Earlier this year, word spread through the music industry: The star K-Pop group BTS was on the hunt, prowling for a new single. “It was a bit of a holy grail cut,” says the English writer-producer David Stewart. “I had quite a few conversations with big producers and writers in America who were trying to get it.”
今年早些时候，一则消息已经在音乐行业传开了：K-Pop组合BTS正在寻找新单曲。英国作者兼制作人David Stewart说，“这就像圣杯仪式一样，我和美国的大制作人和作家有过很多次对话，他们都很想得到这个机会。”
Stewart ended up winning the BTS lottery along with Jessica Agombar: The pair penned “Dynamite,” the K-Pop septet’s first all-English-language single. The lite-funk track, complete with scrubbing rhythm guitar and stabbing horns, set several streaming records within 24 hours of its release.
结果Stewart和Jessica Agombar最终赢得了BTS彩票，这一对创作了“Dynamite” ，也就是这个七人组合的第一首全英文单曲。这首轻放克的歌曲，伴随着伴奏吉他擦琴之音和剧烈的号角，成功地在发布24小时内创造了几条流媒体记录。
While this commercial enthusiasm is typical for BTS, it remains “totally and utterly wild” for Stewart, who spent more than a decade in supporting roles on the road and in studios before earning his breakout moment. “I made that song out of my bedroom in my parents’ house; I didn’t do it in the flashy studio with a big console,” he says. “This is 12 years in the making, me in my bedroom just working.”
虽然像这样在商业上受大众的热爱程度对于BTS来说是典型的，但对于Steward来说还是“完完全全的疯狂”，在收获这一突破之前，十多年来他都在路上和工作室里做做配角，“这首歌是我在父母家的我的卧室里写的，我并不是在一个有着大控制台的华丽工作室里完成的，12年的创作过程，都是我在卧室里制作出来的。”
Long before he was writing YouTube record-breakers, Stewart was steeped in the entertainment business: His father acted and sang, his mother acted before starting a hospitality company that worked with major tours. After “living in theaters from a young age,” Stewart broke into the music industry as a session guitarist, and played more than 500 shows with Example, the English singer-rapper-producer who was a constant presence on the U.K. dance charts in the early 2010s.
远在他撰写这首破油管记录的歌曲之前，Stewart就已经深入娱乐行业：他的父亲做过表演和演唱，他的母亲在创办与大型巡演合作的接待公司之前也是一个演员。从小在剧院生活之后，Stewart以一个录音室吉他手的角色打入了音乐行业，并帮英国说唱歌手、rapper兼制作人Example伴奏过超过500个现场，Example在10年早期一直活跃在英国舞曲榜单上。
Stewart’s path into professional writing started in earnest in Atlanta, where he spent two years. “I was doing two or three sessions a day, graveyard shifts,” Stewart recalls. “I wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs through those two years, and I really learned a lot, especially about things like vocal production.”
Stewart成为职业写手是从亚特兰大开始的，他在那里呆了两年。Stewart回忆道，“我一天要去两到三个录音session，而且是半夜到清晨的时候，在那两年里我写了成百上千的歌曲，我真的学到了很多，尤其是声乐制作上。”
When Stewart returned to the U.K., he began writing and producing for young or up-and-coming artists. He credits two moments with introducing him to the major-label A&Rs that collect songs for pop’s 1%: First, Stewart landed a cut with the U.K. rapper Tinie Tempah, 2017’s “Cameras;” second, he discovered and worked closely with the singer Claudia Valentina, who soon started to attract a lot of major-label interest. “That really put me in a lot of A&Rs’ mouths as someone who could develop an artist,” Stewart explains.
当Stewart回到英国，他开始为年轻有前途的艺术家进行创作和制作，他将助自己进入那些为1%流行顶尖艺人收集歌曲的主流厂牌的成功归功于两件事：一个是Stewart负责了一部分英国rapper Tinie Tempah 2017年Cameras的歌曲制作，一个是他挖掘了歌手Claudia Valentina并紧密合作，而这位歌手立即就开始吸引了很多主流厂牌的兴趣。Stewart解释说，“这让很多艺人经理都觉得我是一个培养出艺人的人。”
The third key moment: Stewart had been overseeing the business aspects of his career personally — no small feat since writer-producers have to constantly chase checks and negotiate deals — but he handed that responsibility off to a pair of co-managers. He now works with Charlie Christie, who got his start managing Rex Orange County and is an A&R at Interscope, and Neil Jacobson, the former president of Geffen Records who runs the company Hallwood Media (clients include the producers Jeff Bhasker and Brendan O’Brien). Within three months of this transition, Stewart landed cuts with Hailee Steinfeld and the Jonas Brothers.
第三个关键时刻是：Stewart一直在亲自监督着自己职业生涯的商业部分，这并不是一件小事，因为作家兼制作人需要一直不断地争取审核并谈判交易，他将这个责任交给了两位合伙经理人。他现在和Charlie Christie以及Neil Jacobson合作，前者最初是管理Rex Orange County的经纪人后来成为了Interscope的A&R，后者是Geffen Records的前主席，现在经营着Hallwood Media（客户包括制作人Jeff Bhasker 和 Brendan O’Brien）。在这一转变的三个月内，Stewart成功收获了Hailee Steinfeld 和 Jonas Brothers的部分歌曲制作权。
Jacobson also heard from Ron Perry, the head of Columbia Records, that BTS were searching for a new track. “They were looking for an English single; it had to have tempo, be exciting,” Stewart says. And thanks to all his time supporting others on stage and in the studio, “one thing I’m good at is writing to brief.” He worked again with Agombar, a former member of the U.K. group Parade and a regular collaborator over the last five years. While Stewart played nearly every instrument, from guitar to bass to keys, he brought in Johnny Thirkell (who played on Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk,” among many, many others) to handle the horn parts.
Jacobson还从哥伦比亚负责人Ron Perry那里得知BTS正在搜寻一首新歌，“他们正在寻找一首英文单曲，得有节奏，得令人激动，”Stewart说。多亏这么长时间一直在帮他人驻演在工作室工作的经历，“我最擅长的事就是写的简洁。”他再次和Jessica Agombar合作，Jessica Agombar是英国组合Parade的前成员，也是他最近五年里经常合作的人。从吉他到贝斯再到键盘，Stewart几乎演奏了所有乐器的同时，他也请来了 Johnny Thirkell 来吹奏圆号的部分，Johnny是Bruno Mars “Uptown Funk” 以及许多歌曲的伴奏者。
Once the track met with Perry’s approval, Stewart and Agombar went back and forth with BTS to make sure “Dynamite” met their specifications. “We changed four or five little bits — a few of the lines were maybe not something that would make sense for BTS to say,” Stewart explains.
一旦这首歌获得了Perry的认可后，Stewart和Agombar就和BTS来来回回地交流，以确保Dynamite满足他们的要求。“我们做了四五处小修改，有些歌词可能不适合BTS来唱。”
After teasing “Dynamite” throughout August, the track was finally released on Friday; it promptly broke single-day streaming records on both YouTube and Spotify. The members of BTS have now started a simple “Dynamite” dance challenge on TikTok, just in case the song didn’t have enough momentum already; Stewart is planning to have his girlfriend teach him the routine so he can participate in the trend.
在八月以来的一系列预告之后，Dynamite终于在上周五发行了，它迅速打破了YouTube和Spotify的单日流媒体记录。以防这首歌还没达到足够的势头，BTS成员现在在Tik Tok上又开始了一个简单的dynamite舞蹈挑战。Stewart打算让他的女朋友教他怎么跳这首歌，这样他就能参加这股潮流了。
The writer-producer still sounds slightly dazed by his work’s overnight global ubiquity. “I did it on my laptop in my bedroom,” Stewart says. “It’s mind boggling to me that something so big can come from something so modest.”
自己的作品在一夜之间火遍全球，这位作家兼制作人依旧有点晕头转向。“我是在卧室的电脑上创作出来的这首歌，这么大热的东西竟然可以从这么简单的方式中创作出来，真是令我不可思议。”
原址：https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bts-dynamite-david-stewart-interview-1049628/
