Mark Ronson

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

He is an accomplished DJ, musician and Grammy award-winning producer, is that correct? Feel free to speak into the microphone.

Mark Ronson

OK.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So please join me in welcoming, Mark Ronson.

(applause)

Mark Ronson

Thank you.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How’re you doing?

Mark Ronson

Good. You know, Jeff used to be my boss. When I was 18 I had these dreams of one day being a journalist, writing reviews of hip-hop albums and stuff. Jeff ran the best ’zine in New York called Ego Trip, this hip-hop ’zine, and I used to bug him all the time to let me write reviews for it. I think one day he finally let me write a review of a Sadat X album.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

There were a couple of reviews you did for Ego Trip.

Mark Ronson

But one of them was an album that you knew wasn’t very good and you wanted to test me. It was a Sadat X album and he knew I was going to have to see Sadat X every night I was out DJing in New York ’cause he was always out in the clubs at that time. So he was, “Let me test your test mettle and see how much balls you have for this writing shit.” And he was right, I had no balls. (laughter) I was like, “This album is really good.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And was that the end of your journalism career? You missed your calling, man.

Mark Ronson

I think in my mind I had romantic illusions, but it just wasn’t something I was very good at.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You were good at it, the stuff you did was good. Besides that one. But that’s neither here nor there. Thank you for being here, I appreciate it. What I like to do a lot oftimes in these sessions is, no matter who’s on the couch, I never like to assume that everybody knows everything about everybody who comes through. So I’ll ask Mark if he can play something just as an informal introduction to what he does. He’s going to play a little something from his past repertoire to give an idea of what he’s all about.

Mark Ronson

This is a song I wrote and produced... no, actually, I’m going to play a different one ’cause that one’s not very good.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Are you a DJ? You seem to be having a lot of trouble deciding what to play.

(music: Amy Winehouse feat. Ghostface Killah – “You Know I’m No Good”)

Mark Ronson

(stops the music) That sounds like a really shitty MP3. You work your whole life for something you hope will sound really cool when you listen to it and then you listen to some bullshit version that you downloaded off LimeWire. OK, I’ll play this one – this one’s an AIFF file, different song.

(music: Amy Winehouse – “Back to Black” / applause)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Who was that? (laughter)

Mark Ronson

It’s this chick. Silly!

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So tell us a bit about that track in particular. That’s a big-sounding record. I’d use the word epic, except it’s so overused on the internets. But something equivalent to epic.

Mark Ronson

That record was the first Amy and I wrote together on that album. She came to my studio. I hadn’t really done anything that big of note yet, my first record Here Comes The Fuzz had a minor hit with “Ooh Wee.” Someone said you should meet this girl Amy, she’s a great singer. I remembered the song from her first album where she’d sampled “Made You Look” by Nas, which was one of my favorite tracks, I always played it in my DJ sets.

She came to my studio and whenever I meet someone for the first time, rather than do the more traditional R&B thing where you play tracks – “You like this? You like this?” – I sat with her and asked what kind of music she liked and what kind of album she wanted to make. She said she’d been listening to a lot of ’60s jukebox pop, like the Shangri-Las, obviously a lot of Motown, that’s something we both listened to together. I said, “I don’t have anything that’s really relevant, but come back tomorrow” – she was supposed to go back to England the next day – “and I’ll work on something.” So I went into my studio and came up with that piano line that sounded a little bit generic but wasn’t a total rip-off, but just conjured up that era, the Shangri-Las, songs like “Walking In The Sand.” Then – I’m not a drummer but I can loop myself in ProTools – I did a little kick drum that went “boom, tch, boom-boom, tch.” That’s all I had, the rough thing of the keys. She came back the next day and so I said, “What do you think of this?” And I soaked the whole thing in spring reverb so it sounded like one of those records, and she said, “Yeah, I love it.” I thought she was bullshitting ’cause that’s her whole thing, she’s really understated. “No, I really love it.” And she went into the room to call her manager, it was like a scene in a movie. He said, “So what did Amy think of the track?” “I don’t think she liked it ’cause she just went outside and she’s calling a car.” “Oh, really? That was her other manager on the line and she wants to stay for two weeks.” So we made the rest of the record, and I believe Gabe Roth is speaking here this afternoon.

Gabe Roth is from Daptone Records and a brilliant producer and recording engineer. He’d made a few records with the Dap-Kings that I really loved and I loved the fact they were funk and that their 45"s sounded like the real deal. I played Amy a version they’d done. At the time I didn’t know the whole band but I knew the horn players because they had been working with me recording Version. They played me this version of “Uptight” by Stevie Wonder they’d done for a City Bank commercial or something.

(music: Dap-Kings – “Uptight”)

I love it because it almost sounds like a magic trick – “That was made yesterday? Are you fucking kidding me?” Obviously, this sound has filtered a little bit more into the mainstream and we know they can make songs like that. But I played that for Amy and said, “I’ve got these guys that should record our stuff, these songs we’ve been working on.” So we went to Gabe’s studio in Bushwick in Brooklyn and that’s where we made the good chunk of Back to Black.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So it’s a departure in a way from the typical process of playing a track for an R&B singer. Just building from the ground, from nothing. How long does the process take to do something like that particular song? Obviously, you have an elaborate string orchestration as well. There’s a whole section in the middle as well where the tempo changes, which I think is what contributes to making it very special because there’s a sense of dynamic. There’s a sense of things breathing in terms of the arrangement. Since we heard that song, continuing on with that as a specific example.

Mark Ronson

I hadn’t ever attempted to do a grand production like this before. It was Amy and recording the Dap-Kings and those amazing musicians and stuff, those songs kept making me want to take it further. That part you’re talking about where the tempo changes, it actually goes into six and becomes major. I thought when we did that it almost sounded too Radiohead, to go from minor to major, and it would just be the outro.

And you get lazy when you’re just doing it in ProTools and everything’s on the grid and you can move stuff around. In the ’60s, I guess, you could be a bit more attentive to arrangements and you get these classic pictures of everyone slaving over their score sheets.

We don’t really have to do that much anymore. I thought, “This is going to be a headache to go out of this tempo change and then back into a song and then go up, I can’t be bothered.” Then there was a part of me that thought it’d be really great if we did it. So the whole song, it took me about one night to lay the foundation of that track. And then Amy wrote the lyrics and the melody especially fast, it was about half a day. Then we recorded the rhythm track in about three hours. We recorded all the rhythm tracks of “Back to Black” in about five days, then we did the strings.

Amy didn’t want to do strings. To her, every time I say strings she thinks of violins and, “Get that Mariah Carey bullshit out of my face.” I kept saying to her we should use a full orchestra and she was, “No, I hate it.” “Well, all the songs you think are great, the Shangri-Las, the thing that makes them great is the orchestra.” She kept telling me until she was blue in the face: “I don’t fucking want it, get that shit out of my face.”

So then I said, “I’ll pay for it then. If you don’t like it, we can take it off.” She was like, “Don’t waste your fucking money.” She really just wouldn’t have it, so I had to do it without telling her. I did the strings without telling her. I went and did the arrangement and it was the day we were mixing, the first song we mixed, “Love is a Losing Game.” I’ll play you a second of it so you can see how big a part of it the strings really are.

(music: Amy Winehouse – “Love is a Losing Game”)

So you can hear it’s a pretty big part of the song. She didn’t come to the studio to hear it, she didn’t know I’d put the strings down until we’re mixing the final thing. At that point we’d been mixing the song for the whole day. If she’d just come in and said, “Take the strings out,” it would’ve been a pain in the ass and kind of ruined the record. So she’s listening with her head down in the console, like (shows sitting with head down), for two and a half minutes. And I couldn’t see the expression on her face and I’m like, “Oh, please, let her like it.” And she just jumps up at the end of the song and goes, “Come here Ronny-chops,” and gives me a hug. Then, without missing a beat she says, “Just take that Mariah Carey harp bullshit out at the third breakdown, alright?” and walks out of the room. So that was that.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I was going to ask this question later, but now seems like as good a time as any. You’ve worked with a number of prominent vocalists. As a producer, what is the psychology necessary to work with vocalists. For you to get that performance out of them?

Mark Ronson

I think there’s a lot of different kinds of producers. You have the diplomat; you have the Ross Robinsons of this world you hear about, these guys that produce metal bands and get them to throw chairs around before they go in and do a drum take. “I want you angry.” I don’t have that in me to do that. I think I’m more of a diplomat. When you’re lucky enough to have a singer like Amy, who’s going to sing it four times and each take is going to be brilliant, and you’re going have to decide by comping the melody how to steer the vocal because she’s a bit more of a jazz singer, so each take has quite a bit of improvisation in it. Then there are other singers who are maybe a bit more insecure, not as naturally gifted, and you have to coax something out of them.

It’s hard to say because everyone’s different, but even if we’re not talking about someone with a barrelling, super-huge voice, even with someone with a beautiful tone texture, say, someone like Lily Allen, I’ve been really lucky to work with people whose tone is so unique and even their fuck-ups are good in a way. I’ve never had to work with the modern pop ProTools, Auto-Tuned sort of ingénue. I wouldn’t know what to do there anyway because I don’t know when you have a good take, because all you have to do is tune the shit out of it anyway. From what I know, you just get them to sing it 20 times and you just take the best stuff.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Let’s go back a little bit. We’ve heard something that you’re well known for, but let’s go back to when you were doing a band called the Whole Earth Mamas.

Mark Ronson

That’s low, Mao. (laughs)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

But what I’m saying is back when you started out, how did you get into it?

Mark Ronson

That was my first band. We played Lenny Kravitz and Black Crowes covers, we were 14 playing around New York and that was the thing at the time. It was like “funk rock,” bands like Living Colour, and we played in shitty bars and thought we were good when we weren’t. That was my first experience with rappers. Most of the band was really into hip-hop, but we were just a shitty bar band, we weren’t The Roots, so it just sounded really sloppy drunken rap karaoke. That was when I got really into hip-hop and started collecting vinyl. And a little bit down the line I got turntables. And like any kid when you get a bicycle, a new toy, the old toy stays in the corner collecting dust. My guitar started collecting dust and all I wanted to do was DJ and play hip-hop all the time.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What was the first hip-hop record you got?

Mark Ronson

I remember the first four 12"s. They were “They Reminisce (Over You)” by Pete Rock & CL Smooth – these weren’t all out at the time, they were just ones I knew I wanted – Zhigge, “Rakin’ in the Dough,” Mary J Blige, the “Reminisce Remix” and Digable Planets “Rebirth of the Slick.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

But before that you were playing instruments – guitar. Saxophone also?

Mark Ronson

I played a little bit of saxophone in the fifth grade then I stopped. I thought I could play everything and I would be good without trying, but it doesn’t ever happen. So I just decided to stick with guitar. And I wasn’t exceptionally good either.

There was a really flashy guitarist in my band by the name of Mike Pollett and he could play crazy shit. He had this huge amp and every time he turned it on, he had this rig up to here and it would be like an aeroplane taking off. And I’d be (gestures turning switch on) “blop,” my little Jazz Chorus. And he would shred and every now and then he’d be: “OK, you take a solo now,” and I’d be (embarrassed), “No.”

But it was cool, I didn’t mind that, I understood a lot of my favorite bands had a great rhythm guitarist and I was always drawn to the rhythm, that was what I was better at anyway. Even now when I play guitar on my own records it’s always Meters, James Brown type lines.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Maybe that was an easier transition to DJing.

Mark Ronson

Definitely. My first instrument was the drums when I was four. I was always drawn to the rhythmic thing. Even now I always listen to the bassline before I listen even to the melody, or the drums before I listen to the lyrics. That’s just how my brain works.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Can you talk about when you first started DJing? You’re known for DJing. Just set the scene a little bit. It was an exciting time and I remember going to the parties. Just give us a look into that world and where it took you.

Mark Ronson

I started DJing at a point in New York around the mid-’90s and at that time, the music of that era, what people call the golden era of hip-hop, was really exciting. It was all Tribe and Dre and Snoop and the beginnings of Wu-Tang. The clubs in New York, I guess it was a renaissance of what happened in the ’80s when downtown met uptown, Blondie met Afrika Bambaataa. I don’t think it was as culturally impactful, but you had these great DJs like Stretch Armstrong, Funkmaster Flex and some lesser-knowns like Joolz playing some great, great funk, soul and hip-hop. The crowds were a mix all the time and I’d go in and hassle all the promoters until I got an opening slot for Stretch and started making a name for myself.

Some of the hip rappers I looked up to, like Gang Starr and Q-Tip to Jay-Z and Puffy started coming to where I’m DJing. Puffy asked for my number – “I like the way you DJ” – and taking me to DJ parties for him. It was all such a blur, what am I leaving out?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It was all a dream. It just seems everyone at the time was collecting records and trying to get into production and stuff like that as well. We had the Roosevelt Show and you’d go see people to buy records.

Mark Ronson

Jeff was such a snob, because he knew about every record. I was this little kid going, “What’s that? Tell me about that drum break.” I used to go to Jeff’s house and every record in there would be some amazing rare Latin funk break. “Oh, you don’t know about that? Stick to this James Brown, that’s fine.” (laughter)

No, he was actually really friendly and it was Jeff and DJs like Joolz who taught me about records, like Faze-O, “Riding High,” the really cool records that were standards in those days but a little less known than James Brown and Kool & The Gang and the standards that everyone else heard. It was a really exciting time, there were record conventions, you’d go to in these hotels, and some of them had been sampled by your favorite rap songs. Then you’d see your favorite rappers and producers walking around there. You’d have to get there at seven in the morning to get the good stuff. It was really exciting.

If you found one record you were really proud of, you’d walk around with it all day under your arm, hoping someone would see you, one of your heroes. Like, one of the guys from the Beatnuts is going to go, “What’s that kid doing with that record? Hey, come over here.” (laughter) Never gonna happen. But it was super-exciting and vinyl was amazing.

The only thing about this Serato era that sometimes bums me out – you can’t fight technology and it’s great that it’s made – but it makes it easy for everybody to have everything all the time. You don’t have to earn it or deserve it or wake up at seven in the morning to have those records. Not only was it earning it, but it was actually quite fun. It made you care about those records and when you had your one copy of some Roy Ayers-produced record that A Tribe Called Quest sampled you knew you’d earned your stripes to have it in your collection.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah, it’s not like that anymore.

Mark Ronson

(affects Statler and Waldorf voice) Let’s talk about the old days.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I guess at that point the DJing thing took off for you.

Mark Ronson

It did. I was playing in clubs like Cheetah and Life that were kinda hip-hop crowds and you’d still have kids and skateboarders and rappers and drug dealers and people like Jay-Z would come to these clubs. I was one of the better DJs in that scene and I’d play a lot of funk and soul classics that they enjoyed, mixed with hip-hop. Then also, myself and Stretch Armstrong started playing a bit of rock & roll.

We’d all been playing songs like “Miss You” by the Stones, songs that were just classic rock songs that always ended up in a hip-hop set. But we started playing other stuff and became known for that, and I remember about ten years ago at some party, I was DJing for Jay-Z’s album release, Roc La Familia. And Lil Kim and Method Man are standing up on the table singing “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”, which is the most clichéd song now to ever play in a DJ set.

And I hate the fact that we even started playing those records because now you can’t go into any bullshit club in the West End, no matter where you are in the world, and not hear “Under the Bridge” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers or some song that shouldn’t be played in a hip-hop DJ set. But that’s what we were doing and I guess we thought it was interesting at the time, just stretching boundaries. You can’t really blame us, it’s like blaming the Beastie Boys for Limp Bizkit. (laughter)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

But there was some sense of order, like you were saying. There were certain songs you would incorporate from different genres because in a hip-hop mindset they would work.

Mark Ronson

Yeah, and you had to make sure your transitions were great. You would throw in M.O.P., “Ante Up”, and you’d bust into the a capella and then throw in “Back in Black” under it, or “Whole Lotta Love.” It always had to have alchemy, then you had great DJs like Z-Trip, who were always more pure mash-up, but that was what their whole thing was about.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

On the first day here all the participants had to sit on this couch and get asked a few questions and one of them was their favorite DJ nightmare story. You being a “celebrity DJ,” are you immune to a nightmare story?

Mark Ronson

Not at all, I’ve had so many nightmare stories.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So please share.

Mark Ronson

The worst are always when I haven’t played in a while and I’m rusty. The classic is to take the needle of the wrong turntable, the one that’s playing. One time – this is only three weeks ago – I was DJing in this club in New York called Santos Party House and I hadn’t played vinyl in a while and I figured I’d bring some vinyl out and play with Serato, it’d be fun.

It was on Q-Tip’s night and I think I turned the wrong fader down, it was a three-fader, and instead of turning it back up I just went into complete panic mode and was touching everything. You know that guilty look when you look at the floor and everyone’s staring at you and you’re like, “It’s not me, I just had a shot of tequila and now this mixer’s acting funny.” (laughter) So I just shut the power off on everything and the sound guy came running in the booth. “What the hell’s going on here?” He’d never seen me before, he thought I was some ham-and-egger opening DJ.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So don’t turn the power off.

Mark Ronson

No, don’t start going like that. (imitates randomly hitting switches) Would you do that in a cockpit? I don’t think so. Don’t do it in the booth.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Can you talk a little bit about getting into production, doing beats and what led to your first productions, your album as well as the Nikka Costa record?

Mark Ronson

DJing in clubs was invaluable because I was always around artists and stuff. There was this guy who managed D’Angelo and he had this girl who could sing, this brilliant voice. He came up to me one time I was DJing and said: “I have this girl, I don’t know what she sounds like, I just want her to sound like one of your DJ sets.” Basically a cross between EPMD, Biggie, AC/DC and all that stuff. So that was my first production break and I got it out of DJing, things I was known for playing in my set. That was Nikka Costa and that was in 2001.

(music: Nikka Costa – “Like a Feather”)

My hero at the time production-wise was DJ Premier. You can I think kind of hear that I was just trying to imitate the swing and feel of Premier. Should I play you something of his so you can hear what I’m talking about? I don’t know if it’s as obvious to you listening to it as to me making it.

(music: Nas – “Nas Is Like”)

Primo is really famous for that kind of swing on the drums, the way he’d sample stabs and move them around. And then the Beatles guitar sound in the chorus and the Sly-ish stuff. I guess that Nikka Costa record is a bit of an amalgam of all my influences. I remember DJing that Nikka Costa song for the first time in New York, it was a party, it was for an album release of D’Angelo’s Voodoo.

DJ Premier came in the booth, I had never met him and he was singing that record and I think I was already playing it. He’s just standing there like this (imitates nodding head) and I was like, “Oh, he’s gonna ask who’s this ripping off my whole shit.” And he looked up and said, “Who is this?” “It’s Nikka Costa, sir,” just trying to be as polite as possible. And he’s like, “Who made the beat?” “I did.” And for three minutes he’s just doing this in the booth. (rocks back and forth) I don’t know if he heard it as a tribute or he just didn’t hear the bite at all. But it was pretty cool, that was the first time I met him. I guess he was digging that beat.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What did you learn from the process of doing that record and that project?

Mark Ronson

A lot. I processed the record with Nikka and her husband Justin, who came from more of a rock background but knew about micing drums and all that studio set- up. For me, being a producer just meant having a drum machine and a mic being able to record rappers. So that definitely broadened my mind. Then I learned about computers from watching him work on Logic, I’d just sit behind him and watch him work the whole time to see how that worked.

It was kind of a difficult album to make because they weren’t coming from a hip-hop aesthetic at all, they’d been living in Australia. Every time she’d start to sing a song and I’d be on my MP and I’d say, “That’s cool.” Then I’d start to make a beat and she’d be (throws hands up) making fun of hip-hop and it would seriously bum me out and there was always this fight. That “Like a Feather” song was like a Who-style rock, sort of (imitates Who guitar). I think it would’ve been cool, but nobody would’ve heard it.

The way our influences came together made it something weird. You do get that battle a lot and that makes good stuff, it’s not always supposed to be easy in the studio. You hear stories about people making their best records and they’re leaving the vocal booth crying and that’s just how it goes. But I learned a lot making that record and what I also learned was the hype machine, because that song was on MTV, heavy rotation. Tommy Hilfiger commercial. All the stars were lined up; people walking down the street saying to my other, “Good on your son, you’ll be able to retire soon.”

Everyone saying it was going to be the biggest record ever and it came out and kind of just bombed. It was an amazing first lesson in the music industry, because no matter how big everyone tells you it’s going to be, it can be on MTV, heavy rotation, all this shit, the bottom can fall out and that’s just how it goes. The record came out and it got my foot in the door, but it was definitely not a commercial success whatsoever. But I like the fact my first lesson was really “don’t believe the hype,” in the truest sense of the expression.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

In what ways was the experience of your first solo album similar or different for you?

Mark Ronson

My first solo album, I got signed by this guy Josh Deutsch at Elektra because he really liked that Nikka Costa beat, so that really did lead to it. If you make something that’s good and it's not commercial, it can obviously lead to good things sometimes. I couldn’t believed in my mind, it was just, “Holy shit! Elektra Records is just going to give me a blank check to work with every rapper I’ve loved since I was nine years old.”

I didn’t think for one second I was making an album and this has to sell. Obviously, my tastes, I’m not making weirdo blip minimal techno. My ear is slightly commercial and not that cool at times. But I just thought I’d make a record with people I loved, people like Sean Paul, Freeway, Jack White, Ghostface, M.O.P., Nate Dogg, Mos Def, and it was a really fun record to make and I made it in New York. It felt like I was just making the stuff I liked. England ended up being the only place where it had a bit of success.

I’d grown up in England and moved to New York when I was eight years old, but obviously my tastes and sensibilities were unmistakably English. I didn’t think about it before, but it made sense once it was all done that it resonated here a bit more for whatever reason, the style, the taste, the eclecticism of it. It just didn’t work in America at all, but it let me come here and have a minor hit with “Ooh Wee” and spend a lot of time here, which led to me meeting Amy and Lily and steering my musical path for the past five years.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That eclecticism, can you give us an example of how that might manifest itself?

Mark Ronson

On a record?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah, on that record in particular.

Mark Ronson

I guess the eclecticism was across the whole record. I was 25 years old and somebody gave me a shitload of money to make a record and I was just, “Oh, what I want to do is show what my three-hour DJ set is like condensed into a 45-minute album.” When you’re DJing you need three hours to build the arc, to get from rock to soul to disco and all that stuff, you need an arc and it has to be clever. In the process of trying to fit it in to a 33-minute record, it can sound quite spasmodic. I guess, maybe I’d have to play two records to see how across the board it is. This is a record with Jack White, Freeway and Nikka Costa on it.

(music: Mark Ronson feat. Jack White, Freeway & Nikka Costa – “Here Comes the Fuzz”)

Here’s a disco record.

(music: Mark Ronson feat. Aya – “High”)

Here’s a reggae record.

(music: Mark Ronson feat. Sean Paul & Tweet – “International Affair”)

It's like, “Hello, can we have a bit of a plot here?” But I’m still really proud of that record and I love it when I play DJ sets and I play “Ooh Wee” and it’s fun. It’s been in Harold And Kumar Go to White Castle and Honey, all sorts of amazing films. (laughter) For a while that publishing actually paid my rent.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So I guess the question is how that record led on to the stuff you did with the next record and the stuff you did with Amy Winehouse and whatnot.

Mark Ronson

To be completely honest, I had a little bit of buzz with the Nikka Costa record and any bit of buzz is quite fleeting, especially in the music industry. The buzz of Nikka’s record extended to allow me to make my solo record and when they both kind of tanked, suddenly I wasn’t that hot anymore. To be honest, I didn’t deserve to be, I hadn’t had any hits. There were a lot of people I was friendly with from the early days, like Pharrell and Chad from The Neptunes and Kanye.

In the beginning we were both working with this rapper named Rhymefest, and even at the very last minute Danger Mouse. There were all these people, who at one point I’d considered my peers, and I’d seen them all sky-rocket past me and I thought in a really honest way, “Maybe I’m just not that good at this.” I had a girlfriend and a dog and I just thought, ”Maybe I should be making music for commercials, then I can pay for my life without sitting home waiting for A&R morons to call me.”

At that point, I really didn’t care any more about making things that sounded competitive with what was going on the radio, going into A&R meetings playing beats I hoped someone would like because they sounded a little bit like the Neptunes hit that was on the radio. I just said, “Fuck it!”

It wasn’t a conscious decision, but around that time someone asked me to make a cover of a Radiohead song for an album. I said, “Yeah.” I just thought it doesn’t matter as no one’s really going to get my shit, so I’ll just make shit that I like. Which is really what you’re supposed to do in the first place. But if you live in New York and the rat race and the labels are around you, you can lose your voice and identity if you’re not on it. So I made that cover of Radiohead’s “Just.” I’ll play a little bit of the original then I’ll play the less good version.

(music: Radiohead – “Just”)

This is one of my favorite Radiohead songs and I said I’d do a cover of it for this BBE album.

(music: Mark Ronson – “Just”)

I sat with Dave Guy, my trumpet player, and thought it would be cool to take the horns and make them do what the guitars are doing, because it’s a very James Brown “Funky Drummer”-type breakbeat and if we start putting heavy guitars over it, it’s going to eat up the whole thing and it’s not going to be very funky anymore.

So I sat with Dave and noticed once I put the horns on and finished the song and had Alex Greenwald do the vocal, I started playing it at my DJ sets and it was the most exciting part of the night. People would be like, “What is this? I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

So I just started making more of them for fun, just covers of songs I really liked. Dave and I would sit and write the horn arrangements, the Daptone horn players would come in and just lay them down. There was no rhyme or reason to it, I just enjoyed making them. I always liked those obscure or slightly eccentric cover versions of ’60s pop songs, whether it was Stevie Wonder doing “We Can Work It Out” and just stuff like that. I’m so bored, what am I talking about? What was the question? (laughter) I’m amazed you’re not asleep, sorry.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You were talking about how the album came into being. So you did more of these covers and you came up with an album.

Mark Ronson

We did some more. I should’ve thought more about doing this as an interpretive dance piece, sorry. (laughter) At that time I met Lily Allen in a nightclub and she was talking about the music she liked. “I really like Jay-Z, I really like The Specials.” All these things that didn’t make sense to me and I said, “That sounds cool, I’ll listen to your demo.”

And I heard it and I brought her out to New York. And to reiterate, not that I was curled up in the foetal position crying myself to sleep every night. But no one was checking me for anything. So I flew her to New York with my air miles, put her up in the Howard Johnson or the Holiday Inn in the middle of Chinatown in the middle of the first bird flu scare. She was freaked out, she didn’t tell me but she went to stay with someone else and would show up to see me every day. She would walk back to the Holiday Inn, because she didn’t want to offend me because she’d moved out of the Holiday Inn.

So Lily and I made some music together, one song for her album, one song for mine. Then I met Amy one month later through this gentleman Guy Moot at EMI Publishing who just said, “I’m going to send this girl round to your house.” And then we started working.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And the rest is history. You following your instincts and what you were into was convenient in a way, too, because the sound of hip-hop was changing quite a bit over that time – it is where it is now. It wasn’t necessarily what you were drawn to initially either, I would think. Maybe I’m putting words in your mouth.

Mark Ronson

What wasn’t what I was drawn to?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Obviously hip-hop inspired you, it got you into what you were doing, but where hip-hop was around the time you were making this stuff... you can say what you wish.

Mark Ronson

No, I understand. I was DJing a lot in New York and I always think it should be about progress. Just to sit around and complain about the current state of things and try to put your head in the sand and ignore where music is going is a little bit dangerous. But it’s okayt to like the good shit, and there are always going to be little good bits that come around.

At that time Q-Tip and I started a party called Authentic Shit where we just played stuff we thought was great, a lot of golden era hip-hop. And that has always been my biggest influence as far as the sound of the drums in a lot of my records.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So you did this album, you did the Amy stuff, we’ve heard examples of that. This is you playing a lot of the instruments yourself as well as you using the Dap-Kings.

Mark Ronson

On my album I played most of the stuff except for the horns. But then I started to make my album Version before we did Back to Black. I showed up to Daptone, Gabe’s studio, and I showed up just as they were micing up a drumkit. I literally felt like I was walking into the Pearly Gates, I couldn’t believe it. It sounded like every RZA crusty drum break I’d always loved, but there was a guy playing it, so he could do fills or whatever. I don’t know what it was, but that was my eureka moment. I’d already made much of Version, but if I’d met those guys like two months before, they probably would’ve played most of Version as well.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So you have this funk foundation with the music. It’s apparent, the homage to old funk and soul. So now where are you, what are you going to do next?

Mark Ronson

I think I love old soul and that sound of it and that was my favorite music ever. You go through phases where you think something [else] is the best thing ever, but I always go back to that. Nothing will fill the dancefloor like “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 or a James Brown record. One hundred years from now they’ll be playing that in alien Bar Mitzvahs, when you combine an amazing rhythmic track and melody with a captivating performance on top.

I do realize that especially in England, where because Amy’s record was so big, my record was really big, just the filter down of other people copying it, just for the sake of my own pride and for the sake of people not going and making a trumpet bonfire, I was just like, “Fuck it! I can’t do this again.”

It’s a drag because I love this music, and if Version wasn’t as big as it was, I could maybe do it again for a few more records. But I was coming off producing a record for Duran Duran, one of my favorite bands when I was a kid, and I learned a lot about all these analog ’70s synthesizers from Nick Rhodes, who just taught me not only about the Roland and stuff like that, but the Elka, the Italo disco synths and more obscure stuff.

Coming out of that, I just fell in love with the texture and the tones of it. When it was time to start working on my new record again this past summer, I just wheeled in about 12 keyboards to Tommy and Homer’s studio and was like, “All right, now we are using this.” It was great. It was fun. It was a little bit of a learning curve. Everyone can actually play keyboards obviously, but just the way the oscillators and things work.

It was a bit like the first few days were like the opening scene in 2001 where the gorillas discover the fire and they’re like (mimics gorilla sound) – everyone is like "what is this?" and everyone is switching instruments. It’s like mayhem but I think a lot of good stuff came out of that. I think my new record is nearly done.

It’s definitely got the rhythm section and the feel of Homer’s playing, and the drum sound that sort of Gabe passed on to Tommy who’s recording my record is still in there. But it’s got a lot more synths. It’s like there’s elements of, sort of French, Jean Michel Jarre, like Daft Punk element in the synths and the stuff are all played. I mean there’s this one record, I could play you a second for you.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah, a quick second of something.

Mark Ronson

Well this one is like super duper electro. The whole record isn’t this hardcore. I love all the ’70s Moog instrumental records and this kind of has a vibe of that. The other thing, technology, any DJs in here, there’s a thing, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, called the Controller One. It’s a turntable that Vestax made. It’s like a regular turntable, it just plays a long tone and then it has eight keys that you can assign the notes to, so depending on what scale you’re playing in. So if you’re like turntable wizard you can play a melody and scratching on the fader and controlling at the same time. So I had this kid, Teeko, this DJ from the Bay Area come and double this melody that I had written.

(music: Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. – “Circuit Breaker”)

So that’s kind of like a mix of [inaudible], and “Rockit,” and weird Moog records. Then also with the melody played on the turntables.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So he’s doubling up the melody from the keyboard?

Mark Ronson

Yeah, I’m playing the melody. Also, what’s cool about the turntable is it has MIDI information. So if I play the actual melody then all he has to do is manipulate the turntable for the movement, he doesn’t actually have to change the pitch. It’s a really cool thing. It’s more impressive to see in action because it’s actually the way the hands are moving so fast and you can see that they’re playing it, you know? In other words you had to be there.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You mentioned working with Duran Duran, some of your heroes. You’ve also talked in the past, I think, a little bit about just meeting your heroes and working with them. So how has that experience been? In general, what are your sort of views on meeting some of your heroes and working with them?

Mark Ronson

I think that it’s pretty daunting because there’s always that thing like, you never want to met your heroes because what if they’re a dick or they’re mean and then you can never enjoy their music again? The fact that going in the studio with them, just because I love Duran Duran, up to that point my sound was a very specific thing and not at all what they’re known for, so there’s a very good chance that it would be a recipe for disaster.

I think that all those jitters and that thing about meeting the people that you love, usually, unless you’re a psycho, you can get over that in a day or something. That kind of sweet thing, that fan-boy thing, goes away then you realize you have to work. Working with Duran Duran has been kind of amazing because it did seem like on paper something that wouldn’t really make sense because I like Duran Duran’s records that they made 25 years ago.

So to get them to go back without insulting them, and having them not feel like regressing, but to reclaim the sound that they did then, was kind of the goal going in. It’s like the scene in the movie when we’re like going down into the basement and pulling out these storage cases buried with all their old keyboards that they haven’t used since the fourth album. It’s really exciting in the way it’s coming about, and it’s the way that it’s the keyboards and what I’ve learned from that record has informed my own new record has been invaluable.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And how far in the process are you with that right now?

Mark Ronson

We got everything recorded, the music and stuff, and we’re just waiting. The last process is Simon Le Bon writing his lyrics. So basically we write all the songs in a row and he sings like “blah blah blah,” like lyrics with the melody. Then right now in the studio everyday, actually today as well, fitting words into the “blah blah blah.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Have you noticed any special psychology involved in working with the heroes, as opposed to working with other talents?

Mark Ronson

Are they going to see this? I don’t want to start turning all the manipulation tactics I’ve been using on them.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I guess that’s true, you don’t want to reveal all your Jedi mind tricks.

Mark Ronson

No, it’s not the secrets because you guys can know it all, it’s just like “Oh, that’s why he said he liked the...” I think that with a band like that, I think I had it in the back of my head like, “It’d be really cool to do a song that felt like ‘Save A Prayer’ today.”

Even if you just have that in the back of your head, you’re not go in and start copying the chord change and that stuff. The producer has a lot of control of psychic energy in a room, like you don’t even have to say “we’re going to do this” but just to stare at sometimes. That’s just what happens in a room when people are creating. That’s definitely been a bit of the experience. But then they’ve also made some stuff that sounds very young and exciting and like a brand new band. It’s cool.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

With regards with your own records, you being a producer and musician and DJ, not a vocalist. Although you did rap on one of your records briefly. Will we be seeing more of that?

Mark Ronson

I am singing on a song on my new album. It’s a song that Ghostface is rapping on as well, which is like the musical equivalent of the little kid that comes around the corner starting stuff with kids and then they all run around the corner, chasing him, and his 12 big brothers are like behind the corner. So no one can really say anything about my singing because Ghostface is just around the corner. I’m singing two songs, just because I wanted to try it and I thought my voice fit the song maybe better than some other people.

It’s a strange thing to go from what I was, which was a DJ and a behind-the-scenes producer, to the success of Version, which made us have to tour it. Then I actually have to go out and actually say things into the microphone in between songs and you just learn how to do that.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

As far as producers go, I mean there’s an anthology sort of quality to doing these projects in some respect because there is a different vocalist on many of the songs or a different rapper or something like that. Who did you look towards for inspiration?

Mark Ronson

Well definitely I look more towards the sort of, the aesthetically and just stylistically a bit more like Quincy Jones and that era of producer’s records. Because with Version, I don’t know, I guess I didn’t want to do that. On my first record, I tried to ramrod every song with tons of stars almost to the point of looking obnoxious, and that record sort of tanked. And on this record I just wanted the songs to have their own identity.

So yeah, I didn’t really look to anyone. I mean, there’s so many of those records and usually they’re pretty fucking awful and I don’t want to be making those ten years from now. Like Mark Ronson featuring this on track two, Mark Ronson featuring this...

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well Quincy Jones is a good model to follow, I would think. Can you share some good Ghostface stories with us?

Mark Ronson

Actually, you know, I’ve done a few songs with Ghostface. I did “Ooh Wee” on my first record, as soon as Amy and I had mixed “You know I’m No Good” off her record I knew that Ghostface was the person that should rap over it. The weird thing is I’d never really spoken to him that much because you know how it is. You send someone the track on a MP3 and they send back the rap and they go, “Oh you like it? Good.”

So I was a little bit drunk out the other night and I got a text that Ghostface had just finished his rap on the new song that I sent him. So I get a text from his manager that just says, “Ghost is finished. Call him.” So I’m such a pussy, I was just going to pretend that I didn’t see it and I was like, “Oh, he won’t know I didn’t see it. I won’t call him.”

I don’t want to call Ghostface, because he might hear what an idiot I am or maybe he thinks I’m cool and all the mystery is ruined and then he doesn’t want to do another record again. And I soaked it in for awhile and I was like “I got to call him.” So we’re talking for awhile and we spoke for like 20 minutes and he really was sweet and talking about the history of the different kinds of records we’ve done together and he was like, “You and me have this chemistry like we need to do a whole record together and go on tour,” and all this.

People are walking by, like, “Who are you on the phone with?” And I’m like "Ghostface, I’ll be right down." So I was outside having a cigarette at this bar and it was just amazing. Then he’s like, "Anything else you need to do on your record, send it to me. I’m down to do it." So the next morning I’m sure he was like looked in his inbox and was like "track five, track seven, track eight." I’ll play a little bit of the Ghostface here.

(music: Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. feat. Ghostface Killah – “Lose It (In the End)”)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I want to ask you one more thing last thing before we open it up to questions. Discussion of your music is frequently prefaced by mention of your celebrity. How do you feel about that?

Mark Ronson

“Celebrity DJ” is obviously a bit of a backhanded... It’s not even a backhanded compliment, there’s nothing complimentary about it. When I started DJing in those downtown clubs and making a name for myself – you can vouch for me Jeff, I was down? (laughs) – there was a certain scene that had never heard of me before, the DJ press like Mixmag.

And all of a sudden I’m this DJ playing at these parties for Puff or whatever. People wanted to assume it was because I had this stepdad in a famous rock band. No offense to my step-dad, he made some amazing music with Foreigner, but it’s not like we were the Jaggers or McCartneys, no one’s picking him out of a police line-up.

I think I might even have the terrible honor of being the first person to be called “celebrity DJ,” and I’m not sure if it’s because I DJed parties where celebrities were at or because I had a minor celebrity myself from DJing. The whole thing was a horrible time in my life and I turned to heroin. (laughter)

No, but it took me a long time to get my credibility back and that’s why I still wince a little bit when I hear that term. People will make assumptions that they want about you and the only way you can make a comeback is to make good shit, shit that will outlive whatever the press want to say about you.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did you ever consider not even DJing, going on a hiatus for a minute? I know it’s your bread and butter to some degree, or was.

Mark Ronson

I didn’t really have the option. Because that’s how I started the label Allido, that’s how I was keeping the lights on, doing DJ gigs I didn’t really like. But I did exactly what you said, and I forgot because I haven’t talked about it in a while, but I did stop doing a lot of those parties.

I thought if I want people to stop calling me a celebrity DJ, then I have to stop DJing every fucking movie premiere and everything that pops up. And that’s what I did, and I had to re-figure out my life a little around that and that’s when I started making music strictly.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I want to open things up to any questions anyone has for Mark. Don’t be shy.

Mark Ronson

He did so much talking, there’s nothing left to say.

Audience Member

I’ll try to articulate this as clearly as possible. As Jeff said, a lot of your records sound really big. How do you stay on the right side of big without going too crowded?

Mark Ronson

I know what you’re saying. A lot of the biggest pop recordings were like the Phil Spector, Wall Of Sound, but he was such a genius and it was so reeled in, it was perfect and it never seemed unruly or unmanageable. I think now there’s a tendency – just because you can, because technology allows it – to throw the kitchen sink in.

I think that you just have to be careful. At the end of the day, the most important thing in the song is the vocalist and the song, so you can add what you want as long as you’re not going to obscure the vocal performance. The other thing is, when you start to add too many things to compensate for the lack of a good song, which I found myself doing sometimes. You’re like, “Oh, the song’s not great, but if we get a good arrangement and bells and whistles, that's fine.” But the listener’s not going to be thinking, “Oh, that was a cool part.” They might for a second, but they’re just going to be, “That wasn’t a great song.”

Audience Member

You have big brass sounds going on in your tunes. Do you have samples or do you play them with synths? What are you doing?

Mark Ronson

All the brass stuff is live. Some of the orchestral stuff, sometimes we’ll get the orchestra to play behind it. But the main horn tracks on my stuff is just trumpet, tenor sax, baritone sax, and it’s usually recorded into one mic and the sound and bigness is in the force of the playing.

Audience Member

And do you tell them what note to play?

Mark Ronson

Yeah, but they’re really smart guys and understand music really well from reggae to funk to soul to jazz. I might sing a line, but then they might be, “Oh, this would be better.” Especially, when they’re splitting up the harmonies in the room because usually they play three-part harmonies. That’s why I’m incredibly lucky. If I was just sitting in front of an orchestra, you don’t have the option, they just read charts.

You can’t say, “Can you play something cool?” They’ll look at you like you’re crazy. Working with the guys that I do – the same horn players who play with Gabe, with The Dap-Kings – they grew up on funk, soul, some of them like Wu-Tang. That aesthetic gets into everything so everyone’s ideas come into the creative mix at one point.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And who are those players?

Mark Ronson

Neil Sugarman is the sax player, Dave Guy is the trumpet player, who has a really instrumental part of Version and charted all the horns with me. Then Ian, who plays baritone.

Audience Member

Not to flog the issue, but right now in hip-hop the producer is the guy who makes the beats, does everything himself. You’re different, you work with lots of live instrumentalists and orchestral arrangements. How do you keep everything in check, because these guys have minds of their own and want to do their own stuff?

Mark Ronson

That’s a really good question. Sometimes you do have to reel it in. But for me, it’s always started with the drums and the beat, no matter what kind of music. Even when I was just using a drum machine and chopping up a snare, you can take five hours tuning the snare and getting the EQ you want.

Then I found this guy Homer, who plays with the Dap- Kings, who grew up on the Meters and the RZA and he understands hip-hop. It’s like when you see ?uestlove from the Roots play drums, even though he’s playing live, he’s trying to play as much like a drum machine as possible.

Sometimes you want people to play it straight and sound like it’s almost a loop or a sample and sometimes it’s good to have that live feel that makes it sound different. But the fact that I work with musicians whose sensibility comes from hip-hop as well is why it doesn’t get too out of hand.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Who else? Anybody? What sort of set-up are you using in your studio?

Mark Ronson

I don’t have a studio right now, but the studio that I used had a Fostex eight-track tape-recording machine, a very home- recording machine; nothing special, but we get good sounds on it. Then there’s an old MCI board, which is very similar to the one they had in Hi Studios, and Sly & Robbie had in Jamaica. Then the computer comes into it much later. Once we’ve recorded everything to tape, we might put into the computer to do some editing or vocals, if we’re doing more than four takes, because we only have eight tracks on the tape obviously.

Audience Member

Which singers will you work with on the new album? Will it be the same as last time?

Mark Ronson

No, it’s all different. The only one who’s the same is Alex Greenwald, who sung the Radiohead cover. Then everyone else is new and upcoming. Except for Ghostface and Q-Tip, everyone else is more underground. I enjoy working with new artists. Sometimes it’s more fun because their energy and excitement about being on something comes across on the record.

Audience Member

And about Amy, will you do her next album?

Mark Ronson

I don’t know, I haven’t got a phone call in a while. I hope so. We’ll see.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Anybody else?

Audience Member

Some of us are just starting out and this involves a lot of presentation of music to people. “This is what I do.” You often only have three or five minutes. With your record being so eclectic, what’s your tip for presenting it the best way you can when you have so many kinds of things you can present?

Mark Ronson

If you have a lot of different styles you can make, I’ve been in the same situation. I just made a five-minute megamix trying to cleverly put the songs together and let them weave it out without getting a headache. That’s the way to do it, or just play them your best song that you know is the shit. Or a combination of the two.

Audience Member

Because there’s a tendency to second-guess...

Mark Ronson

In five minutes, I find a minute of each thing is more than enough.

Audience Member

What’s your experience been over the years of working with record label A&R types? Mixed, I’d image...

Mark Ronson

In America, talking to an A&R person, I feel like they’re talking another language. There are a few key A&R people in America that I like dealing with and they mostly happen to be English. It’s not like I’m a snob, I’ve grown up in America since I was eight and my best friends are from there.

But America’s a huge country and everybody’s supposed to like the same thing, from California to New York and everywhere in between, from Detroit to New Orleans. That just doesn’t happen. There’s too many people. It’s like if someone drew a circle around half of Europe and said, “All of you are supposed to like the same kind of music.” So there’s a tendency in America for everything to get dumbed down because whatever someone plays on the radio there is supposed to work all the way across.

So I just always had this problem there. There are some record company people I respect, like Mike Smith at Columbia, this guy Darcus Beese at Universal. There are some people I think are cool. But at the end of the day, you just have to believe in your own shit, not put too much emphasis on the acceptance of others saying it’s good for you to know that it’s good.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Are there any questions from participants? If not, I’d just like to ask Mark if he has any parting thoughts to share.

Mark Ronson

I don’t really have anything, I just want to thank you for coming and listening. It seems like an amazing program because right here, walking through and seeing the studios, this is everything I learned on. I wish this was around when I was starting out, but it’s nice to come here and to see you, Jeff.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It’s great to see you, too, Mark. Everybody, Mark Ronson.