A COUNTY musician is set to jet off to Los Angeles this weekend – where he could be picking up a Grammy award.

Will Hicks, from Eardisland, is nominated for one of the USA’s best known accolades for outstanding achievement in the music industry after working on Ed Sheeran’s album X.

The internationally successful album is in with a chance of winning the album of the year category and, should it be chosen, all those who worked on it will pick up a gong.

And 30-year-old Mr Hicks, who said he achieved a grade D in music production at college, said he found out news of the nomination from Ed Sheeran himself.

He said: “Ed texted me and said ‘did you know you’re now a Grammy nominee?’,

“I congratulated him when I found out.

“It’s nice as if you do 200 sessions a year you’re lucky if 10 of them get on the radio and maybe 10 get released so it’s nice when something that you do is successful.”

Mr Hicks’ passion for music started at a young age when he played in bands with his friend Josh Watkins and the pair worked at Cobnash Studio in Kingsland which belongs to Josh’s dad.

“I was a session guitarist for quite a few years playing all over and then worked as a sound engineer in London,” he said.

“Then I got a job working for Elton John, running his recording studio in Kensington.

“I’d done quite a bit around London before then.”

Since then, Mr Hicks has worked with the likes of Lilly Allen, James Blunt, One Direction, Maverick Sabre and Ed Sheeran as a recording mix engineer and a record producer.

And while most of us see them as global superstars who we’ll only encounter in the pages of glossy magazines or on TV, to Mr Hicks they’re just normal people.

“They become normal in about a minute,” said Will, a former Wigmore High School student.

“I started working with Ed before he was famous in 2009 and he’s a really nice guy.”

But that does not mean that, on occasions, he does not feel starstruck – and he admits that if he runs into any film stars in LA he’ll be nervous.

Producing and mixing for major artists might sound like a dream job but Will said there’s a fair amount of graft to it too.

“The hours are brutal sometimes,” he added.

“If you take on a project you have to finish it.

“When you are recording with people like One Direction who are unbelievably busy you are recording from 12pm to 6am and that goes on for days.”

For a limited time, he will be at Cobnash Studio, back working alongside Josh and helping homegrown talent.

“I work in London a lot and with a lot of people you have to go to them to record so it’s all over the place.

“But here we still record young bands that write their own songs,” said Mr Hicks.