ראיון עם מארק רונסון
ולילי אלן ב-Urb - כאן (למי שרוצה לקרוא על לילי שיכנס ללינק, אני אעתיק את הראיון עם מארק לפה) DEEP COVER forget the traditional remix or over-produced mash-up, mark ronson sheds his celebrity skin by covering the stars old school style BY JASON NEWMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY ZOREN GOLD & MINORI MURAKAMI "Can you hold on one sec?," asks the voice with a British accent that assures politeness. "I'm just finishing up something." From the control room in the studio of New York label Allido Records, producer-DJ-Allido co-owner Mark Ronson cues up a track that may or may not end up on Version, his highly anticipated all-covers album due out in April. The mix is rough, but you can already hear the musical elements that are quickly becoming the "Ronson sound": crisp hip-hop breaks, prominent bass lines and a thunderous horn section recalling The JB's, The Memphis Horns and countless deep-funk one-hit wonders. Perhaps it's fitting that the first time I meet Ronson-by his peers's accounts, a classic perfectionist-he's working in the studio. Although, with a lean frame and stylish fashion sense, he wouldn't be out of place at your standard hipster concert. At 31, he could pass for someone a decade younger, and speaks with a detached coolness recalling Julian Casablancas after a long night out. When he name-drops-and given his connections, the gossip rags would pay a bundle for his SIM card-there's not a hint of cockiness or showing off. Ronson reminds you of the grandfather who, no matter the topic, always has an interesting story. "I had Method Man dancing on a table, screaming to [Joan Jett's] 'I Love Rock and Roll' before that song became a DJ cliché," he says proudly, when the subject of rock in hip-hop clubs comes up. The Mark Ronson that had Meth going crazy in the late '90s - let's call him Ronson the DJ to avoid confusion - is still alive, but is laying low to let Ronson the Producer try to shine. In early 2006, word started spreading in the UK about Ronson's funk cover of Radiohead's "Just." The track became a radio and club phenomenon and earned the respect of DJs the world over, as well as the band itself. "I was just blown away the second I heard it," said renowned DJ Zane Lowe, whose BBC Radio 1 show was one of the first to play the song. "It's the kind of record you can play to pretty much any floor and get a reaction. When I played it for [Radiohead guitarist] Ed [O'Brien], he loved every second of it." The widespread success of "Just," originally found on the Radiohead tribute album Exit Music: Songs for Radio Heads, galvanized Ronson to create more covers and leads us to where we are today. During our first interview, he'll routinely stop talking to play me some of the demos that will eventually make up Version. The album, anchored by the deep funk horns of The Dap-Kings (best known for backing up Sharon Jones), retains the same funky vibe as "Just," mixing instrumentals (Coldplay's "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face") with re-interpreted covers (Britney Spears's "Toxic" with a posthumous verse from ODB) that destroy any notion of a "novelty" record. "When I started making this album, there was nothing deep to it. It was just songs I really liked," Ronson admits. "Most people would rather listen to the original version of a song. But for me, I've always been drawn to the cover 'cause I love hearing something different. I think in one way, I was just making what I wanted to hear. For this album, and I think my production in general, the beat and having the groove have always been the underlying elements. That will never change." While every song on Version takes on a recent hit (including a collaboration with co-cover star Lily Allen on the Kaiser Chiefs's "Oh My God"), the big band/Wall of Sound production focuses as much on older Ronson influences Phil Spector and Quincy Jones, as RZA and The Bomb Squad. Mash-ups are boring. Bring in the live band to make old school the future. "I guess one day, I'll be diagnosed with Lenny Kravitz Disease, where everything sounds better if it's from the '60s and '70s," he says with a laugh. "I'm not gonna be a snob and say, 'Nothing's good.' I think people make great music now. But the old shit just usually sounds better to me for whatever reason. You look at the early 1960s to mid-1970s in music and there was just a string of 15 years where it feels like all the great shit was made." As Lowe puts it: "He's able to capture a mood and a moment from the past but make it sound fresh. It doesn't sound like he's going into the vaults and just doing cut-and-paste covers. Everything he touches has a class and style to it but can still appeal to grimey rappers like Ol' Dirty Bastard." Version will be the latest in a production career going back to 2001, when Ronson co-produced Nikka Costa's Everybody Got Their Something. Here Comes the Fuzz, his debut full-length that sounded more party mixtape than proper album, would follow two years later and, while disappearing quickly Stateside, earned him an international hit with "Ooh Wee." More recently, Ronson has been at the boards for a diverse group of artists, including Ghostface Killah, UK soul singer Amy Winehouse and pop superstar Robbie Williams. For Ronson, music has always been a central part of life. The son of a socialite and real-estate mogul, he was born in London but relocated to New York when he was eight. As a child, thanks to having Foreigner's Mick Jones as a stepfather, Ronson hung out with rock royalty and was constantly surrounded with music, learning the drums early on (he has since picked up nearly half a dozen more instruments). At 14, he started a rock band, but it was funk (specifically, a devotion to The Brand New Heavies) and hip-hop that would eventually become his obsessions. "I think my earliest understanding of producing music was from a very hip-hop point of view," Ronson recalls. "When I decided I wanted to be a producer, I didn't go out and buy a bunch of mics and recording gear. I bought an MPC."