Since breaking through with BTS’s ‘Dynamite’, David Stewart has been making his mark on modern pop music with hit after hit.
During the first Covid lockdown in 2020, while some of us were working on our breadmaking skills, songwriter and producer David Stewart was in a bedroom at his parents’ home in London. He was working, over Zoom, with frequent collaborator Jessica Agombar, on a track to be sent for consideration by K‑pop band BTS, who were looking for their first English‑language single.
BTS were already an international phenomenon. They didn’t have fans, they had the Army: a legion of diehards who kept track of all things BTS. If they embraced a song, it would be career‑changing for all involved. Naturally, every songwriter in town was going for the gig, as Stewart was well aware, but his years in the trenches meant it didn’t faze him. “Jess and I had been working for six years consistently before that, writing four times a week, every single week, so it was just another day at the office. We didn’t put pressure on it; we never thought ‘Oh, we’re writing something for BTS and it’s going to change our lives! What are we going to do?’ That’s why I think it ended up working, ultimately, because there was such a free‑flowing, normal, easy thing to it. I will forever be grateful for that song.”
The turnaround time from writing to approval to release was lightning fast. Released in August 2020, ‘Dynamite’ broke every record there was to be broken. All the modern pop metrics — streams, views, plays — hit the billions. It spawned a genre of dance covers, where elaborately styled fans performed choreographed routines to the song. George Clooney did a reading of the lyrics for W magazine, playing along with one of the year’s biggest pop culture moments and echoing what everyone was feeling: it’s been a rough year, but this is a real moment of fun. Not bad for a track created in a bedroom, on the simplest possible setup. “It was just a laptop with Pro Tools, a set of ADAM Audio monitors, and a UAD Apollo Twin interface — that’s it.”
Attention Seeking
Crafting a good pop song is hard enough. Consistently crafting big, impactful, uptempo bangers like Stewart has done is a different matter altogether. As songwriters will tell you, if they’re being truly candid, reaching for those minor chords and riding the swell of emotion to a crescendo can feel easier. When asked if he’s always gravitated towards the kinds of songs he’s become known for, Stewart puts it down to his early years in music. He started out as a live drummer, playing with a band that supported Simply Red on tour across the UK. He then joined the British rapper Example on tour as a guitarist, playing over 600 shows with him and getting a first‑hand look at what it took to keep the attention of a crowd of any size. He recalls, “Example was playing to 30 people at first, and eventually headlining arenas, so I got to see an artist’s rise to superstardom, and during that process I witnessed what it’s like to be in the best live act in the country at the time. No‑one could follow us, because from the word ‘go’ it was just energy, energy, energy.”
Going even further back, the seeds of keeping an audience engaged were planted when, as a young boy, Stewart watched his father, the Scottish entertainer Allan Stewart, perform. He recalls, “Everything was based on ‘How do we graph an act? How does it [keep rising] rather than staying still?’ So the ebbs and the flows of a show have always been something that’s piqued my interest and is [reflected in] the way I make music: it’s very impactful, uptempo, fun, and joyous, and it’s going to evoke some kind of emotion out of you, whether you like it or not. It’s what makes me excited.
“I love chapters in music. I’m a little bored of very linear music that doesn’t grow. I want each chorus to grow, each new section to grow. I’ve learned this from playing live and watching a lot of shows, and I like to embed it into my style of production. The big, in‑your‑face, impactful, tempo‑driven record is naturally what I do and the more I do it, the more I start to understand what that is. By that last chorus, I just want your face to be melting, because everything’s happening at that time!”
Another pivotal experience for Stewart was the two years he spent in Atlanta as part of a development deal, working with Ludacris’ team. “It was the most incredible experience because I really stuck out like a sore thumb. I went over there as an R&B artist at the time and got to work with some incredible people who came from totally different walks of life than me, who had a whole different perspective on things. I’m used to getting up early, going to the gym at six o’clock in the morning and being at the desk by nine o’clock. Our studio time in Atlanta started at 10 o’clock at night sometimes! You have to acclimatise to the situation you’re in and work that room rather than going, ‘Well, this is what I do, and that’s what I do.’ I think it was really important that I succumbed to the process; it’s a much more aggressive mentality out there and I loved it. I learned so much about vocal production and it was just such an amazing experience for me. Sometimes I was lucky enough to be able to stay in hotels but I often slept on people’s couches; it was my time to really learn the ropes and understand what it was like to be a musician on the grind.”
The artist deal didn’t work out, but with all that experience under his belt, Stewart set about writing and producing songs, incorporating a variety of techniques he has since become known for: big choruses, ear candy, live instruments, rhythmic vocals, and even key changes, which largely disappeared from pop music in the ’90s. He approaches songwriting like an athlete, putting in the hours with the active work of songwriting as well as setting aside time regularly to listen to contemporary music. “I do a lot of listening. You want to keep up to date with what’s going on, things like slang in pop culture, or what people are saying now. I don’t really lean into that kind of stuff, but it’s good to have a grasp of it, to know that we can reference things that are modern, or culturally appropriate. Like anything, it’s about doing it over and over again; doing your reps is always going to be the thing that makes you better at it.”
Play To Win
David Stewart is a multi‑instrumentalist, and guitar in particular features prominently in his productions, “My prized possession is a 1963 Gibson 330TD; it was my dad’s 13th birthday present and he passed it down to me. It’s beautiful, it just sings, and it’s something I use a lot. I’ve also got a beautiful old relic Tele, that’s all beaten up and gold and is insanely heavy, with a really thick neck — it’s great for rhythm stuff. Then there’s my standard American Strat with Lindy Fralin pickups, which is also really good for blending: you can blend different pickups together to get quite unique sounds through that. I also have a 1963 Gibson LG‑2, which is incredible for picking. I have not changed the strings on it because it just sounds so crusty and old and that’s how you want it to feel and sound.”
His preferred method of recording electric guitars is straight into NI’s Guitar Rig. “Never fails. I just keep it simple. I’ve just moved into this new studio and I’m going to get a nice old Fender Princeton or something to record through, because you can’t beat feeling the air through the microphones. With Guitar Rig it sounds great, it’s very easy to control and change sounds, so that’s the reason why I go through that, but if I just want a classic great Strat sound, that I know I won’t want to change, then putting it through an actual amp is great — you can really feel the presence of the amp.”
To increase the impact of his live instrument recordings, he often layers them with synths or samples. In the chorus for ‘Dynamite’, Stewart layered the live bass with a Moog bass, making the sound brighter and helping it cut through the arrangement. He uses a similar technique for drums, if the production demands it: “I record my drums and then I will reinforce the kick and the snare with samples using something like a Steven Slate Trigger on a duplicate track. I have a 1963 Ludwig Classic Maple Gold Sparkle with a few different snare drums, and I have everything tuned quite low and thuddy so that when I put my samples on, they blend a little easier than if the kit was tuned high and tight.”
Shop Front
Although working from home didn’t stop him having a global hit with ‘Dynamite’, David Stewart now has his own studio in LA, which he loves. “This studio is beautiful, it has loads of natural light and I thrive off that. I would really struggle to go into a dark studio every day; I get up early and like to make the most of the day. I’ve got a grand piano and a drum kit — all the things that I would have loved to have had in my parents’ house but I don’t think they would have been too happy about it, because I’d have kept them up all night! In terms of synths, I’ve got a [Roland] Juno 106, a Moog, and a Yamaha SK30 which is a really interesting old‑sounding ’80s synth that Mike Dean uses a lot. It’s really cool. Sat next to my drum kit, I’ve got 12 Neve 1081 preamps and eight API 3124Vs. For the grand piano, I have some Neve 4081 quad mic preamps, so it’s different flavours that you can just dial in basically.”
Moving to LA has also allowed Stewart to take his career to the next level. “As far as the pool of artists I had access to, I think I hit my ceiling in London. The whole thing with LA is, you get a call on a Thursday night saying, ‘Can you come and meet the artist on Friday morning?’ When I was in London, I would say, ‘I can meet the artist, but I’ll be in LA in three weeks time.’ By the time you get there, the opportunity is gone and someone else has got the job.
“Everything I’ve done to this point has been like a three‑pointer, like trying to shoot from the halfway line, and I’ve been good at that because I’m good at placing records and writing songs that resonate with people — but the way to really go to the moon is to be with the artist. Before this point, I was running around with my laptop in LA and just doing sporadic sessions, but now that I have my studio, I have a shop front. I have a hub with my own taste in it, with the way I like to decorate things — people are coming into my world. Now that I’m here and I have the opportunity to be around some great artists and other songwriters at that top level, I feel I can go to the moon.”
Mind Over Matter
David Stewart had been preparing for his overnight success for over a decade when it finally happened. What his years in the background gave him was clarity about what it takes to survive in the industry. To hear him tell it, ‘making it’ is as much about getting your head in order as it is about strengthening your music chops. “As an artist coming up, music is a tiny bit of the equation. It’s awful, but if you have resilience, if you can be strong, if you can get up after you’ve heard ‘no’ a gazillion times, that’s the most important thing.
“I would say to a new artist, make the word ‘no’ mean nothing to you. As soon as it means nothing to you, you’re on your way, because you are going to hear that word for the rest of your life, no matter how successful you are. Before things happen for you, everything is a ‘no’ and then you get that one ‘yes’, and you’re off to the moon. For 10 years everything was ‘no’ for me. I used to play shows and sometimes my dad and the sound man were the only people in the audience. It was so demoralising, but after a certain point, you go, ‘Well, that’s just what it is.’ This is the music industry, I signed up for it. And then suddenly some God goes, ‘You know what, you’ve taken eight thousand nos, so I’m going to give you a yes because you really deserve it.’ I really, truly believe that it’s about how long you can stand up before you get your ‘yes’. That’s what separates the winners from the losers.”
As well as being able to withstand rejection, Stewart highlights another key piece of the puzzle that is crucial to success, one that creative people tend to hate: the business side of things. “The music business is equally important as the music‑making process. Take every meeting; you don’t know what’s going to lead you to something, you don’t know what you’re going to learn.”
David Stewart: You have to think of yourself as a business, not just as a musician.
The contemporary pop market is particularly crowded. Even landing a credit on a hit single is not enough to guarantee a good payday, given that more often than not, you’re sharing that credit with a laundry list of other writers. Everyone gets a smaller piece of the pie, which has already shrunk in size due to the other upheavals in the music business. “We are in a time where it’s very difficult to make money off music unless you’re really in that top end of writers and producers, and even then, I know hit songwriters and producers who have a second job because [of how difficult the business is]. So you have to be aware of your surroundings and you have to think of yourself as a business, not just as a musician.”
While he was paying his dues, he was also building self‑sufficiency. “The reason why I got into production so much was because I didn’t want to go elsewhere to get what I needed. I had the song and then I went, ‘Well, I don’t want to have to wait to get someone to produce it,’ so I taught myself how to do it. I don’t want to wait for a guitarist, I’ll do it; I don’t want to wait for that drummer, I don’t want to wait for that artwork. I’ll just figure out a way to do it. Learn how to do every aspect of this business. It doesn’t mean you have to be great at everything, but know what you want, or, even more importantly, know what you don’t want — that sets you up to be in a place where you become indispensable. You almost need to be a jack of all trades now, just doing 100 percent.”
Random Walks
Pop music has become surprisingly varied and unpredictable, and it’s hard to spot trends, or pinpoint sounds that define contemporary pop in the way that gated snare reverb did the music of the ’80s, or rock & roll guitar that of the ’50s. “I think we’re in a time where I actually can say there is no [one] sound that works now,” agrees Stewart. “It’s totally fascinating. In the mid‑2000s you’d hear a song and you’d go, ‘That sounds like a hit,’ and it would usually be a smash hit, whether it be a Katy Perry song or any of those big records from that period of time. If something sounded enormous, it would usually become enormous. Now, we’re not in that position at all. The weirdest, janky, funny little song from the back end of nowhere trends on TikTok and becomes a number one hit, and the song that we all think is going to be the biggest thing in the world — that is a singalong and sounds huge and has everything that in 2010 would have made it a number one for eight weeks running — doesn’t get a look in. It’s exciting. We can now do stuff that doesn’t necessarily fit the confines of what we remember pop music as being, because pop music is everything now. There is a space for every type of artist to be able to shine because everything is so big; there is a much wider scale of places to listen to everything from.
“I think it’s down to the fact that we’re in this streaming culture and social media culture that drives the culture of music. There is no one funnelled place to listen to or consume music anymore like it used to be with radio. Radio chose the hits back in the day; there were only 40 songs on that playlist and you were force‑fed a song until you liked it. Now, we have 100,000 songs coming out every Friday, and it’s down to what trends or gets a moment.”
As a songwriter and producer, he responds to the randomness of it all by relying on his instincts: “Always follow your gut. Don’t try and chase a trend, because if you’re chasing a trend, you’re often behind it already. I would say [the current landscape] is even more of a reason to just do what feels right to you. Lean into what feels right, because there is no tried and true any more, it doesn’t exist. A small janky little ukulele song with a trap beat could be a number one hit. Everything I’ve done has always felt right to me; whether it becomes a hit or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m always proud of it, and if it becomes a hit, and people resonate with it, that’s amazing. There is no rhyme or reason for what’s working, and you would hope the good stuff rises to the top but if it doesn’t, then so be it. All you can do is do what feels right to you.”
Vocals Are Everything
The lead vocal is the undisputed focal point of a pop song, and David Stewart is mindful of that from the beginning. “I almost never, ever start with a beat any more. I’ve changed my process in the last couple of years to making disgustingly basic demos during the initial process of the song, because if the song sounds great on a piano or a guitar with a horrible drum loop under it, I know it’s going to translate into something that feels even better when we put real production behind it. I [record] the demo vocal and work backwards from there, because the vocal is king, or queen, and we need to make sure that’s the most important thing.”
His mic choices and vocal chain are guided by the voice he’s working with, he explains, “It’s different for different artists. I’ve got a Sony C800G mic which is great for pop and rap because it’s a bit more punchy, bright, and in your face. I’ve got an old ’63 AKG C12 which I used with a new artist called Hana Effron that I’m working with; she has a rich bottom end in her voice and the C12 really captures that bottom end and is also very silky on top. Next, I go into a Neve 1073 preamp and then a Universal Audio 1176, Tube‑Tech CL‑1B, or an LA‑2A compressor, depending on what we’re doing. With Shania [Twain], we used a Telefunken ELA M 251E, which is just an amazing all‑round microphone; I actually think it sounds great on male vocals as well. I did the whole Olly Murs album Marry Me using the 251 going into the 1073 and the LA‑2A. Shakira wanted to work on an SM58, even though I offered her a plethora of expensive microphones and all the fancy gear. So it’s really about tailoring it to every artist, it’s not one size fits all.”
Once the vocal has been recorded, Stewart typically adds basic effects in the box: “It’s very simple stuff, nothing crazy. For reverb, you can’t go wrong with a plug‑in like Valhalla, Avid ReVibe, or Waves R‑Verb. I also use the Waves H‑Delay plug‑in, with a quarter‑note, eighth‑note, and slap delay set up — that’s a template of sorts, so I can dial in what’s needed. Then, most of the time, I’ll run my lead vocal through something like a Waves CLA Vocals plug‑in so that it comes out feeling a little wider — I don’t put anything on it apart from the spreader or the doubler. When you listen to a mix by someone like Serban Ghenea, there is a wideness to his lead vocals; everyone in the world is trying to find out how he does it. This is as close as I can get to it before I actually go to Serban and say, ‘Can you just do your thing to it?’”
What makes a pop vocal really land, though, are the subtle performance qualities that are as much about feel as they are about sound, and which the producer tries to coax from his stars. “I often find when you’re producing vocals, as with every instrument, the space is what creates the rhythm. It’s not just what you’re playing, it’s the actual space that you leave that creates the groove, and it’s the same with vocals. If you want a vocal [with a strong attack], it’s not just about the front of the line, it’s often the back end of the line. How quickly you come off something is where you find your pace in the vocal; if you’re elongating that last word, it will make the rest of the line feel a bit sleepy. Then, it might be about adding in a breath or adding [a vocal element] that just picks up on the rhythm very subtly and will dance with the rest of the instruments. Sometimes you don’t even want to hear it, you just want to feel it’s there. Michael Jackson was the king of that; it’s really where it comes from, and I do use it in a lot of my songs.”
Stewart also highlights big background vocals as a key element of his production style. Whether it’s for BTS or the artists he’s worked with since — including Shania Twain, Kygo and BTS member Jungkook, with whom he scored another number one hit, ‘3D’ — Stewart performs all the backing vocals himself, and shares two techniques that make them effective, “I think the important thing is to mimic the lead vocal. You almost need to become an impressionist of the way [the lead] vocal has been sung; don’t just do what comes naturally to you. It’s different for different people, and some voices blend much easier. The Jonas Brothers, Jungkook, BTS and I have similar tonal qualities in our voices, but with someone like Shania it’s different, so I have to mimic her. It gives a rich sonic quality to the song. I might also ask an artist to change a vowel sound because it will come across differently over the microphone than it would in the room. What I would then do, when it comes to background vocals, is mimic the same kind of mouth position for the vowel.”
Then there’s the technical aspect of it: “You have to do things [to make the backing vocals blend] like taking out all of the ‘s’ sounds at the ends of words, so you’re not getting eight different esses [stacked on each other], you’re just getting your lead vocal.”
Strong Words
Pop lyrics get a bad rap for being nonsensical or trivial, but as David Stewart points out, that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Successful pop lyrics flow satisfyingly off the tongue; their purpose is to feel good to sing. There’s a real craft to it, and it’s harder than it looks. “I’ve been fortunate enough, over the past few years, to be able to work with people like Max Martin, Rami Yacoub and ILYA. They are almost pre‑programmed to go with lyrics that are phonetically pleasing to your ear; they take real pride in that Swedish style of linear, almost mathematical, writing. I naturally used to do that anyway, because I’m good at lyrics, but it’s not my best; it’s not something that comes as easily to me as the rest [of it]. I would much rather work with someone who is a great lyricist, but I do know when something sounds right.”
‘Dynamite’ provides a great example of how a minor modification can have a major influence over the feel of a song. “So call me Mr Dynamite” was changed to “Light it up like dynamite”, the internal rhyme in the second version making it roll off the tongue better. Stewart and Agombar, with whom he writes frequently, have their own lingo for lyrics that jump out at them: “We call them zingy, sparkly lyrics — things that make your ears kind of tickle a little bit. For example, something like ‘Shine bright like a diamond’ [from Rihanna’s ‘Diamonds’, written by Sia, Benny Blanco and Stargate] has that zingy thing to it. We call them shiny words: things that catch your ear, that rhythmically make sense, even if [the line] doesn’t always make sense. It serves a purpose. With pop music, if you can get a great lyric, that’s everything; however, the phonetic, the actual sound of the word you’re using, can be equally as impactful as a great lyric.”