Ronson Seal Of Approval

It’s 4.30 in the afternoon and Mark Ronson is still wearing last night’s hangover like a t-shirt.

"I played yesterday in Belfast with The Killers and Kasabian – being a rock bill I wasn’t sure what reception we’d get, but the kids were really into it,” says Mark Ronson in the same posh English/American hybrid accent as Kelly Osbourne. “Afterwards I deejayed in this club called the Stiff Kitten, which was absolutely insane. I was supposed to finish at 1.30, but kept playing ‘til virtually when the cleaners came in. It was really cool talking to some girls afterwards and hearing that it’s the first year in living memory that there’s been no rioting on July 12th. You get that same thing in Tel Aviv where people absolutely lose it ‘cause you’re living under so much tension and pressure.”
For those of you who aren’t au fait with the intricacies of the 32-year-old’s upbringing, here’s the potted biog: born in London to socialite mother Ann Dexter-Jones and property tycoon father Laurence Ronson, he moved aged eight to New York where his parents were pillars of the local Jewish community. After acquiring Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones as a stepdad, Mark combined studying at NYU with DJ spots in Manhattan’s choicest hip-hop joints. He also added a few zeroes to his bank account by jocking at celebrity parties for the likes of Tom Cruise, P. Diddy, Prince and Martha Stewart, modelling and producing Nikka Costa’s Everybody Got Their Something. Snapped up in 2003 by Elektra Records, he’s subsequently worked with or remixed such A-Listers as Christina Aguilera, Robbie Williams, Jay-Z, Outkast, Jack White, Lily Allen and Bob Dylan who after steadfastly refusing to let anyone near his back catalogue this year allowed Ronson to soup up ‘Most Likely You’ll Go Your Own Way (And I’ll Go Mine)’.
How the fuck do you set about remixing Bob Dylan?
“I must be going through life blissfully oblivious to shit, because it wasn’t as huge a deal to me as it was to other people,” he reflects. “My attitude is ‘How can I have fun with this?’ not, ‘Oh dear, what if there’s a backlash?’”
Which there has been from Portishead’s Geoff Barrow who in an online rant said: “It takes amazing talent to turn decent songs into shit funky supermarket muzak. Some music industry tit thinks Dylan needs remixing. You’d think Mark Ronson would have the respect to say ‘no’ to the job, but obviously not.”
Ouch!
“Geoff Barrow needs to grow the fuck up,” Ronson retorts. “I wouldn’t have been let anywhere near ‘Most Likely You’ll Go Your Own Way’ if Dylan hadn’t given his approval. Anyway, I rounded up the Dap Kings who are also on Amy’s record, had a chat and decided to go for a Memphis soul vibe. All the time I had in my mind’s eye this image of Bob in Don’t Look Back turning to the band before ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and saying (adopts spookily accurate Dylan drawl), ‘Play it loud!’
“Going back to Geoff Barrow for a minute – Bob has said that he sees his songs as constantly evolving, which is why they’re different every times he plays them. I regard what we did as part of that.”
As for the broader charge of corporate whoredom, Ronson points out that, “I’m constantly saying ‘no’ to big money offers, a recent one being to remix anything I wanted from the Disney catalogue. I can’t ruin ‘Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off To Work We Go’ for a generation of kids!”
This year has seen Ronson turn hitmaker in his own right with Version, a 14-track collection of other people’s songs that he’s transmogrified with the help of pals like Amy, Lily, Daniel Merriweather, Robbie Williams and Kasabian.
“It started with me playing Radiohead’s ‘Just’ and Britney’s ‘Toxic’ in my deejay sets and thinking, ‘Hmmm, I might be on to something here!” he chuckles. “The only thing I wanted to put on the album that didn’t work out and got scrapped was a Fela Kuti-style Afrobeat version of ‘I Wanna Be Adored’. Which is funny because this bloke who I didn’t recognise but turned out to be Mani came up to me at a gig six months ago and said, ‘You need to cover a Stone Roses song, mate!’ I told him my Fela Kuti plan and he went, ‘Yeah, I think you were right to ditch it!’
“Of the songs that did make it on to the record, one of the most positive reactions I got was from Paul Weller who loved us turning ‘Pretty Green’ into a Malcolm McLaren hopscotch in the playground chant. I’m not sure if Thom Yorke was quite so enthusiastic, but hey, you win some, you lose some!”