The son of Scots pantomime legend Allan Stewart says the success of hit song Dynamite has been “absolutely wild”.
David Stewart co-wrote the BTS hit alongside long-term collaborator Jessica Agombar, and has seen it soar to the top of the charts all across the world thanks to the K-Pop group’s legion of fans.
Having spent over a decade in the music industry, and growing up with the entertainment business such a prominent part of his life, he said it showed the hard work was definitely paying off.
© Kristin Callahan/ACE Pictures/ShutterstockIn an interview with Sunday Post columnist Ross King on STV’s Lorraine, David said: “I still wake up at five o’clock in the morning like it’s Christmas Eve waiting for Santa to come down!
“It’s a total blur. Every day there seems to be another record broken. The first day the video came out, I happened to wake up at 4:30am when it premiered at 5:30am. I snuck downstairs so I didn’t wake my girlfriend up and sobbed at the television while I was watching it!
“That was the first piece to it, since then all the BTS fans, the army, are on my Twitter and Instagram. It’s non-stop, every single day another record is broken, it’s totally mind-boggling.”
How does it feel to be the writer behind @BTS_twt's number one hit Dynamite? @TheRossKing speaks to @dstewartmusic who reveals how Ross himself helped with the process… well, kind of.
Watch ➡️ https://t.co/vn8NeFi106#BTSARMY pic.twitter.com/R9E1A9X1Zy
— Lorraine (@lorraine) September 2, 2020
The song was born out of his bedroom in his parents’ house, and is the first English-language single for the group.
BTS have millions of fans worldwide, and David is very welcoming of their support.
The video for Dynamite has racked up over 278 million views since being released on August 21.
David said: “They have to be the best fans in the world. For me to have feedback from them all is so encouraging, they’re all super supportive of what I’m doing as well.
“I’m just the songwriter and record producer behind this, but I’m being treated like I’m an important part of this whole thing.
“Hats off to BTS because they brought the song to life, everything down to the slickness of the video, everything around them is just incredible. It’s been incredible to watch it come alive really.
“My face has hurt for ten days now from grinning.”
David hopes that being a part of Dynamite will also “swing open” the door to possibly working with other artists in the future.
He started out as a session musician and toured with Example, before heading down the songwriting path and penning songs for Tinie Tempah and the Jonas Brothers.
He’d love to work with Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande or The Weeknd – who has already praised the song online.
And he also hopes to team up with BTS again sometime soon.
“It’s a pleasure to work with them,” David said. “They’re insanely talented. I love making bombastic pop records, who better to make if for than the best band in the world who can sing the hell out of it.
“When we sent the demo for Dynamite, I was singing on it, and they took it up two semitones.”
Our man Ross praised David for the amount of hard work he’d put in to make it to this point.
A long-time family friend, he also took the credit for extolling the virtues of key changes to him over the years.
David laughed: “Life just needs a key-change right now, and who better to sing it than BTS.”
Not a big Twitterer but my son David’s Dynamite (co wrote with Jessica Agombar) is #1 in US and UK. Proud beyond belief xxx pic.twitter.com/fCvciFxYck
— Allan Stewart (@AllanMayStewart) September 1, 2020
Proud dad Allan said of his son’s success: “We are very excited for David and so incredibly proud of him too.”
He told the Daily Record: “He was just three-years-old when he made up his first song – Bod-e-da – and since then music has been his life.
“As a young lad, I always dreamed of having a hit record and now I’m living vicariously through him.”
Read Ross King’s column every Sunday in P.S. Magazine, free with The Sunday Post
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