Levi heading up singles chart with The Glen​ remix

​Levi Heron, 29, remixed The Glen by Beluga Lagoon for mum Shona’s 50th and it was played for the first time in public at her birthday party at Stornoway Golf Club in January.

He uploaded it to his SoundCloud music page, as he does routinely with all his remixes, and then “put a wee video up on TikTok of the track”. From having just 600 or so followers, Levi suddenly found the track “just exploded with tens of millions of views across all the socials”.

He said: “It’s everywhere. It’s in every corner of the world. I still can’t even get my head round it myself, to be honest. It’s quite a lot to take in.”

Levi, who works on fish farm boats as a net washer, first remixed The Glen unofficially “because I didn’t think it was going to do anything, and then I’ve had to go through it officially now. I’ve had to get in touch with the band. It got signed to one of the biggest labels in the world.”

That label is Robots + Humans, an imprint of Sony Music UK, and he has been floored by the attention. “I was getting phone calls off all these labels for about four weeks solid every day, getting in touch with me wanting the track, because they had seen how well it was doing.

“It was very stressful for me to be honest. And then I ended up having to get a manager to take me on and I’ve got a booking agent now. I joined him about four weeks after I put it up on SoundCloud and he’s dealt with it all for me.”

Levi’s manager is Luke Crellin of Facemelter Raves, an artist management and events company, which specialises in progressing DJs from the ground up and mainly works with ‘hard dance’ artists, some of whom play venues such as Hï Ibiza, regarded as one of the world’s best clubs.

Luke, who is based in Liverpool, told the Gazette: “When things started happening for Levi, and he was getting a bit of movement, he reached out to me to see if I could help him deal with everything that was happening because there’s record labels out there that’ll just take advantage.

“He didn’t really know how to deal with everything so I signed him to my company, I got him the best solicitor in the game, and then I got him a record deal over the line with Sony.”

The track’s impact on the social media platforms is hard to quantify. Levi said: “I couldn’t even put a number on it now.

"The last time we counted about three weeks ago there were over 100,000 videos on TikTok using the sound. One of my videos got two million views on it.”

The single was officially released on Friday, 9th May and at the time of writing was climbing its way up The Official Top 100 and expected to debut in the Official Top 40 by Friday of this week.

It has already made it to number one in the Irish iTunes chart twice and been at number four in the UK iTunes tracks for the past week or so.

It has also been at number one in the SoundCloud Dance chart for the past six weeks – and “it’s not moving” from there, said Levi.

However, it is the track’s movement in the Official Singles Chart that he will be watching most keenly.

“It’s definitely going to be a Top 10 hit,” said Levi. “It’s only been out just over a week, and it’s had a million streams on Spotify.

"It must have about seven or eight million plays on YouTube and maybe about the same again on SoundCloud already as well.”

Asked about Sony’s expectations, he said: “They reckon it’s going to be number one.” However, he also said: “They are keeping their cards close to their chest. They’re working hard on the promotion side of it just now.”

Sony would not be the only ones to tip The Glen for the top. Manager Luke “didn’t want to speculate” on the track’s chances, saying he was “a superstitious person” and “don’t like maybe jinxing things”.

However, he added: “It’s certainly heading that way. It’s massively overachieving for what us and the label were expecting. It’s beyond expectations at the minute and we’re really excited.”

Another believer is Dylan Shields, marketing and entertainment manager of The Corner Bar and Market Yard in Limavady, Northern Ireland, which took Levi over for a gig last weekend.

Dylan said: “He is climbing the charts as we speak and will no doubt be number one.”

He added: “We are always on the lookout for up and coming DJs and Levi is certainly that! The night itself was a huge success. We will certainly be working with Levi for future dates throughout our venues in Northern Ireland.”

Levi works a two weeks on, two weeks off rotation on the fish farming boats and his diary is filling up with bookings for his time ashore, with gigs already lined up in Glasgow and Newcastle for next month, and further afield.

There are moves afoot for him to hit the decks in Magaluf and Sony are working on setting up interviews with London radio stations for the near future too.

In the meantime, Levi, who has a partner and two young sons at home, is “trying not to think about it because it gets a bit too much for my head”.

Manager Luke said The Glen had “scratched an itch” for what the nation wants from dance.

“He’s very talented," said Luke. “His people are looking forward to his next releases. He’s got a lot of really, really strong tracks waiting to come out, which I’m excited about.

“He’s been a dream to work with already. He’s very humble, he’s keen to learn, he takes advice really well. He’s a really good guy and he deserves everything that’s coming to him.”

(To listen to the track visit Levi’s TikTok page and follow his social media updates to keep track of progress.)