- 2 months ago
From club nights with Biggie to studio hangs with Aaliyah, Mark Ronson sits down with Rolling Stone's Larisha Paul to paint a vivid picture of what life was like coming up as a DJ in New York City.
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00:00Kids kept commenting to me like, you were in New York in the 90s?
00:02And this is like maybe five, seven years ago before, you know, Tyler and a lot of people
00:07have like really interestingly sort of paid homage in their own ways.
00:10And I was just like, why are these kids obsessed with the 90s?
00:13Like I was in the 90s and we just thought the 80s sounded so cool.
00:16It's fascinating why it's important in hindsight because it was this era in New York of Wu-Tang,
00:21Biggie, Tribe, Lil' Kim, and even Missy and Timberland who are from Virginia, like Pharrell
00:27and Chad, they were all in the clubs and they were coming to New York.
00:30To make records.
00:30So, oh, and this guy, Jay-Z.
00:39I wanted to start talking just a little bit about the space that we're in.
00:43Yes.
00:43Obviously in a really interesting area of New York that we don't often think about when
00:48we're thinking about party culture.
00:50Yeah, it's crazy actually because you're right, like Midtown, Rockefeller Center, you definitely
00:54don't think of party culture, but there's also, you know, of course there's SNL, there's NBC,
00:58Jimmy Fallon, there's a lot of things around here that are like very like now iconically
01:04New York.
01:05They used to film the late night show because we're right next to the NBC studios.
01:10There's actually like a secret passage where you can go through where you can literally
01:14go from like the TV studio, walk straight off down here and be like at the bar in five
01:18minutes without going outside, like through the fire escape or something.
01:21So this was nicknamed Johnny's Bar because this was the private, like the third floor
01:26of this bar.
01:27It's crazy to think in this kind of, I've never seen the room with nobody in it.
01:31There's usually 300 people in it and it's like Ghostface or Slick Rick or somebody performing.
01:37How do you think about, and this is kind of slipping into the world of night people, the
01:41history of New York when you're like kind of walking through these streets is all of these
01:45places.
01:46These are different memories for you that essentially don't exist anymore.
01:49Yeah, no, that was the craziest thing.
01:51I talk about it so much in the book because the book is about a lot of things.
01:55It's about DJing and it's about going out and partying and the ups and downs of that.
02:00And then it's all, it's about New York in the nineties, but it's very much like a ghost
02:04story in some ways, because it's like the ghosts of New York and New York that doesn't
02:07exist anymore.
02:08Like, especially downtown New York was so different in those days.
02:11And some of those clubs opened and shuttered five times, even in the course of the nineties of
02:15when I was DJing, there's this one club where I really first kind of made my name.
02:21It was like a headline DJ.
02:22It was on canal street was at the time it was called new music cafe.
02:25And that was the first place where I DJed and Biggie would come down.
02:29And I remember the first time he brought Jay-Z down and Jay-Z only had like two songs
02:33to his name, but it was like the, you know, the Prince of New York, Biggie was the king.
02:37There was all this amazing things.
02:39It was like, I was a 21 year old kid.
02:42And it was like the people from my record sleeves are coming to life and just populating
02:46the party.
02:47So kind of was the first place.
02:48Like up to that point, I opened for a lot of other DJs, but it was like where I found
02:52my foot in.
02:53So that building is still on canal and West Broadway.
02:57And I think now it's like an oyster restaurant.
02:59I can't even tell you how many different times I've walked past.
03:01I'm like, Oh, then now it's a fucking thing.
03:03Or it's not, you know, there was an old website that I used to like back in the early Tumblr
03:08era called now it's a fucking Froyo, which just takes all of the, like the places that
03:13were iconic places in New York that are now Froyo's.
03:15No offense to Froyo.
03:17I will take the sponsorship, but I, um, yeah, whenever I walk past that building, it's really
03:23crazy because I have so many memories from it.
03:26No matter what is in there now, I feel this charge.
03:29And I, in, in some weird way, I've lived in LA for a little while, I've lived in London.
03:34Whenever I lived in New York, I've never lived more than 10 blocks from this one place.
03:38All the book takes place in the nineties, but the very end of the book is me walking
03:43around downtown with my two year old daughter strapped to me in a baby Bjorn, seeing all
03:47these shuttered places and trying to remember names.
03:50And whenever I walk past that place, like I get a charge, like, it's so weird.
03:54Like, it's like when you have that static claim when your t-shirt kind of lifts, it's
03:57like, there's something about it and, and, um, and if I go past at night, cause I have
04:02so many memories of pulling up to the club and like seeing everybody like already online
04:07excited for the night ahead, like I can hear, I can hear the conversation.
04:11I can see their fucking shadows imprinted on the sidewalk.
04:15So, you know, New York got so expensive after the nineties and Giuliani and his policies of
04:23shutting the clubs and his war on club land, like just forced all the good shit out to
04:28Brooklyn and Queens now.
04:29So it is really different.
04:31New York, Manhattan is very special and always have some energy and pockets of things going on.
04:37Yeah.
04:37I love that section towards the end of the book and that scene in particular, when you're
04:40walking with your daughter and you mentioned that you see someone that you feel like you recognize
04:44from somewhere, but you're not sure, you can't place the face or the name or the location.
04:48And I was thinking about how much that kind of doesn't happen anymore.
04:51Cause it's like, you go out, you exchange socials with someone and you never see them
04:55again.
04:56And then you're opening Instagram.
04:57You're like, who the hell is this?
04:58I don't know who this person is.
04:59And then you're just kind of scrolling away.
05:00You can't remember where you met them either.
05:02And I was thinking about that kind of exchange of experience and just kind of having these kind
05:07of collections of, of people, even if it's like fleeting.
05:10And I'm curious what you think about kind of, I guess the, the value of those connections
05:14where you're like, I wish I would have held onto that.
05:17Are there any that stick out to you?
05:19Yeah.
05:20You know, for the book, I, um, I lost count, but I think I interviewed like 150 people because
05:26I knew that there was so much exciting shit going on around me, but I was stuck in this
05:29fucking booth.
05:30Like most of the time, like in some of the clubs were just at some weird ass thing where
05:33you're in the corner.
05:34You can't even really see past there.
05:36So like that night, Biggie came in the club there, I could feel that energy because it's
05:40almost like the whispers would just like become this like definitely like Biggie, Biggie's
05:44in the club, dah, dah, dah, dah.
05:45And then I was like straining my neck trying to fucking see where he is.
05:48But, you know, I knew that night when he came, I remembered Frank, who was at the door telling
05:54me this insane story that, you know, Biggie rolled up with 50 dudes and like, you know,
05:59they're holding all sorts of stuff.
06:01And he's like, go back to the car, put that in the car, like guns, swords, whatever the fuck.
06:05But Biggie was just so cool.
06:06He just kind of stood there and he knew that like he wasn't going to get 50 of his boys
06:10in right away, but he just stood there for like an hour with like a big lot of cash and
06:15was just like, give Frank, you know, every five minutes I let a guy in and just waited
06:19till his entire crew was in and then went in.
06:21So like I wanted to paint that scene as vividly as possible.
06:26So that meant talking to like whoever was at the door that night and whoever's in the club
06:30to really paint that.
06:32So I did reconnect with a lot of people from that era while writing that book.
06:38And it was nice.
06:39But yes, there's people that I sometimes like all the time walk past on the street.
06:43I'm like, I remember that person or like, or do I even know them?
06:47Do I just remember that they were dancing there like all the time?
06:50Like, yeah, it's it's like I said before, it's like a lot of it's kind of a bit of a ghost story.
06:56I love that you mentioned Biggie and that scene in particular, because one of the standout
07:00moments of Night People for me was dropping Hypnotize for the first time in a club and
07:04watching the crowd respond to that.
07:07And I would just love for you to kind of take us through that.
07:09Yeah, it was so it was so crazy.
07:11And Biggie would be in the club sometimes.
07:15And then because I was playing and it was at that same party, New Music Cafe on Canal Street.
07:20There was a promotion guy from Bad Boy Records.
07:22And he because I had the hot party on Tuesday, he came through with this acetate, which is
07:27like special straight from the factory piece of vinyl that can only be played ten times
07:32and like fucking self-destructs or something.
07:35And he was like, I got the new Biggie.
07:37Like, I can't you can't keep it, but I can let you play it right now.
07:41And I have to take it to flex.
07:43And I was just like, like it was like the holy grail, you know, you're like, take it.
07:46And it's fragile.
07:47It feels like glass because it's only printed on one side.
07:50And I put it on, heard a tiny bit of it in the headphones and then just dropped it.
07:57And then there was that unmistakable intro of Hypnotizers, boom, ah, like in the whole
08:02club was just like it had been hit by a media, you know, and there's something so sacred and
08:09special about this thing that like you couldn't hear.
08:12There was no internet.
08:13You couldn't have heard the record.
08:14It had maybe been on the radio once.
08:16But really, for the most part, four or five hundred people are hearing this song all at
08:20the same time for the very first time.
08:22And and when it's a fucking incredible song like that, there's just like you could feel
08:28the molecules in the room change.
08:29It was just like this fucking five hundred person orgasm or something, whatever.
08:37I was just like, yeah, I was thinking I think about it now and I'm like, yeah, it's just
08:41so crazy that energy that we got to be a part of that.
08:45Yeah.
08:45I'm glad you mentioned Tyler as well, because I was thinking a lot about like his kind of
08:49release this week for Don't Tap the Glass and how he had like obviously like a release
08:53party and he was just like no phones, like no anything.
08:56And he played that record for the first time.
08:58Yeah.
08:58Ten songs in twenty eight minutes.
09:00Yeah.
09:00And just got to watch that room and watch what that feels like.
09:03Yeah.
09:03And it doesn't happen.
09:04No.
09:05It doesn't exist.
09:06No.
09:07There's not a lot of, I guess, spontaneity is what it is.
09:10And, you know, and I think a lot of the thing about that era was no camera phones as well,
09:15because there was just this sense of absence of surveillance as just like everyone's like
09:21a little freer.
09:22And listen, I don't want to be that fucking old guy like it was better than because of
09:27this.
09:28Like it's shit moves on.
09:29That's how it is.
09:30But there was something really nice about that time.
09:32You weren't like, oh shit, there's a better party down the street.
09:35Like I'm out.
09:36Like people stayed in the same place.
09:37They kind of just like commune.
09:40I wanted to go to a moment earlier in the book where it was Keith Haring sneaking yourself
09:45and Sean Lennon into Aria.
09:47Yeah.
09:48There was this really iconic club in downtown New York called Aria, like in the eighties.
09:53And it was where like, you know, the art world and hip hop and everything sort of like
09:59came together.
10:00Yeah.
10:01I remember one time Keith Haring, I guess he, I don't know how much they snuck us in.
10:06Like we weren't in his like coat, but like, you know, obviously we're 12 years old, not
10:09supposed to be there.
10:10So Sean Lennon and I, because Sean's mom, Yoko was good friends with Keith Haring.
10:15And we all went, and I do remember just being in this very dark room with like this ashy
10:19carpet crawling around on the floor, like running in between grownups, just doing shit
10:24that we weren't supposed to be doing.
10:25But like feeling like the fun mischievous energy of like what nightclubs kind of do.
10:33You know, I wasn't like sneaking cocktails and downing them or anything, but it just felt
10:37like a little electric and like, we are not supposed to be here, which always makes you
10:42want to be there even more.
10:43So yeah.
10:44When I was writing, I was like, oh, who cares about my fucking childhood?
10:47Like just skip to the club shit.
10:48But I realized I had to give a little bit of context because I grew up in this kind of
10:52crazy house.
10:53My parents were, God bless them, kind of party animals.
11:00And I remember like being a kid, my mom and dad in England growing up and waking up in
11:05the middle of the night and there would just be like 50 grownups in the house and, you know,
11:10waking up to go to school at seven in the morning, my dad still up playing chess with fucking Daryl
11:14Hall or some shit.
11:16And then when we moved to New York, when my parents split, my mom married a musician,
11:21my stepdad, Mick.
11:22So I realized like, oh, why did I, I didn't just get this suddenly, you know, this fucking
11:30draw to the night by myself, like, you know, like cause part of the book of being called
11:34night people's exploring that thing.
11:36Like what makes us drawn to the night?
11:39I was thinking about when New York magazine put you on the cover in 2000, they called you
11:43the king of spin.
11:44And there's a moment in that profile where Sean is telling the story of you guys hanging
11:49out with Michael Jackson and the way that he tells it is so different from the way that
11:54you tell it in the book.
11:55Really?
11:56What did Sean say?
11:57Cause he's like, he was in town when during like the bad tour, we got him to record this
12:00melody.
12:01We turned it into this song.
12:02We showed it to Roberto Flack.
12:03It was like this whole thing.
12:04Yeah.
12:05And you're like, Michael Jackson wanted to throw wet tissue at the walls.
12:07He did.
12:09He did.
12:10Michael Jackson was friendly with Sean cause Sean was Sean Lennon and he was, he was like my
12:17age, but he felt 10 years old and he was so like sharp and witty and like, you know,
12:21he just had this magnetism before we're drawn to him and had all these cool friends.
12:26Like I remember Steve jobs would like come over the house and be like, I have to show Sean
12:29this new computer that I designed.
12:31So Michael Jackson was over during the bad tour and he was running up and down Sean's hallway
12:38of the Dakota.
12:39And he just wanted to throw soggies out the window.
12:42And the soggies are just when you take like a giant mound of wet toilet paper and then you
12:46just chucking Sean is on the seventh floor.
12:48So he wasn't chucking at people, but it was like hitting the street and sounding like bombs
12:53were going off.
12:54You know, in my mind, I was like, this is all really fun, but like, I just need to get
12:58a hit song out of Michael Jackson.
13:00That's all I care about.
13:01I was already, I guess at that age, more like producer minded.
13:04So I remember me and Sean being like, Michael, Michael, like sing us a bass line, sing us a
13:09bass line.
13:10Never forget.
13:11Like he did like the whole thing, like the hand out with the snap and started to sing this
13:14bass line.
13:16It was like, that was the whole thing because that's how he wrote music.
13:23It reminds me a lot about just kind of this element of the book where you kind of mentioned
13:28like feeling like the elder people within the scene thought that you hadn't like paid
13:32your dues or you hadn't like earned your way to like where you were because it happened
13:35so quickly.
13:36I think my trajectory was like, I started doing that sort of like 18, the first years
13:42are like very much just like this.
13:44And then just playing five nights a week and just being so devoted to it and ambitious.
13:49Like by the time I was like 21, I guess 22.
13:52And it was at this time in New York when Puffy had sort of come in, like completely changed
13:59the face of New York.
14:01There was no way not to talk about it, even with everything going on to try and just pretend
14:05that that didn't exist and Puffy didn't have something to do with how New York changed
14:09that time.
14:10And even how it helped my career would have just been sort of insincere.
14:15Even though I didn't have a lot of like personal interaction with him, you know, I was hired
14:20by his guys.
14:21And as long as he was dancing, I knew I was good.
14:23There was this moment that happened in New York, Jay-Z and Damon Dash just coming in and
14:27like all these clubs downtown that were like these kind of exclusive, boring, like model
14:34type hang spots just suddenly were like on fire and suddenly hip hop parties.
14:38I was there at that moment, you know, and the biggest CJ before my era was Stretch Armstrong.
14:44And then after me, there was this incredible DJ that a lot of people will know, DJ AM.
14:48And there was just this little moment that in 97, 2001 or whatever the fuck it was, like,
14:55this was just my, this was my zone.
14:57And I kind of forgot all about it really, because, you know, I've done a lot of other
15:02shit since then.
15:03And I drank a lot and I did drugs and fucking my brain is a cloudy mess at times.
15:08But to go back and relive that thing and be like, oh, that was fucking cool.
15:12Like, it was cool that I got to be there for that.
15:15There was like a couple of moments where you're kind of recalling these like really hazy and
15:19disconnected states.
15:20And I was wondering what that process was like of being able to go back and put yourself in
15:25that headspace after being so far removed from it.
15:26Even like, there's like this one scene where like you're 20 and you think you're having
15:29a stroke and like your friends just kind of drove you home.
15:32And I was like, when I took him to a hospital, I was like looking at the page, like, what's
15:35going on?
15:36Well, there's like a lot of memories that are like, that I remember quite well.
15:40There's some that are a little more hazy.
15:42Luckily, all the ones where you think you're about to die stay in your head a little bit more.
15:46So yes, I would have this thing that I was always very good with kind of weirdly, like, I was so ambitious.
15:52I could keep all my partying under control to some extent.
15:56Like I never was like fucked up at the gigs.
15:58I cared too much about it.
15:59But like four o'clock, four a.m.
16:01When it said lights on, like I was off to the after hours to fucking not every night, but
16:06definitely get fucked up and party.
16:08And yeah, there I started to have these weird, insane anxiety attacks.
16:13I think that I just knew, especially because of like family history and stuff like that.
16:19I would do drugs, but then instantly have this sort of like weird guilt and shame and
16:24anxiety around it.
16:25And to the point where I remember one night some friends had drugs and we all did it.
16:31And I thought I was, you know, 30 seconds later having a heart attack and then found out the
16:35next day that it was talcum powder.
16:37So I was like, clearly I was clearly aware that something like this was like as psychosomatic
16:43as as well as whatever it was.
16:46I didn't set out to make the book that personal when I started.
16:49I was like, this is just a DJ book and it's going to be out this about this time.
16:53And it's a DJ memoir of what it's like to be a gigging DJ.
16:56Then I was like, I can't call this book night people and talk about all the shit that makes
17:00us want to go out at night.
17:01And, you know, not everyone was going out to get fucked up, people going out because
17:07to commune and be around other people, some people just love the music they wanted to
17:10dance.
17:11But, you know, there are a lot of us who are going out because we were broken.
17:15There was like people night gave some people an extra coat of armor or a swag or whatever
17:20you want to call it that like if your life was kind of fucked up, you could leave all your
17:24daytime shit behind and go out at night.
17:28And that's not, you know, I try and say in the book, there's people who enjoy a night
17:31out and then there's night people.
17:33There's definitely, there's the balance.
17:34But for the people that I knew that really became my crew and my family at that time,
17:38like we were all lovingly sort of derelict and a little cracked in our own ways.
17:45And there's a lot of grief attached to that as well.
17:48I'm curious, kind of in the process of doing this, like how often were you just kind of sitting
17:51around and catching up with people and telling these stories?
17:54There were actually a few people when I was writing the book that I, cause each chapter,
17:59it's like different areas, different people.
18:02And I remember just being like, oh, I'm going to call him when I get to that chapter.
18:06And two or three people who I was really close in that time passed away, just like joining
18:11while I was writing the book.
18:13And then the book is dedicated to AM, you know, and Blue Jams, who was, it was sort of like
18:20the best night person I ever knew.
18:23And he had a label called Night People and this is very much the spirit of him is in this
18:27book.
18:28But you know, Fat Man Scoop, DJ Never, there's lesser known DJs like my friend, Paul Nice.
18:33And, you know, all these people were sort of Mr. C, all these people that kind of come
18:37in and out of the book were alive when I started it.
18:40So there's something, there's something obviously sad about it.
18:44And there's something that hopefully there's a way that there's celebrated and remembered
18:50through their music and what they did.
18:54And maybe this book, I don't know.
18:56Yeah.
18:57There's even moments where I think about how that one scene of you kind of throwing
19:01a track on and says you can run and go see Missy and Timbaland with Aaliyah for a moment
19:05and then run back.
19:06Yeah.
19:07No, when I met Aaliyah for the first time on the Tommy Hilfiger shoot, she had already
19:16made One in a Million and it was already sort of one of my favorite, favorite records.
19:21And I just met her with Kadada Jones and she was like, this is Aaliyah.
19:26And I remember just being like, holy shit, like I'm not even really going to look at it.
19:29It was just like so, even for the people that I had been around, like it was still, she felt
19:35like another world.
19:36It wasn't someone I knew from like the clubs around New York that happened to be famous.
19:39And, and she was just so sweet and just radiated to this amazing going in.
19:44She was just like, hi.
19:45And then we started talking a little bit later.
19:48We did the pictures and she's kind of like, it's that one where she's like behind the booth
19:53with me and that we took a lunch break and she kind of came over and she wanted to like
19:58fuck around with the turntables and they were still hooked up.
20:00So she was like scratching.
20:02I think there's a picture of it that even that's like an outtake or something.
20:06And then I just remember being like, I'm going to use this moment to ask her a thousand questions
20:10about Missy and Timbaland.
20:11Cause I had started to make beats and stuff, but I had no idea what I was doing, but they were like
20:15heroes.
20:16And she was just like, they're just cool.
20:18You know, like as if she was talking about like her favorite aunt and uncle or some shit,
20:22like not amazing alien geniuses.
20:26One time, like a year later, you know, I got to be friends with Ali, we hung out on other occasions.
20:31And I was DJing this party at the Manhattan ballroom, which is like just down there.
20:36And I was on the balcony and I see like these two towering dudes coming towards me, like
20:43this little person kind of in the middle.
20:45And I was like, Oh my God, it's, it's Aaliyah.
20:47And she kind of walked up.
20:48She's like, Hey, I was like, what are you doing here?
20:50She's like, Oh, I'm going up to the studio because the studio that Missy and Timbaland
20:54worked at that time was in Manhattan center in that building.
20:56Like, I guess she was just going around the balcony.
20:58It was like the shortcut.
20:59But she was like, come upstairs.
21:01And I was like looking down at like 300 people dancing on the floor at some, you know, party,
21:07charity, some shit.
21:08I've been paid to play.
21:09Like, not just like go take a 20 minute bathroom break to go meet like some famous people.
21:14And I was like, I can't, I can't.
21:16Oh, I'd love to.
21:17I can't, you know, she's kind of like watching.
21:19And she, she turns back and gives me the one last look like, what are you doing?
21:23And I was like, you're right.
21:25So I like put the longest record that I had on.
21:27He was probably like, I think it was Donna Summer.
21:30It's Diana Ross something.
21:32I was like, fuck it.
21:33I don't know if it's going to be long enough, but I got, I'm not missing this opportunity.
21:36So I ran up and she took me in just really briefly.
21:39I just like went in the room and I, I still remember it was like, it's like my first time
21:46in a really big fancy recording studio like that, like a modern one other than maybe being
21:50with my stepdad and Timbaland was like on, like on a star attack like this.
21:55And there was like a beat playing like super loud.
21:57And, and Missy was like on the couch and Aliyah just went down and sat next to her.
22:02And she started singing something in her ear, like whatever the melody was.
22:06And, and then I was just like, this is fucking crazy.
22:10And then I just like, you know, hung for three minutes and ran back downstairs.
22:15And I think that the record was like, probably had like that much left.
22:19And I got it on in time.
22:20No one knew.
22:21Yeah.
22:22It is crazy to think that these people who feel so present, Aliyah, like if you walk around
22:29New York, there's no way you're going to make it to fifth Avenue without seeing her on a t-shirt.
22:33Like, and her music has just never been more relevant and all this stuff.
22:37It's like, of course we all wish she was here and it's amazing to think what she would still be doing if she was,
22:45but it's also like because of her music and how large, larger than life her legacy has been.
22:51It's like, she's also does still feel here in a way.
22:55Yeah.
22:56And I think it's, it's the thing where the music also feels so new.
22:59And I think it was just because she was doing so many interesting new things then that people
23:03still in some ways haven't necessarily caught up with.
23:06And I was just watching the, the more than a woman video.
23:09Yeah.
23:10And I was curious what you remembered about that shoot and just kind of being there as
23:13this like kind of stand-in DJ in this very like retro fuceristic video.
23:18Yeah.
23:19I just remember I'm wearing these really kind of cheesy tinted shades that I thought looked
23:27so cool at the time.
23:28And I remember Leah calling me and being like, I want you to come be in the video.
23:32And I just remember being like, I really don't want to fly out to like LA for the day.
23:38It would be nice to see her and fuck it.
23:41I'm just, I love this song.
23:42Why not?
23:43So I went out and like flew there and obviously that was the last time we got to hang out because
23:48I think like it was maybe a week or two later, the plane crash, which is so fucking sad.
23:57But yeah, I'm obviously so grateful that I did because that was like the last time that
24:02we got to hang out as well.
24:04I was thinking about this moment in the book where you're talking about this idea of night
24:09people and just kind of being in that space.
24:11And you mentioned something about how you felt like an escape from like, you know, control
24:16issues that you felt like you had.
24:17How has your relationship changed with those things now?
24:21With my control issues and things and all that neuroneurosis?
24:24Well, I mean, I guess like therapy is good for that.
24:31I didn't want to come out of the 19, 20 to one year old me so much when I was writing the book.
24:37I wanted to keep it diaristic, you know, even in a way that like is almost ridiculous at times
24:41to be like, we came out of the club and he was there with his friend, this singer named Beyonce.
24:46Like everyone's like, really this singer Beyonce?
24:49But like I did, I did want to keep it in that way.
24:52Of course, there's the grown up lens of how I now understand what my addictions and behavior
24:58and all that stuff was to not put it through that would have been almost impossible.
25:04Yeah.
25:05That was one of the really fascinating things about the structure of the book to me,
25:07where it was like caveats that take place for a couple of sentences.
25:10And then these other chapters will have two and three paragraphs about a record that you really loved.
25:15Right.
25:16And it was like kind of that trade off of, yes, I'm going to give you these stories that are going to be like, you know,
25:21rolling your eyes at the page a little bit of like you're downplaying this thing that to everyone else is going to seem so monumental.
25:26But I thought it was so fascinating that the music was really the thing that you were able to like kind of sprawl for, you know, chapters and pages and pages about.
25:36Music was almost my best friend and tool creating this because obviously, like I said, like some of these things are 30 years ago.
25:44It's sort of a little bit.
25:47Yeah, some of the memories are hazy, but music just does something to your body.
25:51Like I hear Busta Rhymes, put your eyes where I can see, put your hands where my eyes can see.
25:55And I'm instantly back in this club called Rebar on 16th and 8th on a Tuesday night.
26:00And I know exactly like I can smell the fucking stale beer on the floor.
26:05Like because I feel like music even more than other forms of art and media, like it stays in your body because the bass and the things of that song like it's somehow changed the molecules in your body.
26:17So that was really helpful when I was trying to remember things that listen to a certain song or the tribe song or Busta song and instantly like, oh, right.
26:25It was in that room and there was this guy down there smoking a cigarette looking up at me when I dropped the record and then he dropped his drink because he put his hands in the air or whatever.
26:33So the records were so important. And I think that the story is like I didn't put the celebrities or the famous people's stories or that thing like as a as trying to be like a hook to draw people in.
26:47And it was more just like this is those things that happened on that night.
26:51But the music was the most important thing, I think, also, because this book, there'll be people who like will pick it up and be like, where's Amy?
27:00Where's Gaga? What is this fucking Mark Ronson book? Like, it's obviously about a time before I was really successful in some ways or certainly before I had any celebrity.
27:11I mean, at least outside of a little circle of New York. So, yeah, I really wanted it to be out.
27:17The music there's I wanted it to feel like I think I remember someone tweeting like some DJ said something funny.
27:25I was like, when I try to talk to my grandmother about DJing, all she understands is like a wedding DJ or Calvin Harris, like these two extremes.
27:33But there's also this thing in between of people what I was back then, which was a gay DJ going to work, playing shit because you love music and you need to check.
27:42And you're dealing with all the hassles of fucking coke club owners and lunatic drunk people making requests and all these things that you just do it because you love it.
27:52And then some nights you go home like having the best energy, some nights you go home like as lonely as you could ever feel.
27:59And just to get across that feeling of being of being a DJ as well that I was hoping to do.
28:05So that and the music side were important to me to at least try and paint as well as I could.
28:11Yeah. What was, I guess, the the catalyst for wanting to do this in the first place?
28:15Obviously, you've been sitting on these stories for decades.
28:17The longer I held on to these stories, the hazier they would even get.
28:22And I think that Blue Gems, my like really great friend who passed away four or five years ago, who the book is dedicated to, he used to always hang and DJ at this place called Laban.
28:36And on what was would have been his birthday after he passed away, Laban wanted to throw a party because it was like he was just always the life of the party.
28:46Everybody loved him. It's like he might not be right here anymore, but we're going to celebrate him.
28:51So I was going to DJ that night. And I remember sitting around in my room with all the records around, even though I played strata, but I still keep it.
28:59I'm like, well, I even keep these things like there's something that still meaningful to me about these old hip hop 12 inches and these stories that come with the records.
29:09And I started pulling out records and they were just instantly conjuring stories.
29:15And I just thought, OK, maybe maybe this is something that I want to write down.
29:21So that's that's where it really started.
29:23It was all from from that night and thinking about gems and memories and what music and records, how they make us recall different things.
29:31I think you mentioned this towards the end of the epilogue, but you have like next and like no footage from that time.
29:36Obviously, it's like pre-camera followed, but there's not even like like VHS or like there's like nothing.
29:41I've been looking for stuff. And now that people know the book is around, people have been sending me some stuff.
29:46And there's like weird like MTV, like Jay-Z Dynasty album release party.
29:52I'm like on the thing like, yeah, now I'm going to play some records.
29:55But for the most part, no, there's not a lot, which is kind of sad because it'd be nice to see it.
30:03But then what's sort of beautiful? It's all it's all really preserved, either in photographs or in our minds.
30:10Which is sort of nice.
30:12How much were you thinking, I guess, about legacy and, you know, just kind of even like having like your daughter mentioned in the last chapter?
30:20Are you thinking about her getting older and like reading these stories and how much was that kind of playing a role in your writing process?
30:26Yeah, I didn't really think about that till I was nearly done.
30:29And my wife is like, you've put a lot of yourself personally into this book.
30:34Did you? It's funny how you did that.
30:36And I was like, yeah, I guess I didn't really mean to.
30:38And then, of course, I was thinking like, God, is this something that I would want her to read or at what age or whenever she finds it?
30:47I'm sure for her entire teenage years, she'll just be like, my dad's lame.
30:51I'm not going to listen or read anything he did. But I don't know.
30:54I don't know. Yeah, she's just obsessed with music now.
30:59And I'm sure I'm trying not to put any of my fucking occupational baggage ever on my daughter.
31:05But of course, she has like a little record player with her 45s from the fucking, you know, that she like listens to.
31:11And she's so into like putting our records on and she's transfigured by the whole thing of like, yeah, I think we can't help put some of that energy towards thing.
31:22But definitely not trying to like breed a whole crew of DJs.
31:27I think that's funny, too, like you like your sister would kind of step in and DJ for you when you weren't available.
31:33And then she came to the secondary like Ronson to step in.
31:36Yeah, she was great. And she kept it going way longer than I did.
31:40Like carrying the Ronson DJ flag.
31:42Yeah, it just became like the default backup profession in our family.
31:47When did you feel like you had officially kind of made that that switch?
31:51Like, was there a particular period or moment where you felt like those years or that section of your life, like the door had kind of closed and then you weren't really operating, at least in the primary sense in that DJ space, but now had moved into something else?
32:04Yeah, I never stopped DJing because I just loved to.
32:08But when I started to become aware that like I was just never as good as I was in that era, the 90s, early 2000s, because when you're just playing five nights a week and you're going to see other DJs, it's not just how much you're playing.
32:20It's like how much you're going out to see other DJs and just like you're living and breathing it.
32:23I think when I started to be in the studio more around the time I met Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse and really just making records.
32:30Also, like your ears get so fucking battered.
32:33You can't do that to your ears and destroy them and then expect to go to the studio the next morning and be able to like sit down and like record drums and be using your ears in the way that way.
32:43But I don't think I ever really left it to be honest.
32:47I wanted to talk really quickly about your new collaboration with Rai, which she's someone that's so interesting because she can make a song like Suzanne or Genesis and then she can also like fill that club space with a song like Prada and like that always is like insane to hear out.
32:59Obviously, she gets compared so much to Amy's legacy in the style that she performs and, you know, just kind of the passion that she brings to her music.
33:07So I was curious about that experience of you guys kind of connecting and creating that.
33:11Yeah. Yes, I was aware first about Rai from like her club records and that everybody was like, there's this amazing writer.
33:19Like even when I was working on early Silk City stuff with Diploma and my last record and I remember hearing like anytime I'd see her name on a record, it'd be like, oh, this is dope.
33:28And then what I didn't know is I just left, moved from London to move to L.A.
33:33And I found out only recently when I met her, started making music together that she moved in to my old studio and she was there.
33:41She was like, you know, like in her mind, like writing records where like Mark Ronson made like, you know, in her mind, she's like looking up to me.
33:48It's kind of bizarre. And then we, yeah, by the time she started to, you know, with escapism and have these huge hits, I was just excited for even though I'd never met her.
33:57Even though I've lived in New York most of my life, I'd still, I'm still English.
34:02Like when someone from England breaks through doing something like that and it's kind of like killing it everywhere.
34:06I was like, you know, it's exciting.
34:08So when we finally put together for this AP project, it felt like something that either A could have happened a long time ago or, you know, and we just got wrote that song Suzanne on the first day.
34:21And it was just really quick. And she's just was so fast and melodies and everything she sings sounds good.
34:28So it sort of gets a little dizzy and you're like, okay, which melody do we, but she's such, she's such a great writer.
34:33She has a great instinct of like what the final thing should be. And yeah, I love, I love working with her.
34:37Did you see that kind of lineage or like connection to Amy once you actually were able to be in the studio with her?
34:43I think the raw London thing is just like really comes through.
34:48I'm sure. I mean, I haven't even spoken to her that much about like what kind of influence Amy was.
34:53Cause it's like Amy. So it's so sacred and there's something different ways.
34:57Like I like let everybody have their own relationship to that music.
35:03But yes, I think she's incredible voice. She's raw. She's fucking London.
35:09She's like soulful. And of course I understand where the similarities lie.
35:15Is there an album coming? A full album? A Late Night Feelings follow-up album?
35:20I'm working. I've been working.
35:39Would you call up with me and who would you like too?
35:44I'm working. I really should.
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