Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Mark Ronson

Episode Date: June 23, 2019

Mark Ronson is the man behind many of the hit songs you hear on the radio, like Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” and Lady Gaga’s “Shallow.” In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist talks to the Grammy Award-winning producer about the art of making those hits from the ground up, his latest solo album, and what it’s like to work with some of the biggest names in the music industry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I've got a great one for you this week. My guest is seven-time Grammy winner and now Academy Award winner and Golden Globe winner and a bunch of other award winner. Mark Ronson, he is the famed DJ and producer behind so much of the music you hear on the radio. He got his big breakthrough working with Amy Winehouse 12 years ago on her semifference. album back to black that won a bunch of Grammys. He partnered up with her.

He has since worked with Adele. He is the man behind Uptown Funk, the monster hit that was number one for 14 weeks with Bruno Mars a few years back. And he is the man behind Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's song, Shallow, from the movie A Star is Born, which is where he won his Oscar alongside Lady Gaga.

Fascinating guy, born in London, raised in New York City. His stepfather is Mick Jones. the guitarist from foreigner. So he sort of grew up in this universe of musicians. His mother was a well-known woman around New York City. Big parties in their apartment that a young Mark Ronson would wake up to. He talks about that.

Mick Jagger walking through the house. Robin Williams was another name, Bruce Springsteen. Just a crazy upbringing. And then got into DJing. Got a set of turntables when he graduated from high school and started working parties downtown. Got bigger and bigger, started doing weddings, started meeting musicians offering to work with them.

He was heavily influenced by hip hop in the late 1980s and 90s. He's 43 years old. It'll be 44 this year. So kind of came of age of that time when hip hop was going mainstream. And we just sat down in this famed studio, electric lady studios in Greenwich Village in New York City, born from the great Jimmy Hendricks. It was his studio and so much music from the 70s forward. has been written and composed in that very place. And it's where Lady Gaga did the vocals for Shallow.

So to where he likes to work, Mark Ronson and I got together to talk about what exactly a producer does. What does it mean to be a producer? I get that question in television a lot. What does a producer do? So we sat down with Mark Ronson on the eve of the release of his latest solo album, Late Night Feelings, which includes already a big hit. Nothing Breaks Like a Heart, his song with Miley Cyrus. A really interesting conversation if you love music with Mark Ronson from Electric Lady Studios right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Thanks for doing this. Mark, appreciate it, man. Thank you. Can we talk first about the room we're in right now and the significance of this place for people who don't know? Okay, so this is Electric Lady Studios, famously built and designed by Jimmy Hendricks, I think in 1970. I think it was a nightclub before. and I guess there's the only thing that's sort of left over is these murals on the back because there was some kind of psychedelic artist that Jimmy loved and he was like he's going to come and paint it I don't know so much about like time and I just know this is

like Jimmy's place right obviously through the 70s pink fruit and a lot of things happened here and then I think the late 80s early 90s like fell into a bit of disrepair and was a bit like like there weren't a lot of people coming in and then with DiAngelo and the roots and that whole movement of Erica Badu Common, it suddenly became the place again and with new owners. So since then it's been like, you know, Daphunk Radiohead.

But it was really the DeAngelo Voodoo because there was so much mythology around that record that sort of put it back and made the whole Frank Ocean, Tyler, the young generation kind of, I think, turned on to it. You think about the Rolling Stones being in here, Bowie or Dylan.

Yeah. Do you feel that sense of history when you're recording in a place like that? I feel like, I like feeling that the walls feel like worn in. Like there's something about these things and also the design of these studios, you know, and the 80s studios got more modern and they found new scientific ways to divide sound or separate it. But like, you're never going to get better than like wood and a bit of felt. Like that is just like these things that, you know, make this place look a bit like a boat or a spaceship in the 70s.

It does. is what makes me feel at home. And I do think maybe it's like walking and knowing the history or there's just history, it's just in the room. It sounds so hokey, but there's something in here that's pretty special. I was in the men's room a minute ago thinking, my God, if the walls of this bathroom could talk over 50 years, the things they've seen in here.

But it's not just history. The place is significant to you as well. You've done so much of your work from the beginning to as recently as a few months ago right in here. Yeah, definitely. It is really one of the last, you know, unfortunately all the great studios in New York most in New York City most of them have closed. So this is one of the, not only is an amazing studio, it's also one of the last.

So since my first record I ever produced Nika Costa all the way through to different albums I worked on through to right now and Uptown Special, late night feelings was all worked on somehow here. You won a Grammy an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and probably a bunch of other awards. I don't even know about for shallow. Right. Lady Gaga's vocals. LA Online Film Critics Society.

There you go. Well, I'll let you fill out the list then if you want to. I just, that's the only one I can pull from memory. Lady Gaga recorded her vocals right upstairs. Yes. I think people would be really interested in a song like that that they know and love so well. Yeah. About, from your standpoint as a producer, how that comes together.

Okay. How do you begin to make that song? Sure. Well, I was working with Lady Gaga on Joanne. I kind of had known her. since just when she was starting out, like maybe 10, 11 years ago, when just dance was just starting to blow up. And even though she's 10 years younger than me,

there was just like she grew up two blocks from me on the Upper West Side. There was just something super familiar. I was like, I couldn't know her growing up, just that New York edge that you have. You know, 10 years later, she wanted to work on some music together, and we went in the studio and started working on Joanne. And in the middle of that, she was in talks with Bradley to work on Stars Born. And she was like, all right, I want to take a couple weeks out

to work on these songs. Star is Born. She was really passionate about it. She wanted to get this role that would be a part of this film. And in my head, I'm like, okay, like, I've been brought in here to do Joanne. Like, I'm always thinking, like, the labels like, hey, come on. Like, we've got to get this record out by September. Like, this Star is Born detour seems like it could be a bit of, like, not a waste,

but I was like, the clock is ticking. Yeah. As a producer, sometimes that's your job. But I could see she was very passionate about it, it was important to her, so we worked on some songs. And she had this idea for this chorus, and she came in, sat at the piano. And she likes to work.

Sometimes when you're writing a song, everyone sits around a piano, acoustic guitar, and just starts throwing ideas around. She likes everybody to put headphones on, and she actually has the mic. So her voice is so special. I have so much different characteristics to it that like hearing the nuance like that close with the headphones in your ear while you're writing

really does steer like how the song goes. Like you hear a little emotion or a broken part of our voice and you're suddenly like, oh, and you get, it gives you this feeling. So we all, me and my friend Andrew and Anthony that I brought into the session, we sat down and I had these headphones. It's almost like strapping into the spaceship. It's kind of like this procedure and it does make it kind of like exciting like, okay, we're about to embark on something here.

And I remember it was like It was late I think everybody was just going through something Everybody was having a bit of a trying time With whatever relationship life Like it just felt like everybody was Wanting to go to his own that night And

And she just sang that I'm off the deep end And it was sort of like off to the races She was kind of like clamming around on the piano Finding the chords And then Andrew had these chords for the verse and started strumming them and she just, maybe the third thing she sung out

was that, tell me something, boy. And all my hair stood up and I think just hearing her voice that closed my ear while I was probably going through something it was like having like a hug or something. Like that line, the way she sings it is so emotive. And that's kind of like that song was written in probably two sessions over two or three days

and had no idea that it would, you know, even make it in the movie, let alone have the trajectory that it did. Well, that's the thing about it. It's not just something they rolled under the closing credits. Right. It was sort of a central plot point built around your song. Yeah. So when I first saw the film, I saw like the first hour of it. Bradley invited me over to his house. He was editing. He goes, I want to show you the first hour. And I think he showed it to a lot of musicians and people that he respect because it was so important for him to get the music thing right.

Because usually sometimes in the film, if I'm watching it, I don't mind a little make-believe, but sometimes when it seems really fake, or, you know, he just wanted to get that. He's so passionate about music and doing the right thing, he wanted to get it right.

So I went and saw the film, and that scene in the parking lot, as soon as I saw it, I was like, oh my God, they've put our words, and it's like in the script, and it's become part of this beautiful part of the movie.

They're falling in love. I love the love story in the film. And, you know, I got chills, and then she just sings to him in the parking lot, that line. And I was, and then I saw, I'm actually sort of getting chills thinking about it now. And then that scene where she first comes on stage, that's about where I saw the movie to, and I was just like, I was so moved, A, because I was, I loved what I saw in the film, and just that our piece of music had become so entwined in this thing. And the film and the film and the narrative like pushed the song up in this way as well so it's funny i called

and anthony as soon as i got out of the bradley's house like i couldn't dial them quick enough i'm like driving out of the driveway and i'm like you guys were going to be rich no i was just like i was just like you're not going to believe when you see this film like it's they've taken this piece of music we've written and it's like you know and that was still a rough cut and then when i saw the trailer, how that was like, I mean, I think it's like one of the best cut trailers I've ever seen. It's just like so action-packed and like, like, got like Sam Elliott getting punched in the face on the snare and all these things. And I was like, they're really like going out on a, I don't know, going out on a limb with a song, but they're taking a scene that we've done and they're investing in this emotional power that it just by itself maybe wouldn't have been quite the same. And just by those opening chords, you know what song you're listening?

Yeah. Is it true, Mark, that you helped Gaga or suggested to Gaga that sort of now iconic, famous roar, that Gaga moment where she gets on stage and lets it rip in her way? No, actually that part, I think she just came up with on the fly. Anthony was playing those chords for the bridge, and she just did it. And I think, though, in the recording, when we first had the demo, she sung it kind of like in a soft voice, and then somehow by the time she did it live with the Greek it turned into the roar. The part that, you know,

we all contributed to the lyrics and the writing, but the part that I guess I suggested was the, we had got most of the song down and I was like, it's really beautiful, but I just missed that weird gaga thing that you do like in the bad romance that, you know, rah, ra, ura, rah, ra, like playing with words. Like, just there can be, even though this is an alley song,

Like that can beat a little bit of that So that's when we came up with it In the Shaha Shalalo In the Shaha Shah, like whatever it is actually But so that was like I guess my Contribution to the end But that's it

You feel that rise And that's when that song really just Yeah I think that sometimes Like you have a great song It's like There's just like this one extra not You can take it to Like in the

I guess with Uptown Funk It was the same thing We had the whole thing And then I was like came up with the Uptown Funkio Out part. And it's like, there's just this little extra part that you can kind of sing along and stuff. And then unfortunately, that's the part we got sued for.

But anyway. It was good, though. Worth it. Worth the lawsuit. So how do you describe to people? Because I have this problem in television explaining people what a producer does. Because they know you're a producer.

You're more than that, obviously. But how do you describe what you do in a room like this? I think like if you start with the real like classic pop producer, like a George Martin or Quincy Jones, it was somebody who had come in. You have an artist or maybe a band and they have some songs. Maybe you help them find a song. You listen to 80 demos. You pick songs that you think might be good for them. Help them whip their songs in the shape.

Put them in the studio. Help with the arrangements. Put the microphones up. All this kind of thing. Then in the more modern era of like DJs and hip-hop, producing. can just mean like making the beat like maybe it's from a sample or you make it on a laptop. I think that it's such a vague job description.

I guess it depends on the artist I'm working with. But with somebody like Lady Gaga, I'm working with her on Joanne. We just sat down and was like, I asked her what type of record do you want to make. And then we went to the songs you have. We wrote a few songs together. You bring in some other songwriters. and then recording, I guess your job is just to take what's great about that artist

and magnify it a thousand times or as much as you can. So, you know, when I've worked with Ghost Face Killer, that sometimes just means that, like, I made a track or I made a beat, and I send it to him, and he wraps on it. But it's such a, it is a hard thing to describe because there's, it's, it is a, and then there are some producers that probably do nothing. I have no idea. But like, it's just something where you take what's in your toolkit.

I grew up, played in bands. I have a little knowledge of playing instruments and arranging and, you know, and just doing whatever is right for the record you're working on. I wish I could put it better. No, you did. That's a good explanation for what it is. And you bring to bear all the influences through your life. You can see it in the people you've worked with.

Yeah. A variety of them. And when you were here growing up in New York, we were talking a little bit about the kind of music we both listened to. What were your big influences as a kid growing up in New York? So probably, like, I moved to New York in 83, so, like, I guess as a kid, you just sort of listened to the radio, whatever it is.

I got into, like, in my early teens, like Led Zeppelin and Hendricks, and, you know, the whole rite of passage, what you do is, like, a teenage kid playing guitar. And then a lot of probably hair metal. and Guns and Roses, it was like that era. And then in the late 80s, early 90s, I got really into hip hop. And, you know, I'd been introduced to it through the Beastie Boys and Rondi MC,

the more, you know, commercial stuff. But then Tribe Call Quest and Biggie and Wu-Tang and gang star and groups like that. And at that point, I went from wanting to play guitar to wanting to DJ and play hip-hop and play this music and listening to, you know, New York Radio. You know, New York was such a soundtrack to that. Car is driving by, playing Hot 97. It was like, it was very much all around. What did you hear in that music?

Because I heard it, too, we're about the same age. Yeah. When that was first starting to expand outside the walls of New York City and make it out into the country, what did you love about hip-hop? I think that I really loved that I was always, drums were actually my first instrument, and I was always drawn to anything with, like, a great groove or a beat. And when even in my like, Guns and Roses arrow or whatever,

I love the meters and the average white band in Ohio players, like some of this like funk music. And hip-hop and that era was really drawing heavily from that sampling, James Brown sampling, all these things. So I think instantly the first thing that I really loved about it was the music and the way that the groove moved. And then I would kind of like the, you know, get into the lyrics or whatever it was. But at first it was definitely like about the beat and the rhythm.

You also had some of these influences in your own apartment, apparently, given your stepfather, it was a foreigner, and your mother being who she was. Are all the stories true that Mick Jagger and Robin Williams and Bruce Springsteen would be in your apartment? Well, some of them, like definitely this kind of like over the course of like maybe like 15 years of growing up. But yeah, my stepdad was a musician.

So, David, sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and everybody was like crazy parties with like 200 people in my house. Now that living in a New York apartment, I don't even know how they got away with it. If I, like, turn my radio up above three, I get like someone banging on the street thing. It was the 80s. Yeah. But no, it was really cool. The thing that was more, like, I guess the thing that was really amazing about growing up with, you know, Mick was my stepdad is he had this music room with the studio.

So we had this early samplers that I could like experiment, start to make beats on and eight-track recording machines and things like that. So I started to like make my own demos and figure out how to do that. So yeah, it was really, it was definitely cool growing up with that. So you graduate high school, right? You get a turntable for graduation. Yes. What did you see yourself doing? What was the next move for you?

Was it DJing first and then into produce? or do you just want to go DJ for that time? I was definitely, when I first, I got my turntables for high school graduation and kind of instantly was just like in my room six hours a day practicing, listening to Stretch Armstrong on the radio and trying to recreate what I heard and doing

and not very well, like obviously early on, but I would just take my turntables and speakers for $70 in a snowstorm to some little bar, like anywhere. house parties like you're just so into this thing that you'll do it for um you're doing it for the love and then I went to a vassar university for a year and was DJ on the radio station there and I think around that time I did get into producing and DJing in New York clubs at first couple years if I met anybody who said they rap they'd be like yeah come to my house tomorrow you want to like

work on some music so you're like you're just figuring it out in real time you know and I just had the studio in the bedroom, anyone who wanted to collaborate, I was down. And you started a good reputation at being really good at what you were doing. Yeah. What was the breakthrough, did you feel like? Was it meeting Amy Winehouse, or was it sometime before there where you thought, okay, I'm pretty good at this. I can make a career out of it?

Well, I think what happened was that the DJing really kind of took off and started to overtake the producing. And I think that because it was like how I was supporting myself, I sort of, I remember being like a little bit later, but DJing for Kanye for a party he had after the Grammys on his second album. And he was like on the mic dancing. Everyone's having a good time. And he was like, this is Mark Ronson. And like, he's my favorite DJ. If you ever see him on the turntable, you know it's a party or something like that.

I was obviously flatter of it. In my mind, I'd always sort of wanted to make music and DJing wasn't really this ever the end goal. So I was like, damn, like I'm just like. I don't know. Like, I guess there's the same thinking, like, I want everyone to know I make music, but you can't just tell everyone you want to know you make music. You have to make something good

or make something people are going to hear or whatever it is. You didn't want to just be the wedding DJ. No. No. So, yeah, I guess I guess I've been producing records, but really hadn't had any commercial success. And then when I met Amy, that really was the breakthrough. And I think that it was so great because I met someone who liked all the same music that I liked.

It was just obviously incredibly talented, like ridiculously. And then she just was willing to do like experiment, just like mess around with these sounds. And I just like all the sum of my influences of those years of DJing and like loving this old soul and kind of just like being a little bit green is what probably went into like making that collaboration. enabling it to be what it was. She was special, wasn't she? I mean, you've worked with a lot of people, but there's something different about her, I imagine. Yeah, I think that,

yeah, she was just, like, I think of the fact, like, the first song we did together was Back to Black, and I played her, I met her the day before. She told me she loved all the 60s girl group music, and I was like, okay, well,

I don't really, have anything like that but if you stay like one more day because she was going back to london i was like stay one more day and like i'll work on something tonight and come back and see if you like it so obviously i was up all night like going to run around my little studio piano drums like just trying anything until something felt interesting and i came up with the chords for back to black and put a little like kick and tambourine on it because it was like the easiest way i could make it sound like the old things that she liked and she came in the next day and she really loved it and and then went in the back room and wrote the entire song and the lyrics in an hour.

Wow. And I just like, you know, we all have that, like, kind of cliche of, like, inspiration, like, lightning, bold strikes and so I mean you're, like, scribbling furiously for an hour, like, Mozart, writes a symphony or whatever, but she had, she sort of had that. Like, there was no, she was able to access something when she was inspired that just had no filter. And because in her entire life, she was so brutally honest and never second-guessed anything. I think when those lyrics just came out. And obviously she was so gifted with language and melody, not only just the voice. I even remember asking her to change a line in the chorus because she said, we only said goodbye in words.

I died a thousand times. And I was like, well, that doesn't rhyme. Like my first instinct was like, as a producer, like, it has to rhyme. it's the chorus and she was like, do you want to change it? And she just looked to me like I was crazy. She was like, how can I change it? Like, that's what came out, you know? So, like, you know, usually when we're sitting in songwriting sessions,

we're changing things a million times. Like, you're just going like, how can we make this better? But for her, it was such as honesty that, like, whatever came out, like, that is, those are my feelings. Like, I can't, to change it would be inauthentic or something. It's so interesting because you've said this before, that you do your best work with strong, honest women like Lady Gaga, like Amy Winehouse, like Adele.

So in the process, is there a pushback a lot? You work all night, bring them a beat and a song, and they go, nope, no good. Yeah, sometimes. Like, with Amy, it was really lucky because most of the time I was presenting ideas or arrangements to her. She would play me her songs on an acoustic guitar, write the chords down, because some of them were quite complicated jazz chords, so she'd have to write like diagrams for me,

so I could remember how to play it when she left. And then I would come up with a... Stay up all night, come up with an arrangement. And usually she liked it, but one time she came in, I think I was a bit spoiled because I'd been used to four days in a row of her, like being into what I was doing,

and I played it for her, and she was like, no, I don't like it. And I was like, oh, so I started to go into panic mode. I'm like, well, what if I change this? Or if I take this sound out, she's like, I just don't like it. Like, what's the point in changing it? I'd panic even more. Like, okay, well, maybe it's...

Is it this part? You don't like, she's like, she's like, why you're trying to fix it if it's, she said it work that I don't see the TV? Go ahead, go for it. She was like, why are you trying to fix it? And I was like, that's such a good thing because in the studio, there's all this thing

about diplomacy and dancing around ideas, because some of these ideas are a very personal thing, extension of her feelings, but like it is good to, like, that kind of honestly. Like, it's not good, why are you trying to make me like something that I did, that my initial instinct was to not like it. So that kind of brazen honesty can hurt sometimes. It was like I carry that with me all the time.

I mean, her voice is obviously like in my head time to time, especially in the studio because, you know, it's just such a good barometer of like honesty. Well, you're working now again with a bunch more honest women, very talented women for your new album. Yes. What did you want to say with this new album? Because you've said, you're sort of known as the party guy, the DJ, you make hits. But this comes, it seems to me anyway, from a bit of a different place. Yeah.

Well, when I started this album, and when I start most of my records, I'm kind of like searching for a concept or like something to, because I don't sit down, I'm not singing all the songs, I'm not saying the piano, because there's a few different singers usually. I need something to anchor it so it feels like a record. And usually that's like maybe a sonnet concept. Like with version, it was all covers of these songs with horns. And my last album, Jeff Basker and I, the producer, took a road trip through the deep south and went to all these churches

and were like trying to get to like, you know, this feeling of like the R&B and the soul music we love. And this time I was kind of, a little floundering for a while, I didn't know what it was, and then everything that I went to the studio and was working on that really resonated, had this melancholy tinge, and I was like, I guess I was like,

oh, I guess I'm making like the, like the breakup album. I guess without, you know, my marriage is sort of ended, and I never thought in my own music as like channeling emotion. I'm always like, oh, that's what I do when I go work with these people on their records, Lady Gaga, Queens of the Stone Age, whatever. On my record, it's supposed to be a party. Like, who wants to hear how the DJ's feeling?

You know, like, you want to go to the club? And the guy's like, I had a tough day today, like, over the music. So, but that's what happened. It was the only music that I was working on that really resonated that I wanted to work on the next day, like coming back to the studio the next day with these songs. So Late Night Feelings, the title track with Leaky Lee was the first one. And then Don't Leave Me Lonely with Y.

was the second one that really was like, okay, I understand. Like, I can be a little emotional, be vulnerable, channel these things with these other people, but it can still be dancing and sort of have that, like, you know, that I guess that just DJ element and the rhythm, driving rhythm that I still, like, need in my music. Is that scary at all? Do you feel like you're sort of opening yourself up to the world

and exposing your life in a way you haven't before with this album? I guess, you know, I mean, so many people contributed lyrics in a moment. Like we had the parameters of what the record was, because that was what I was going through, but it's kind of everybody's feelings in the pop. But I'm not so scared because I've sort of like, it's just helped me make what I think is my best music

because it's like, it's funny that when I go to work on somebody else's record, I always crave this like, honesty and vulnerability and always pushing them more and more, like, no, no, no, I don't, but I don't buy that. But yet with my own records, I would like never done that. done that so I guess it's just like I don't mind varying varying myself on it because it just it feels like it's the right thing to do and it feels like it's better and because of it it's already got hits nothing breaks like a heart with Miley Cyrus right was she someone you

had your eye on that you wanted to work with and hadn't yeah I I had uh I'd seen her sing 50 ways to leave your lover on the S&L 40th and because it was such a sparse arrangement, and I heard all that twang in the country rasping her voice, and I'd never heard that before, and I was watching TV, and I just stopped dead in my tracks. I remember not in front glued to the TV watching this thing, and I called my manager Brandon, and I was like,

can you, like, do you know have any end to my Sarahs? Like, I wanna ask if she ever wants to do a record like that. Like, I just heard her voice, and I'm just kind of obsessed. And so basically four years of texting, and not trying to look like a stalker, but definitely, I think I texted her at first, and she just sent back, like, maybe emojis.

She said she doesn't even have a grandmother's numbers to stories, so she, like, didn't even know who I was. I went to a dead pet show, like, backstage, kind of like, hey. And then, I guess four years later, you know, I was in the studio working on with Ilse Juber, the songwriter who I worked a lot with on this album, and she said, I want to write this chorus. like about like all these things break, but like nothing breaks like a heart.

And it sounded so beautiful and timeless. And she had the idea for the chorus, and I was like, Miley Cyrus would be so perfect for this. She never writes me back, but what the hell I'm going to fire, like one more hell, Mary. And she was like, yeah, cool. Like, a year around Tuesday? Like, it was just such a, like, shock. And so she came to Shangela where we were working in Los Angeles,

and she, kind of like, I would never really met her before and she was just amazingly like funny and talking about her life and we're just talking about all these things for three or four hours. Then suddenly she's like, should I go sing like just to see if it sounds good doing the chorus before we go any further? I was like, yeah. And it was just so funny that she could just do this like about face suddenly going there and sing them with the most, one of the most like beautiful vocals.

She's one of my favorite voices I've ever recorded and then she liked it and she came back and she wrote the rest of the verses. And so it was like a really, yeah, it was a, I guess it's a good thing. She said this before that we didn't really work earlier because life experience and whatever happened, like we would have written probably a different song. Maybe she's stored your number now, hopefully. You've made the cut. I think so.

Yeah. Well, I think we're going to go listen to a little of the music. Okay. That's our with you. Cool. Thanks, man. Stick around to hear more from Mark Ronson on the Sunday. Sit Down Podcast, including a peek in the studio at his new album.

Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with Mark Ronson as we step into the Electric Lady Control Room to check out some of his new songs. Okay, so I'll play a little bit of the, so I guess the main thing about when I'm doing a record is like, it has to have a start and an end point of like something that sets up the record because there are all these voices. almost need these bookends that make it my record. And if I don't know what those things are,

it's hard for me to even go on. So I made this intro for the album called Late Night Prelude that sort of does this, setting up the album and this slightly brandy or whatever. It's on shuffle, so it's like, doesn't, so, sorry, it wouldn't ruin the whole point of it. So yeah, basically that goes into the first song like this, it's late.

And they're kind of like, like, and then it goes into the title track of the album. I weigh the water. I feel it all. It's almost like a slow down orchestral version of the title track, Late Night Feelings. And that sets the tone for the record for you? I guess so. It's like a little like, it's almost just like, it's just a bit of a mission statement.

It's not like the whole sound of the record is necessarily that, but it's like, okay, you're entering. And when I work with David Campbell, this amazing string arranger, it was like, all right, it needs to start with this swirly thing because I want to almost feel like a cyclone, like you're being kind of pulled into this late-night world. And we had already written this on late-night feelings that it was really attached to the melody,

so we used pieces and lyrics of that and kind of made this little intimate section. It must be cool to sit in a room, just sort of verbally talk through something with your collaborators. Yeah. And then to be able to hear it, and if somebody gets it right, you go,

yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. No, it's amazing. Yeah, it's definitely working with people. that help you realize this sort of vision is really special. Yeah. And so on this album, when you're laying it out, this is something I've always been curious about, when you do the track order.

Yeah. Are you telling a story through the track order? A little bit. You want to tell the story? I always think about it, like a DJ, you're sort of building the night. You maybe don't go, like, straight in with a bang, or you want to, like, tell a bit of a story. But, like, now also in the era of, like, Spotify and Apple Music,

you know people have short attention spans. You better put like a couple bangers like near the front as well. Like you can't just like put all your best songs to the back. And I also still think where they like, it's like vinyl like side A, side B. Like if it was A and B, like track six, does that feel like the first song on side B? Like, you know, there's all these kind of things that go into it. But you want to just like make a nice arc, you know, I think. And how do you know when a song is ready?

How do you know when it's done? if you listen to late night feelings, what's that moment where you go? I think we got it. I think when the record company pry it out of your hands. No, I think that there's a couple of things. And I do chinker with these songs. Uptown Funk, we worked on for seven months.

Nothing breaks. Like, you know, anytime you're doing something a little bit different than what's on the radio, you've got to, like, enforce it with all these other kind of things to, like, maybe make sure that, like, because, you know, I still want to stuff. to have like a modern, you know, texture to it or just the way that the drums feel. But that can be, I think there is a point sometimes where you're like, either like,

okay, I've messed with this enough or like this feels good to me. But it's hard to know what that is sometimes. You're never totally happy with it. At some point you just have to let it go. Yeah, I think so. And then you kind of like, you're like, and then you kind of admire like the faults, you know, things that you would have changed. Like, it's like, I feel like when I listen to my old records, it's like,

oh, that's cute. Like, I didn't really know what I was doing. and that's and it's endearing like the problem child you know or something do you have that moment where you'll hear one of your old songs on the radio and groan a little bit like I wish I'd done this differently or that

no because I think that's a good thing like once it is gone it but like it's not yours anymore yeah yeah you want to play one more sure uh I'll play uh this is a song that this is a song with Yeba that um we actually did on today's show

and this is the other song that really to help define the record and her voice is pretty... Tell me, baby, what's on your heart? Because I've been wandering around and never you get up, now you turn on. We wrote that actually upstairs the first day that I met. Yeah, but she came in the studio and... I had this idea for this chords in a different melody

and, you know, I kind of sang her the melody and like, can you put lyrics to this melody? And we're kind of like trying for three hours and she was definitely like putting on a brave face about it But we just like weren't hitting it and then stop for a second and she just starts singing this totally different song sort of like absinidly like Like war-playing the course and then where I was like whoa, what's that that's a hundred times better than what we're doing Let's just make that the song now so sometimes like you know you have to I think that's why you always have to like have the receptors up almost because you never know when someone's gonna say something you're like oh wait go back would do that again or you know No, this is one of the things about being a producer. You're just like always kind of just open to ideas or taking stuff in.

And you have to be willing to change your idea if you hear something better. Definitely. There's nothing, you know, working with these incredibly talented people like Bruno and stuff. Like, like, there's nothing better than being wrong. I mean, your ego gets a little bruise for a second, but like, you're like, yeah, thank God I was wrong because now this song is so much better. After we left Electric Lady, Mark and I walked down the block to his favorite record shop called Turntable Lab, to look at some of his favorite vinals, and to hear the story of how Uptown Funk came to be

and how it almost was not. So, Mark, this is the spot, huh? Yeah, this is Tarn Table Lab. It's just such a well-created. I mean, obviously, there used to be a lot more record stories and when I started off DJing there's record stories everywhere before, you know, MP3s and that kind of thing. This is one of the...

What's cool about this is it's kind of embedded in DJs, culture so it's like you know a lot of hip-hop a lot of dance music but then you get like vampire weekend and macdemarco and tamer paula and like the velvet underground just anything that's sort of like it's just well-curate it's like good taste so when you walk in here what are you looking for typically that my records are on the front of the rack no uh I think it's a few things I'm looking for it's probably some oh it's always nice to come in and get like a velvet underground or like a staple record and then you're and then there's all these great compilations of like rare funk from Ethiopia in the 70s or something like it's always fun to discover something you

never heard before and sometimes you just take a chance on it because the cover looks good I used to be in the beginning I used to sample a lot so most of my weekends would be spent going through the old vinyl stores and just thumbing through looking for a cool string line or a drumbeat or something to sample. Now because I, like, you know, play this stuff more live or use musicians, I'm just looking for stuff to listen to at home. You mentioned funk. Uptown funk, obviously, was this monster hit. Yes. Do you remember the inspiration for that sound, as you set out to make that song with Bruno? Yeah, it sounded a bit different when we started it. It came out of a jam with Bruno at his studio, and he was on drums. I was on bass. Jeff Bassler was playing keys, and we kind of were just,

like we were just having so much fun that like we were just playing probably the same thing on loop like just for three hours but and Bruno was like he was he's he's he's really smart and he was like it's cool but it just sounded organic it didn't have that like like that big clap he was like it just sounds like I don't know we sound like a jam band or something like we got to define a sonic and he came up with the kind of like that like the idea to use that really like heavy 80s clap on it and then then it was cool because suddenly it had a bit of like it had a bit of like it had to a toughness and a little more like modernness to it. So, and then the rest of it was just like seven months of us trying to recreate the joy of that

first jam, you know, like every time I went back to write another verse, if it didn't feel as good as that thing, we would, we would scrap it. It's fun to hear the process and how much of it is sort of tinkering, trial and error. That didn't work, throw it to the side. Yeah, and sometimes, you know, if you spent three days in the studio, he came down to Memphis in the middle of his tour because that's where I was working. Three days and got like maybe two lines out of it that we could use. And then I would wait to, and I can't tell you the amount of times he was like,

man, it just breaks my heart, but maybe we're never going to, this song just wasn't meant to be. And then I would wait three months until everybody, or three weeks to everybody, like, temper is cooled off a bit and be like, hey, you guys want to get back in and try that song again? Because, you know, obviously it was from my record. I probably had a little bit more vested in it. And I just, I just, I always believed in it.

So I was like, we got to try it. And then he could come, maybe playing a giant festival in London, come to my studio there. And every time I show up at the door, like, who we go again? We can try this song, right? And then just like keeping at it, we finished it. I'm glad you stayed after it. Imagine a world without uptown funk.

Five minutes of silence at the wedding. I don't know what happened. That's funny. Yeah, this is good. This is the kind of stuff we were talking about, old 80s, scarface, hip-hop. And then DeAngelo that was recorded at Electric Lady, where we just were, and then, you know, new stuff,

like 21 Savage, you know, it's just, yeah, it's really like, there's nothing you couldn't, there's nothing you could buy in here that you would take home and be like, this is crap. Right. It's well curated. Yeah. We were talking to this before off camera. Is there anyone out there that you're dying,

work with you haven't worked with yet um there's a lot of uh there's definitely like a lot of rappers and people that are really and other producers like uh something like a metro booming i mean obviously kendrick lamar these are people whose music i really enjoy and if something happens the universe happens in a way that we get to collaborate great but i also feel like i love discovering new people like this like yeah all my record or our artist king princess like that makes me so excited as well. So I think that the idea of finding the next somebody is as exciting as going with somebody who you love. Well, congratulations on the album. It's great. Thank you. My thanks again to Mark Ronson for a great conversation about music. His new album, Late Night Feelings, is out now. And my thanks,

as always, to all of you for tuning in this week to hear more of the full-length conversations with all my guests. Be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.