Interview: Mark Ronson
Anecdotes with the best connected man in pop
28.05
Posted in Music
Last week I got invited to celebrate the official release of Mark Ronsons Move To The Beat track in London, which was (obviously) a great thing. Even better, I had the opportunity to sit dawn with the man himself. First, check out the first episode of his journey above, Mark will tell you all about this sporty project. Second, witness my little sit down with Mr. Valerie. Three quotes by Mark, three different stories. Go on, make the inevitable jump.
Mark Ronson: “I was the DJ at Tom Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes, extremely nervous, drank too much, played “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” and then promptly threw up as soon as I got off stage.”
Mark: “(laughs) Sure, when I was young I wanted to play in a band and be a rock star and you realize that’s just a teenage fantasy unless you’re amazing. And then I really got into deejaying when I lived in New York, especially hip hop really inspired me. I didn’t know how to rap or how to make beats, so deejaying was the logical thing to do. And that eventually led to producing. I still love deejaying, but not as regularly like touring in the summer in Ibiza. Last week, I deejayed at a Kraftwork installation in New York. Having to think doing an hour combining Kraftwerk with blends and mashups that mean something to me, is great. Still love deejaying, always will.”
Mark Ronson: “There are bands that only use computer programs and make brilliant shit, but… that democratisation of music can also make people really lazy.”
Mark: “My inspiration? I think it goes in cycles. Sometimes, when you’re in the studio fourteen hours a day you get home and just want to listen to classical music or something. I like these younger bands out there like Yacht and hip hop wise there’s some good stuff, such as Drake. But then again, I also listen to the same music I listened to when I was sixteen when I wanted to make beats; Gangstarr, anything produced by DJ Premier. I don’t think anything ever improved on that. And to be honest; I can’t stand most of current pop music. Everything sounds the same nowadays, it’s pretty fuckin’ horrible.
Mark Ronson: “It’s not like I’m amassing some golden Rolodex to see who can have the most famous friends. It’s slightly obnoxious because it implies there are all these celebrities just patting each other on the back. I think I’m really just probably pretty easy to get on with.”
Mark: “When I was a kid, my parents were pretty wild, they had parties which woke me up. But it didn’t help my career, the first names I worked with, lived in such a different world. Famous people I’ve met? Bruce Springsteen or Mick Jagger for instance, but I was always very much about making my own name. And about my so called famous dad… (Mark’s dad was a well known musician), because that’s something that gets reported a lot, that really did not help me either. My dad was a successful musician but it’s not that he was super famous or anything. All this stuff I did in the beginning, the artists I worked with, all on my own.
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