QTheMusic.com

After Mark Ronson DJd Heineken's official afterparty for the UEFA Champions League Cup Final, we got him on the phone for a chat. He was in a bit of a hurry, but we managed to get his attention for a few minutes and ask him some questions about the match and his music, as well as learning how he nearly died eating out with The Black Lips...

Tell us about the aftershow party. How did it go?
It was good. I'd just come from DJing at Wembley for another one and yeah...people got dancing and seemed to be in good spirits. My friends The Black Lips, this punk band from Atlanta, kind of crashed it. I don't think they quite knew what to make of it, but it was fun.

Did you watch the game?
I did. Well, I could only watch 60 minutes, because I had to be at Wembley to DJ. It was a pretty great game. Barcelona are just an insanely, insanely great team to watch.

Were you rooting for them, rather than Manchester United?
I wasn't really rooting for anyone. I wasn't against man United because I'm a Chelsea fan. I just enjoy watching good football.

You've just been working on their album, haven't you? How was that?
It was great. At one point I nearly died, but other than that, it was fine.

Actually literally nearly died?
No no. I mean they took me out to eat and they treat their stomachs like they treat their limbs during a live concert. They eat anything, and they were eating all this liver sashimi. I said that I'd try it, and had to go to the hospital the next day. I was in there for two days having my stomach pumped. I'm guessing it was food poisoning.

So how does it feel to work with so many different kinds of bands? Does it ever get difficult for you to switch modes from one to another?
It's difficult if you try to do things simultaneously, but I try different types of music, whether it's garage punk like The Black lips do or what the Gossip do or what Daniel Merriweather does or what SpankRock do. The interesting thing is that you can't really give the same formula to each band, and I think that's what's challenging. So before each project, you think about a band and their sound and how you can help them get to the next level, to take what they have and really make it great. I feel really lucky that I get to work with really talented bands across different genres, because I think I'd be bored working in one, just because I like so many different kinds of things. You know, a lot of the bands I work with, like the Gossip, their influences run from everything from riot grrl to Fleetwood Mac to Jay-Z. But we've all grown up now in an era where we like different stuff, so I think getting to do that is just kind of natural.

Do you think that's the result of the internet helping people to experience more music?
No, because we all grew up before the age of the internet. We just like all sorts of different types of music. I think the internet's definitely - probably - made the world of music a bit smaller, in the way that you can sort of hear anything but I think we would have been listening to all that different stuff anyway.

Do you find, as one of the producers du jour, that people have high expectations of what you have to offer as a producer when you work with them?
Yeah. I always encourage people to have low expectations before they start an album with me.

Does it increase the pressure on you?
Sometimes, but I think that most of the bands I work with, they're not coming to me specifically because they want to sell a million records, it's just 'cause they like what you do. There's always a hope that you can have some kind of success, but the minute you realise that's a little bit subjective and you just move on to making really music, that's when the good stuff's going to come. And then, if it's good and it's genuine, that's usually when it strikes a chord with people. I don't think Adele was high-fiving everyone in the room when she finished recording Someone Like You. It's just an honest, great piece of music.

How far in advance do you plan your projects? Do you have lots on the go at one time or do you try to separate them out?
I try not to have more than one on the go at one time because I feel that your brain...I feel you can't do justice to each track and your brain can't really function. Especially as it's not like I'm doing one song here and one song there, but I'm doing an album, or the bulk of an album with the band. And I guess everyone's so busy these days with the way that music has become - as a band you tour, as a producer you're an artist, you DJ, you do all these different things...you can't really plan that far in advance. You might be lucky to get a month or two to line up and you just jump in and start it.

Is there anyone you particularly want to work with in the future?
I don't know. I feel like I could make a Christmas list, but all the people I get to work with, it's just come from random meetings and lager and mutual friends. That rhythm has been good to me so far, so I just feel it should stay like that.

Do you have much in the pipeline at the moment?
Yeah. I'm doing the Gossip record right now and the Rufus Wainwright album after that. But you have spend the right amount of time on each record and give it the care it needs. You can't really just say 'Okay, three months' because who knows if it'll run over or if you need more time to make something great.

And what about your own stuff? Do find that suffers because of working too much with other people?
I rely on the creative energy I get from working with other people to inspire me to go ahead and make my records, so usually when I do my own records, because I do so much of the writing on those, I'm usually cleaned out for a while after finishing a record. So I find I get gas in the tank or whatever from other bands and musicians. And then suddenly one day it's like 'Okay, I feel ready to make my own record.' But really I feel like I'm not really an artist with a producer career, I'm much more of a producer lucky to have an artist side-career. The main thing is that I just make good records.

Interview: Mischa Pearlman

10:02 AM | 17/06/2011