Posted on 08/14/2007

Okayplayer send resident writer Mike Gadd to chop it up with DJ/Producer extraordinaire, Mark Ronson.  Here is what he learned:

Spend 15 years doing something and chances are you're going to wind up being pretty damn good at it. Take DJing for instance; quasi-celebrity status or not, (step)son of Foreigner rock God or not, Mark Ronson is good. Really, really good. But not just behind the two steel wheels - behind the boards, behind the drums, and as a creative force behind the scenes. And with so much on his plate, it's surprising he's got the wherewithal to get it done, let alone to get it done so right.

Just this past year, Ronson brought a catchy and sassy Lily Allen stateside, turned Amy Winehouse into a chart-topping Rolling Stone cover girl, and helped them both sell millions. He also made this little Smiths cover song called "Stop Me," went and made a bunch more cover songs, and then parlayed them into one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year.

But since you're an Okayplayer, you probably knew all of that. But what about the exclusive compilation disc Mark just made for the Hard Rock Hotels? Do you know what the deal is? Or that little tiff you might have read about between him and Rhymefest? Do you know Mark's side of the story? And despite his modeling past, his famous stints spinning at Fashion Week, and his apparel architect sister Charlotte - any idea why it's unlikely we'll be seeing a signature line of M.R. polos anytime soon? Okayplayer knows. The answers are as follows.

OKP: How has the response to "Version" differed from the U.K. to the U.S.?

MR: It's really different. The first week here (in the U.S.) we sold like 6,000 copies. The first week in the U.K. we sold 45,000 copies. That's in a country that's 1/10th or 1/20th the size. I understand it. It's just a different battle in the U.S. It's a huge country and you have to put in a lot more work. There's reviews that have been great, there's people that are behind it. MTV and all that stuff, which is really cool. We're just going to do shows and keep at it and see if "Stop Me" takes off. I signed to a U.K. label specifically because I felt it was much more probable that the album was kinda more....well, I'm making covers of U.K. songs. It's kind of a bit more of an English sound and most of the artists on it are English as well. Lily and Amy are quite well known in America, but it's a totally different thing. The first record I ever worked on was Nikki Costa's first record. Before that came out, everybody was going like 'oh my God, it's going to be such a huge hit, you're going to be able to retire off this one.' Then it came out and it underperformed. It was just the best 'don't believe the hype' lesson I ever had. I don't really like to have big expectations and the fact that we have gone nearly platinum in the U.K. is just kind of bizarre to me. I made this whole record and I didn't have a deal. I was just making cover versions of songs in a way I really liked and in a way that I've always appreciated cover versions, like Stevie Wonder doing "We Can Work It Out." Just kind of soulful rhythm and blues based arrangements of "white pop songs."

OKP: You've gone from doing more beat-making like on "Here Comes the Fuzz" to working with a live band, the Dap Kings, on "Version." Is this what we should continue to expect to hear from you?

MR: Well, this is what I'm doing right now, but who knows. I was playing a bit live on "Here Comes the Fuzz", but it was more beat based. I definitely got much more into playing instruments live and stuff. I really fell in love with the idea of great horn arrangements and kind of went with that. I played all the instruments pretty much except for the horns on every song. The Dap Kings that played on Amy's album, they play on my album, but most of it is all me. It's percussion mixed with loops. Some of the time I sample myself, sometimes I'll have a friend come in and play it. It just depends. My main interests are keys, guitar, and bass. That's what I played pretty much across the whole album. I also think you kinda evolve a bit more as a producer as you get older. You kind of have the confidence to go in front of a 24-piece orchestra that you might not have when you're 22. I certainly didn't.

OKP: Explain how you made one song...'Valerie' for instance. How did it all go down, from inception of the idea to completion of the track?

MR: That was actually the easiest one to do because I had pretty much finished the record, this was back in November. I just said to Amy, 'we've been working together so much this year it'd be a shame if you and I didn't come up with a song to do for my album.' Amy doesn't really listen to a lot of contemporary indie music, which is pretty much what the songs on the album all are. So I asked 'is there any song, non hip-hop, from after 1973 that you know?' And she was like, 'yeah I like that song 'Valerie' by The Zutons.' So that was her idea. She was coming to New York for a couple of days to write and I said, 'we should go to the studio' because at that point, she had never met any of the guys that had played on her own album. She wasn't there when we cut the backing track. So we all went to the studio, 'this is Amy, everyone,' and they kind of had a shared moment. It's kind of a big deal to play on somebody's record and you meet them for the first time, and then we just kind of came up with the arrangement right there on the spot. I played the guys the song, we charted it out, and we did one version where it was a bit more kind of soulful like old school Curtis Mayfield. Then I was just like, 'let's trying something that's a bit more Motown-like (starts humming the bassline to the Supreme's "You Just Keep Me Hangin' On,")' and then we just cut it like that and the whole thing probably took place in about 3 hours.

OKP: You did a CD compilation for Hard Rock Hotels. What was your process in selecting the tracks for the series? What kind of sound/vibe are you trying to obtain?

MR: It came out a few weeks ago. It was being done with Universal Records, so it had to be a Universal or Interscope acts. I love the Hard Rock and I've had so many good times in many different of those places. Like you hang out and you're always hearing good music, like playing blackjack at the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas and you're hearing Hendrix and Stevie Wonder and all this stuff coming on. They just wanted to get away a little bit from those iconic acts that you always associate with the Hard Rock like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, stuff like that. I just wanted to take the best, some of my favorites, whatever was the most exciting from the new rock and roll shit, and basically that was the process. They sent me a giant, like 400-page manuscript with every album that's ever come out on Universal Records in the past 20 years and I had to sift through each name.

OKP: How many CD's in the series can we expect? Are they mixed? Any exclusive remixes?

MR: I'm not sure how many there will be. They definitely want to do a second one, but we'll see what happens. They're not mixed CD's, I'm just curating them and picking the songs. No exclusive remixes, but the one thing we put on that was like brand new stuff was Domino, one of the bands signed to our label. We put their song on there. That's one of the advantages of working with new acts.

OKP: Are you ever going to press up the D'Angelo remixes that you did?

MR: Wow, that was like 10 years ago! I don't even have one master copy of that anymore. It was never really something to press up, all I did was make a couple songs. But I was proud of that. I was such a huge D'Angelo fan. To get to work on anything for him... Someone must have a copy somewhere. I did one for him, for Nikka's first album, and I think one for Guru's Jazzmatazz. They're just kinda fun to make.

OKP: Are you still DJing a lot?

MR: I do a party once a month in New York. My best friend over here in London did this party called YoYo. It's one of the best parties in all of London. Everybody from Lily Allen to Kidz In The Hall have done their first U.K. appearances there. We started doing it once a month in New York. It's great. So far we've had The Cool Kids, Lily Allen, myself, Aaron LaCrate, Swizz Beats. We're just trying to do really exciting things. It's in this tiny club...well not tiny, but small. This club called 'Love.' There's no bottle service, there's no tables. It's just a big black box of a room with speakers all the way around. It's about dancing and having a good time.

OKP: Trackademicks is playing at YoYo in New York in September.

MR: I'm sure he is. They're big Trackademicks fans, all the YoYo guys. He came to my studio in New York last time he was in town. I really like him and I asked him to come by. He was playing some beats and stuff for Daniel Merriweather as well.

OKP: Has your club DJing experience impacted your production techniques, or your ear for production?

MR: In a good and bad way. The list of great DJ's who've become great producers is a long one. Chad, Dre, so many people. The problem with me sometimes is that I need to turn the club off in my head when I'm working on a song. Like "Littlest Things" by Lily Allen, it's a beautiful song and it might have a drum break, but the thing to understand is that you just have to let the song breathe. Not every kick drum has to be like...neck snapping, you know what I mean? Sometimes you need to sacrifice things for the sake of the song. My own album sounds quite attacking because i make music usually with the intent of playing it out. But when I'm working on somebody else's album it's a bit different.

OKP: Like with Rhymefest? What's been going on with you guys? Is "El Che" still set to drop in the fall? What's your involvement going to be in the project?

MR: Well, I don't know. Our relationship is a little bit strange at this point. My partner Rich speaks to him all the time. I invited him to come to my album release party because I wanted him to come perform. Saigon was there along with a bunch of people from the first record. And (Rhymefest) just didn't show up and didn't phone me. But yeah, I've heard some of the stuff from his new album and it's amazing. He's such a talented rapper. I just think that unfortunately the state of hip hop and radio, an artist like Rhymefest has to have kind of like an idiot-proof type of record with that kind of stuff, otherwise you just might as well put it out on Rhymefest Records.

OKP: I read in an interview he said something about you bailing on him?

MR: He said that. He said it quote, 'I think he bailed on me.' I understand why he's disappointed. His record didn't do as well as he would have liked. I'm not personally disappointed, but I want Rhymefest to have his every dream. He's a friend of mine and he's a really talented artist and he deserves to do well. But no, I never bailed on him or anything. I havent really been in a place where I've been making hip hop beats at the time being. I've been working with singers and writing songs and doing it like that. It's cool when you do a beat like Amy, "You Know I'm No Good,' and Ghostface hears it and wants to rap over it. That kind of stuff is extremely flattering. But as far as sitting in the studio and making hip hop beats, I havent really been doing it that much.

OKP: It sounds like you've been doing good at what you have been doing, though.

MR: It's not even about doing good. I think I've just realized what I'm better at. I think maybe just a bit more of understanding music and larger arrangements and that kind of thing.

OKP: I've read you never want to be a Russell Simmons - you want to be a Rick Rubin. What do you think the future holds in store for your label, Allido Records?

MR: My partner Rich is the hustler. He's the guy that gets all the shit done. I prefer just to be the creative voice of the record. About 2 years ago I was convincing myself to stick to this work ethic where I would be in the office from 10-6 and go to the studio after, and I was just miserable. It was just hurting my performance with both. I think that the main thing is, during the past year I decided to get back to music and just focus on that. I think sometimes to be good at what you do, you just have to focus on one thing. There's people who are effortlessly talented or who have just got to a place in their career where they've proved themselves in music so they can go out and act or do whatever they want. But that's not really me. I think that the sense of entrepreneurialism that sort of pervades in hip-hop is a bit too much sometimes. You've got people that spend 3 weeks a year making their album, and the rest of the time they're kind of doing the rest of their ventures - acting, films, and whatever else. Stevie Wonder wasn't running around in the 70's like, hawking his brand of 'Stevie' polo shirts, he was making fucking Songs In The Key of Life. I think if people were a bit more serious and had a bigger commitment to music, music would be a bit more quality right now.

 

- Mike Gadd