Ed Sheeran And Blake Slatkin On Making ‘F1’ Track “Drive”
When Apple Authentic Movies reached out to Ed Sheeran to fee a tune from him for F1 starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon and extra, they let him choose the scene to set it to and the kind of tune he would write.
The “Sapphire” singer and four-time Grammy winner, who will get three to 4 calls a yr to jot down a tune for a movie, chosen the ultimate, closing scene of the movie for “Drive,” which he put along with producer and songwriter Blake Slatkin and is now shortlisted for the Excellent Original Track Oscar.
Sheeran — additionally behind the “All of These Stars” from the movie The Fault In Our Stars, “I See Hearth” from The Hobbit and “Below the Tree” from That Christmas — and Slatkin, who collaborated on Sheeran’s newest album Play, unpacked the making of the gritty anthem in a panel dialogue for Deadline’s Anatomy of a Track highlight sequence.
The dialog, launched by David Taylor, Head of Music, Apple Authentic Movies & TV, was moderated by Ryan Tedder, One Republic’s lead singer (and co-writer of “Simply Preserve Watching” and “Lose My Thoughts” from F1), at The Motoring Membership in Los Angeles.
Watch the dialog right here, and take a look at images from the occasion beneath.
“I don’t suppose that ‘Drive’ is a tune that might go facet by facet with a tune on my album as a result of it’s such a stylistically completely different tune, but it surely works so effectively within the film, in the best way that we did it earlier than the film,” Sheeran stated. “I believe that if you happen to’re singing for a film, you form of should not have the lens of pop on it, and extra the lens of how is it going to work within the film, somewhat than how is it going to work exterior the film? Since you may as effectively make a tune that simply works exterior a film, and never make the tune for the film, if that’s what you’re involved about.”
What drew Sheeran on this tune’s case is that he might department out from his experience in ballads and love songs. His curiosity in Formulation 1 as a sport and the build-up across the movie itself additionally made him say sure. There was speak of the tune being within the movie’s opening scene, and it began with the will for a giant rock riff to match the film’s adrenaline.
Ryan Tedder and Ed Sheeran communicate onstage at Deadline Highlight: Anatomy of a Track – “F1” held at The Motoring Membership on January 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California
Earl Gibson III/Deadline through Getty Photographs
Blake Slatkin, Ryan Tedder and Ed Sheeran communicate onstage at Deadline Highlight: Anatomy of a Track – “F1” held at The Motoring Membership on January 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California
Earl Gibson III/Deadline through Getty Photographs
Ryan Tedder and Ed Sheeran communicate onstage at Deadline Highlight: Anatomy of a Track – “F1” held at The Motoring Membership on January 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California
Earl Gibson III/Deadline through Getty Photographs
Blake Slatkin, Tom MacDougall and Ed Sheeran at Deadline Highlight: Anatomy of a Track – “F1” held at The Motoring Membership on January 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California
Earl Gibson III/Deadline through Getty Photographs
Blake Slatkin, Ryan Tedder, Ed Sheeran and David Taylor at Deadline Highlight: Anatomy of a Track – “F1” held at The Motoring Membership on January 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California
Earl Gibson III/Deadline through Getty Photographs
Ed Sheeran at Deadline Highlight: Anatomy of a Track – “F1” held at The Motoring Membership on January 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California
Earl Gibson III/Deadline through Getty Photographs
Ed Sheeran speaks onstage at Deadline Highlight: Anatomy of a Track – “F1” held at The Motoring Membership on January 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Earl Gibson III/Deadline
Ed Sheeran at Deadline Highlight: Anatomy of a Track – “F1” held at The Motoring Membership on January 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California
Earl Gibson III/Deadline through Getty Photographs
“I usually work in pop music, and pop music could be very on the grid, time-wise, and really polished. And due to the place it was within the within the film the tip title, as a result of it was purported to symbolize Sonny (Pitt) and his complete journey, I needed to maintain it as uncooked as attainable,” Slatkin stated. “And I needed you to really feel the band within the room. I needed to not time something and simply be like, let’s simply get the very best f*cking gamers in your entire world to play on this.”
Enter The Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl on drums, which Slatkin painstakingly took a day to edit after Apple and the movie’s director Joseph Kosinski gave a observe that they weren’t loud sufficient, and John Mayer on guitar. Mayer labored at his newly bought Chaplin Studios (previously Jim Henson Studio), which he now co-owns with director McG.
“The very first thing that John performed on his guitar was the riff that you just hear within the tune,” Slatkin stated, with Sheeran including that Mayer has “a toolbox of all of those riffs that he’s by no means used earlier than.”
Mayer additionally got here up with the concept to create screeching guitar notes, heard faintly beneath all the opposite layers of the music, to emulate automotive tires towards asphalt. The opening uncooked vocals from Sheeran in “Drive” are additionally the primary take he did for the tune, which he wrote on the best way to Butlin’s throughout the pond for a mate’s bachelor occasion.
