With Gramy nods, Ed Sheeran multiplies success

If there's one thing Ed Sheeran has learned about the Grammy Awards, it's to not hit the booze too early.

"Don't drink mid-ceremony," says the 23-year-old Brit, who is up for album of the year with sophomore effort x (pronounced: "multiply"). "I just started too early last year, so I ended up ending early. So I'll just pace myself a bit."

This, coming from a guy whose rise to success has been anything but gradual. Previously nominated for two Grammys — song of the year (The A Team) in 2013 and best new artist last year — the singer/songwriter is in the running for another three this Sunday, including best pop vocal album and best song written for visual media with I See Fire, from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Sheeran has won the adoration of the masses, too, since releasing debut album + in 2011 and opening for Taylor Swift on the North American leg of her Red Tour in 2013. Playing arenas of his own on his current world tour, x has elevated Sheeran to a new level of superstardom: selling 955,878 copies since last summer, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and spawning three top 20 singles on Billboard's Hot 100, including Sing (No. 13), Don't (No. 9) and Thinking Out Loud, now at No. 2 (his highest ever).

"It's kind of solidified me in the industry," Sheeran says. "I'm treated differently, and there's a lot more respect there, which is cool. ... The main thing that's changed are my peers, the higher range of artists that I look up to are now speaking to me and wanting to work together."

But he still plays it cool. On Grammy nomination day, Dec. 5, he grabbed lunch with pal (and fellow album-of-the-year nominee) Sam Smith. And come Sunday, he'll be rooting for chums Smith, Swift and Hozier to pick up awards.

"The Grammys are a weird thing," Sheeran says. "I have a kind of weird relationship with it where I'm just happy doing my own thing anyway. It's really nice to have the recognition, but it wasn't like, I didn't have everything riding on it."

Talking with Paste BN ahead of his North American trek last August, Sheeran revealed that he was already nine or 10 years into his 10-year plan of what he thought he'd achieve, and modestly assumed that he wasn't a household name yet.

Now with a new set of goals and his popularity multiplied, "it feels different, but I feel like there's never a point where everyone in the world, or everyone in America or England knows who you are, but you keep going," Sheeran says. "I'd say I've gotten a lot further with this album than I did on the first (one), but there's still a lot more ground to cover.

"I'm not Taylor Swift-level yet, so I've got to keep working towards that."