Mark Ronson

Wed 2nd Mar, 2011 in Features

Easily the coolest cat in the recent history of popular music, Mr Mark Ronson does not strike you as the kind of person who would suffer from stage fright. But the world-renowned DJ, producer and songwriter was certainly not a natural when it came to owning some of the world’s biggest stages.

“At the beginning of the Version tour in 2007, I was so nervous you had to push me onto the stage,” Ronson laughs down the line from London, just one of the many cities in the world, including New York and Paris, which he calls home. “But then you get the nerves worn down, start drinking lots of Jack Daniels and before you know it, you’re slashing solos, running up and down stage rails.”

Ronson may be referencing the last time he touched down in Australia for the Global Gathering festival, in a raucous set which saw him leaping off amps and over-performing at almost every opportunity. It’s a stage persona that Ronson remembers fondly, but doesn’t necessarily hope to repeat this time around. “I watch some of the old footage of us performing on the Version tour and it’s like, ‘Who the fuck does that guy think he is?’ It’s a bit over the top,” he says.

As much as he is the king of cool, Ronson is also the master of reinvention. His latest album, Record Collection, marked the third transformation of the man responsible for sending Amy Winehouse, Adele and our own Daniel Merriweather hurtling up the charts.

While Here Comes The Fuzz embraced Ronson’s roots as a hip-hop DJ du jour and Version highlighted the retro-soul revival, Record Collection – with its icy synths, stuttering drum machines and guest spots from Boy George and Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon – is all about the glorious ‘80s. It’s also about Ronson having a crack at singing, something that he conveniently shied away from on his previous outings.

“The two songs I sing on the record I do live. Lose It (In The End)_, you know, I do that every night. To start with I was ropey as hell and you can do your warm-ups for half an hour but it won’t make a difference. Eventually I learned how to project my voice live and sing and it kind of sounds halfway decent.”