Smooth Like Butter

Multi-Platinum Producer/Songwriter Rob Grimaldi Pens Hits By Kevin Czerwinski

Music was always playing in Rob Grimaldi’s Maywood house when he was growing up. Whether it was classic rock, big band, jazz, country or rap, Grimaldi was exposed to and influenced by his parents’ tastes and that experience helped lay the foundation for what has become a successful songwriting career.

Grimaldi, 32, has carved out a niche as one of the music industry’s most sought-after young writers because of his ability to move from one genre to another. He’s penned hits for country stars Tim McGraw and Jim Allen as well as Queen Naija, the hip-hop singer and former American Idol contestant.

His latest work, however, has helped the Bergen Catholic High School grad gain global attention. Grimaldi is one of the writers/producers of “Butter,” the megahit by pop group BTS. The South Korean septet is one of the hottest groups on the planet and Butter, which has broken all kinds of records since it debuted on May 20, has helped Grimaldi become one of the industry’s most wanted writers. “Butter” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 1 on the Billboard Global 100 and broke Spotify and YouTube records for downloads and views in a song’s first week. The official music video for the song had nearly 360 million views through the middle of June with eight different versions of the song dominating on YouTube.

“It’s been an interesting journey,” said Grimaldi, who is signed with TwentySeven Music Publishing, a joint venture with Sony Music Publishing. “I worked with Queen Naija, that was my first big record, and I was doing multigenre stuff outside of that. I had songs with Jim Allen and Tim McGraw last year. Last year I also worked with Black Pink, a highly regarded Korean female group.

“This BTS thing was more of the same. We had a song we had written and reworked that we presented to Columbia Records, which is their [BTS] U.S. affiliate. We started playing Columbia the song in December. It was one of those things where we thought we had a song that fit the group and they sent it up the ladder,” he continued. “Then we started working collectively in January with other writers and producers. We did three months straight on it.”

Grimaldi and his fellow co-writers were never in the studio with BTS. Actually, they were never in the same country. The work on the song was all done via Zoom. Because of the time difference between Los Angeles and Korea, Grimaldi and his fellow co-writers spent most nights working with BTs’ people after having spent all day writing songs for other artists.

“They are 13 hours ahead of us so we needed to be available every day from 10 p.m. until the following morning,” Grimaldi said. “Beside the writing process, we were tweaking it a million times. It’s a miracle this thing got done without ever being in the studio with them. We were literally here every night on Zoom, recording, sending it over and then sending it back.

“I actually never met the boys, never spoke to them,” he continued. “We spoke to their team, which was relaying notes back and forth. We had a direct line of communication with their rep, who helped us get to the finish line. They are a super, super, super-talented group and we were catering the song to fit them. That was the goal. We were so confident with this song and we tailored it to them. We’re very thankful that they recorded it and killed it.”

Grimaldi is hopeful that his effort on Butter will be the beginning of his career jumping to a new level. It’s something he’s been working towards for a decade since graduating from Ithaca College in upstate New York. He originally went to school for audio production and had hopes of writing film scores. He fell in love with the song-writing process while in school,

though, and has been on this journey ever since.

“I knew I wanted to do this,” Grimaldi said. “I had an eye-opening moment at Ithaca where I realized I wanted to develop up-and-coming artists and write their songs. I was in the middle school band and played jazz band in high school. I started writing when I was about 12 as far as songs go. It wasn’t until Ithaca that I dove into making pop music.”

Grimaldi said the end goal is get that one big song, turn it into five or 10 big songs and then ride the momentum that success will bring. He loves working with young artists who have yet to have their big breakthrough, helping them lay the foundation for “There are so many talented people who don’t get the opportunity to do this,” said Grimaldi, who added that someday he would also like to teach.

“I had no family in the business when I started. I kind of want to be the person I wish I had when I got into the music world. That, mixed with writing for the major players, is a cool balance. I want to write more hits and grow until this [his work] is super sustainable. This is not an easy thing at all.”

It may not be “an easy thing” overall but right now everything for Grimaldi appears to be smooth like butter.