Tweed singer Budjerah reveals how he landed a gig supporting Ed Sheeran

After a breakout two years, Tweed singer Budjerah is preparing to support Ed Sheeran on his massive stadium tour – and it all began with a phone call and a song verse he wrote in the car.

An unexpected phone call last year has turned into the biggest career coup for rising music star Budjerah.

Following a breakout two years including two ARIA Award wins, the 19-year-old from Fingal Head, just south of the Queensland border, will open for Ed Sheeran on his stadium tour, beginning with three shows at Suncorp Stadium next week.

“We just watched the documentary on the Ed Sheeran tour and we’re all like, holy moly,” said Budjerah, whose band includes his cousins from the Tweed region.

“I’ve never done anything this big. It’s stadiums, you can’t even picture that many people, you have to spin around to see them all. That’s ridiculous. We’ll just have to wait and see (what comes from it).”

Budjerah is supporting Ed Sheeran on his Australian tour, off the back of his new single, Therapy.

Budjerah has been guided by Byron Bay-based singer Matt Corby, who helped produce his music after being blown away by the teenage singer’s potential.

In the past two years he was named breakthrough artist at both the ARIA and GQ Awards and featured in Vogue Australia as part of Baz Luhrmann’s guest edition.

Budjerah, who released new track Therapy on Thursday, first linked with Sheeran on his track 2Step which has seen close to 10 million streams since its release last year.

“I just got a phone call one day from my manager and they said, ‘do you want to write a verse for the Ed Sheeran song? I was like, ‘what? That’s pretty crazy’,” he said.

“I wrote my verse in the car straight away, to the karaoke version of the track on YouTube. And they liked it.”

The collaboration steamrolled into the opportunity to support Sheeran during his Australian tour, alongside fellow singer Maisie Peters.

“We haven’t met in person yet, me and Ed, but we’ve spoken briefly on Instagram,” he continued. “Matt Gudinski and Mushroom, they work with Ed quite a lot. They said, if you’re looking for a support act in Australia you should get Budjerah, you did the song with him. It just happened to work out.”

Ed Sheeran mathematics in concert. Picture: Zakary Walters

Budjerah, the son of two pastors, grew up in the Tweed region with the influence of gospel music and regularly performed in school musicals.

But it was an assignment to write an original song for his high school music class at 15 that motivated him to pursue a singing career.

“I left it until the night before. I ran out of my room at 10:30 at night, ‘dad I need to write a song for school. It’s due tomorrow’,” Budjerah laughed.

“My dad was like, ‘oh son, you’re an idiot’, but he helped me write the song. We wrote this song in 15 minutes and my mum filmed it and put it on her Facebook.

“I remember it got like 12,000 views overnight. We were like wow people like hearing my singing, so I guess I’ll stick to it, because I sing every day anyway.”

“I just like to sing,” he continued. “I just love performing and singing for people so if I can keep doing that forever then that’s my dream.”

Originally published as Tweed singer Budjerah reveals how he landed a gig supporting Ed Sheeran