagined.
The singer’s video of the special moment then cut to the Offspring’s set, with Sheeran rocking a black Offspring t-shirt as he strummed an electric guitar and “whoo ooh ooh”‘d along like he was born in Orange County.
In an accompanying Instagram post Sheeran offered some more context for his dream collab. “The first album I ever bought was the @offspring – Conspiracy of One. I used to pretend to be in their band in the mirror and sing along to the album when I was 9, mostly to their song ‘Million Miles Away’ as it was the first song of theirs I heard,” Sheeran wrote. “I mentioned it in an interview and Noodles / Dexter got in touch with me when we found out we were all playing the same festival, to see if I wanted to get on stage and sing it. It was an instant yes obvz. Really felt like living out a childhood dream thank you for having me up there guys. Music is a wild ride, every day I’m so grateful to be living my dream in reality.”
Watch Sheeran collab with the Offspring below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
