Ed Sheeran on career beginnings: 'I tried to do a gig every day because otherwise I wouldn’t eat'

Ed Sheeran has revealed that he used to rely on gigging to eat.

The singer-songwriter released Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey last year and Mirror have now published sections from the book.

At one point the 'A Team' star opens up on his early desperation to play as many gigs as possible - because it meant he'd have money to buy food through CD sales.

Sheeran wrote: "The day I moved down to the capital, I emailed every single London music promoter on Musicborn.com and said: 'Hey, can I have a gig, please?'.

"I probably emailed 300 and 50 of them got back. I often did two or three gigs a night, jumping on stage at 7.30pm at one place, at 9pm at the next and at midnight at another.

"I tried to do a gig every day because otherwise I wouldn’t eat. They weren’t paid gigs – I was paid in beer, so I got very fat – but I sold my CDs."

The Brit added: "I ended up drinking a lot every day. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I’d be drunk on stage. I remember doing a show at this place called The Ivy House and just being f***ed.

"Afterwards, someone came up to me and said: 'That was terrible, really disappointing'. It was a complete stranger. It could have been anyone.

"Since I really wanted to be successful, and it obviously doesn’t look good if you’re stumbling around on stage, I thought: 'I’m never drinking before a gig again'. And I’ve never drunk before a show since. Ever."

Watch Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' video below: