Arcades landed two songs on Map Of The Soul: Persona (Picture: PR)

There’s just hours to go until BTS drop their latest album Map Of The Soul: Persona, and for British producing duo Arcades, the release is set to open up doors worldwide.

Arcades – that’s Max Graham and Matt Thomson – found their name on every ARMY’s lips as two of the songs they worked on with BTS, Mikrokosmos and Jamais Vu, were included on the seven-song tracklist for the album.

And that came as a surprise to even them – as they had no clue whether they were even chosen.

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Matt said: ‘They keep a lot of the details quite quiet, even to the writers. It wasn’t until they put the tracklist up that we saw there was only seven songs, and we’ve got two of them. It’s the gift that keeps giving.’




Arcades have worked on tracks for artists including Ellie Goulding, Julia Michaels and Years & Years, but their songs for BTS could be their most listened to yet – and the relationship all started when J-Hope took a shine to the duo’s debut single In The Air.

Max explained: ‘Our manager has been working with BTS for quite a while and mixing songs for them, and he’s been looking after us for a while’, with Matt saying: ‘Through him, they found out about our project, and one of our tracks, and J-Hope put it on one of his playlists. So that’s how they found out about us. But when they were working on their next album, they had their pitch sheets, which they were kind enough to send us, and we did a couple of pitches. It started through our manager’s connections, but what’s nice is that it seemed like it was based on them hearing our original stuff.’

Map Of The Soul: Persona is almost upon us (Picture: @BigHitEnt)

And landing on a J-Hope playlist gave Arcades their first taste of the ARMY, with Max saying: ‘We tweeted a thank you to J-Hope for adding us to the playlist and our Twitter basically exploded. The ARMY is amazing. They’re so dedicated, they love the boys so much.’

Matt and Max worked on Mikrokosmos with X Factor alumni Ryan Lawrie, as well as creating Jamais Vu, but didn’t change their usual process despite writing for K-pop’s biggest band.

‘I don’t think we really did,’ mused Max. ‘You can try and write in a K-pop style, but that’s not what they’re looking for. They want something unique and they want a good song. We weren’t trying to emulate anything, we were just trying to write the best song we could.

‘Lyrically [BTS] very sure of themselves, and they have this world at their feet. It’s melody we’re adding, and they’re lyrical masters.’

Matt added: ‘If you go in to write what you think is K-pop, it’s going to come out really contrived. And music nowadays is so fluid, it needs to feel real and natural. When you become too linear with it, it becomes far too structured and contrived.’

Arcades landed a song on J-Hope’s playlist last year (Picture: PR)

Their approach obviously worked, because BTS chose two of Arcades’ songs to feature on their EP – and now release day is almost upon us, the scale of the project is not lost on the boys.

‘It doesn’t really feel real. You can’t even quantify the sales or streaming numbers, there’s no way of getting your head around it,’ admitted Max.

‘All the figures from pre-orders alone are getting bigger and bigger,’ Matt said. ‘It seems like they can’t get any bigger and they do. To be involved in this one – we thought the last one was big, and then they go and smash that record on pre-sales – I don’t know what to expect. We already know it’s sold millions.



‘In some respects, it’s a relief knowing it’s got that traction already, because 99.9% of music you put out, there’s self-doubt, like “what if it doesn’t sell?” But knowing the figures, we can just enjoy being involved.

‘It’s opening doors everywhere for us and the album isn’t even out yet!’

But you’ll have to wait for the album drop to hear the songs that are opening doors for Arcades, because they’re totally sworn to secrecy on the tracks.

‘Because of the scale of it, we’re terrified to speak! We’ve been keeping a secret since January,’ Matt said – and laughing, added: ‘And I’m Scottish, so it’s the hardest thing in the world!’

Map Of The Soul: Persona is out on 12 April.

Got a showbiz story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page - we'd love to hear from you.

MORE: Louis Tomlinson opens up on grief and being a dad in interview recorded days before sister Félicité’s tragic death

MORE: BTS’s story so far, from debut to world domination, as Map Of The Soul: Persona drops