Ed Sheeran's new album has been [article id="1718412"]the subject of much speculation[/article] for more than a year now ... and over that time, he's described it as [article id="1698874"]"Death Metal,"[/article] [article id="1706937"]Limp Bizkit Lite[/article], and, of course, music to [article id="1710677"]"cry and eat ice cream"[/article] to.

And just when you thought he'd run out of creative descriptors for the still-untitled album ([article id="1719872"]due this year[/article]), Sheeran showed up on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show Monday (January 6) to keep the streak alive: Turns out, his new record is inspired entirely by pizza.

We told you it was [article id="1718747"]having a moment[/article].

Sheeran revealed that he was finally able to finish the album thanks to producer extraordinaire [article id="1709096"]Rick Rubin[/article], who helped him refocus -- and eventually rein in the project -- with some sage-like pizza metaphors. As if there was any other kind.

"I remember the first conversation I had with him was about how he started his career and how he was doing Beastie Boys and LL Cool J and Run DMC, and I was like 'What was the first non-hip hop record you did?' And he said 'Slayer,'" Sheeran told Lowe. "And then I asked 'What was the third?' and he was like 'Red Hot Chili Peppers.' And from there, you can grasp that he knows what he's talking about, so when he started talking about pizzas, I kind of listened."

Sheeran went on to explain just why the mercurial studio mastermind was talking about pizza in the first place: to force him to reconsider his songs from the crust up.

"With a recording, if you view a recording as a pizza, the main part of a pizza is the base, and without the base and the tomato sauce on it, you can't build anything on that," he said. "So the base is the live performance. So you perform it live with an acoustic guitar, however you want to do it, and record that as the main track.

"And then after is when you sprinkle the cheese on, you put a bit of bass on it, you put on herbs, i.e. drums, then you put on some pepperoni if you're into that," he continued. "Some songs are the margheritas, some songs are the four cheese ones; it differs."

Sheeran also promised that he'd be giving fans a sneak peek at his new album very soon -- "I think I'm going to drop a couple of YouTube videos before I actually do the main single," he said -- which is exciting and all ... but really, we can't stop thinking about pizza.