Mark Ronson - The Stories Behind ‘Uptown Funk,’ Amy Winehouse & ‘I’m Just Ken’

Content Warning: This episode contains mentions of drug use. Mark Ronson is the hitmaker behind some of the most iconic music of the past two decades. A nine-time Grammy-winning producer, DJ, and Oscar-winning songwriter (yes - he wrote “I’m Just Ken”), Ronson has collaborated with legends like Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Miley Cyrus and Duran Duran. He also produced Amy Winehouse’s era-defining album Back to Black, and his 2014 smash “Uptown Funk” is one of the best-selling singles in history. In this revealing conversation, Mark shares the creative process behind “Uptown Funk,” his unforgettable first meeting with Amy Winehouse, the 90s New York club scene and how a song from Barbie became a global phenomenon. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Intro 02:45 The DJ Booth 04:00 Navigating Family Chaos and Emotional Sensitivity 06:56 The Night People: A Unique Subculture 09:06 Encounters with Celebrities and Substance Experimentation 12:11 The Jay-Z Approach Disaster 21:33 Creating Uptown Funk with Bruno Mars 24:04 The Journey of a Hit Song 25:50 The Concept of Cool 27:42 Guitar Dreams and DJ Realities 29:59 The Importance of Friendship 33:24 Therapy and Personal Growth 35:19 Meeting his wife During COVID 37:26 Industry Exile and a New Beginning 44:14 Creating the Barbie Soundtrack 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: "Creativity is almost like a newborn baby. That's just pure, and I'm not sure if that's really affected by esteem or not." "There was something about the DJ booth, just like almost physically, it was this, that one man command center where I was just the captain. Nobody can get to me. This is my thing." 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Mark Ronson’s new memoir ‘Night People’ is out now linktr.ee/MarkRonson_NightPeople Elizabeth’s upcoming one-off show at Cadogan Hall on 21 Sep for her new novel One of Us: ⁠https://www.fane.co.uk/elizabeth-day Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content 📚 WANT MORE? Tracey Thorn - One half of the legendary duo Everything But The Girl, Tracey talks about stage fright, motherhood, anxiety, and unexpected turns in life and career. https://link.chtbl.com/7uRMc582 Mabel - the mega popstar chats creativity, stage fright and trying to be healthy. https://link.chtbl.com/C_XRoNuJ Emeli Sandé - A chart-topping artist with a deeply moving story of overcoming body-image struggles and personal heartbreak, all while navigating fame. https://link.chtbl.com/XVmX2wuW 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com Elizabeth and Mark Ronson answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: howtofailpod.com Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Sound Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Suhaar Ali Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Uptown Funk came out of a jam with Bruno. And actually, it kind of was like a definitely linked to a there's a failure origin story. And she was like, and can you just write a Ken song? Like, just meaning like, maybe in the credits, we'll have a song about Ken. And so I came up with the idea for I'm Just Ken. We met that day and then literally wrote Back to Black that night.

• 0:29Elizabeth Day?

  Hello and welcome to How to Fail. I am the creator and host Elizabeth Day, and this is the podcast where we believe that learning how to fail actually means learning how to succeed better. One of the things we talk about a lot on How to Fail is how difficult it can be to take that first step. And starting a business is no exception. With Black Friday approaching, it's a great time to turn an idea into reality. Shopify makes launching an online store easier with ready-made themes and AI-powered tools, including Sidekick, its AI assistant, which helps you set up your shop and plan promotions without needing coding skills.

• 1:12Elizabeth Day?

  Whether you're exploring a new venture or finally acting on an idea you've had for years, Shopify gives you the tools and support to get started with confidence and make the most of the busy shopping season. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial. That's Shopify.co.uk/fail. Go to Shopify.co.uk/fail today to hear your first.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Shelley Jensen was about to retire early after selling her veterinary practice for millions. But a moment of vulnerability became a way to take away her rights. Don't you see how destroyed I am as a person? Her husband fought to save her before Shelley lost her freedom forever.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  This is a life or death matter. My wife's life is at stake.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is Free Shelley Jensen. Available now on The Binge.

• 2:11Elizabeth Day?

  My guest today is someone who, without you even knowing it, has probably been responsible for the soundtrack of your last 20 years. Mark Ronson is a globally celebrated DJ, a nine-time Grammy-winning producer and songwriter, who also scooped an Academy Award for his work on the Barbie movie. Because, yes, it really was Mark Ronson who co-wrote and produced "I'm Just Ken." Throughout his stellar career, Ronson has worked with everyone from Lady Gaga to Duran Duran, Miley Cyrus, and Sir Paul McCartney. He produced Amy Winehouse's legendary 2006 Back to Black album, and his own 2014 single, "Uptown Funk," featuring Bruno Mars,

• 2:54Elizabeth Day?

  is one of the biggest-selling songs of all time. Ronson was born in London, and after his parents' divorce, moved to New York City at the age of five with his mother and stepfather. Music was always in his blood. Ronson's father, an entrepreneur, was a music obsessive, and his stepfather is the foreigner guitarist Mick Jones, who wrote "I Want to Know What Love Is" for Ronson's mother, Anne. Ronson himself had an internship at Rolling Stone magazine at the age of 12, manning the phones before his voice had broken and in-between prepping for his bar mitzvah. He began DJing in earnest while a student at New York University, which eventually led him to production,

• 3:37Elizabeth Day?

  experiences recounted in his new memoir, Night People. In the book, he describes "the hit of selecting a song to play at his mother's second wedding." "The first time you feel this sensation, nothing compares," Ronson writes. "You're giving the room a feeling they didn't even know they needed. Oh, how I loved that control."

• 4:02Elizabeth Day?

  Mark Bronson.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Hi.

• 4:03Elizabeth Day?

  Welcome to How to Fail.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

• 4:06Elizabeth Day?

  It's a pleasure.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:08Elizabeth Day?

  Tell me about that control and what it felt like.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Yes. For me, the control, you know, I grew up in this pretty, you know, I love my parents and I say in the book, they're good people, but they were not good together. And I had a pretty turbulent upbringing from the ages of zero to five. And the house was, it was a lot of fun at night and in the day it was not so much fun. There was something about the DJ booth, just like almost physically, it was this one man command center where I was just the captain. Nobody can get to me. This is my thing. So that, that sense of control, you know, I mean, it makes me feel, sound like the evil,

• 4:53Speaker 00

  like villain in like a Bond movie or maybe more like an Austin Powers film. But like, you know, I'm controlling all of you with my music and selections. It wasn't, but there were, there was this thing that like, nobody can touch me in here. And the worries and the unease of the outside world is, does not affect me here.

• 5:13Elizabeth Day?

  You have this amazing phrase in your book about you getting very good at walking on eggshells, but inevitably one would crack.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:23Elizabeth Day?

  So you are so loving about your family in the book, and I want to make that clear from the outset, and the chaos such as it was, was kind of a party chaos. Is that right?

• 5:35Speaker 00

  There was a party chaos and then there was the hangovers the next day. There were moods and I, you know, I have such a great relationship with my parents now. And this book was, isn't that kind of book where I'm throwing anyone under the bus? And they were wonderful, loving parents to us at that age, but they were really young. And they were partying and, you know, that's why I learned, and I think I had this attraction to night from really early on because at night, grownups were like buzzy and excited. And they wanted to know what you were into and all these things stumbling out into the, you know, my parents' house in the middle of the night and there were 50 people there hanging out. And then the daytime, the mood was always very heavy and kind of hanging. And you, I remember even as an early kid, like,

• 6:20Speaker 00

  Being able to figure out like, what mood's he in, what mood's she in? Like, do I, am I gonna be careful? Am I gonna maybe take the long way around the kitchen and just like play it safe? So, yes, I do think that, um, as a young kid, I remember being very, very sensitive to like the moods of adults because I was like, you know, looking out for myself.

• 6:44Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think that makes you particularly gifted now at dealing with artists who might occasionally be emotionally fraught or anxious?

• 6:54Speaker 00

  I, I, I absolutely think that. And I think that, um, being so attuned and listen, I'm not saying I had some like supernatural talent for empathy, but I think from such an early age, being so, so in tune with that, I think even made me probably a pretty good DJ. Cause it's like, as a, as a DJ, you're trying to read the room. You're walking into a room, you're looking at 300 people, most of whom you've never seen in your life. And you're like, how am I gonna get these people open? Like what mood, what's the first song? So I think there's that. And then I think absolutely dealing with superstars, it doesn't even have to be a superstar, but incredibly talented artists. We all know sometimes the more talented, the more complicated, you know?

• 7:38Speaker 00

  So dealing with these people and as a producer, your job is to just make them feel as safe and as vulnerable as possible. So I think, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, working with people who write songs in this place of like real heartbreak and heartache, like whether it's Amy Winehouse or Yeeba or whoever, like there's a moment at which you can't make them sing that song one more time. That might be just the time that like emotionally they crack. You're always navigating this, this thing. So I think absolutely like being in tune with people's emotions is something that's benefited me much later in my life.

• 8:19Elizabeth Day?

  You made a conscious decision not to write about Amy Winehouse or Lady Gaga and to set this book in a very specific period of time. Why was that?

• 8:31Speaker 00

  I hope there might be a time when I write about the later years and working with Amy and other experiences that I've had, but I really felt certain about making this just within the 90s because I wanted to celebrate DJing and I wanted to celebrate the kind of DJing, like not standing superstar DJ standing on a stage at a festival with 10,000 people, but like a gigging DJ, like five nights a week, the ins and outs of that, the highs and the super lows of like, you know, you're just in the club by yourself at the end of the night as the lights come on most nights. So I just, I knew I wanted to be about this era. And then as I started to get into it, I was like, what was it that

• 9:15Speaker 00

  brought us all together, these like night people? So a little bit more of a, you know, without stepping out of my pay grade, a psychological examination of what brought all these people together at night. But there's a difference between people who enjoy a night out and then night people. And night people are the kind that just like, they live for the night, whether it's dance, to go out, it can be drugs, it can be a lot of things. But what was it that brought us all together?

• 9:45Elizabeth Day?

  And for anyone who has yet to read it, what was your conclusion?

• 9:49Speaker 00

  God, that's really a good question. Did I come to a conclusion? I think it was, it was all different reasons. You know, there were some people that went out because they loved the music. There were people that went out to hook up. There were people that just almost a little damaged, like people that day was just a bit too harsh. Like maybe you're running from something in your reality. Maybe you didn't think that you lived up to society's expectations or your family's expectations. And night provided this armor for a lot of people. And maybe sometimes it was the drinks, drinking and drugs that also helped, like a little bit of that as well. The armor, of course, we know it does.

• 10:29Elizabeth Day?

  You also talk about when you experimented with heroin and met David Blaine shortly afterwards.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. You know, I tried to keep it as diaristic as possible, like I'm writing in that era, even though I didn't keep a diary, I wish that I had. I had to interview like 200 people to get all these stories straight for the book. But yeah, they were amazing people at that. In that time that went on to be superstars. So even when I first see Beyonce in the club for the first time, as ridiculous as it sounds, I'm like, this girl named Beyonce, who sings in Destiny's Child, was there hanging out. And David Blaine, and there were these people just at the beginning of their career, that time in New York in the 90s. And David Blaine would just be in the club doing tricks. Like, that's kind of how everybody got to know

• 11:17Speaker 00

  him. He would just come up to you and go like, hey, wanna see some magic? And, you know, that's kind of how he made his name. I remember being on heroin. I didn't, I'd never done heroin. I'd sort of did it by accident, but the way that I was so cavalier about taking drugs, it probably wasn't a surprise. I snorted something that somebody put in front of me. I'm not saying I'm especially proud of it. But, um, yes, and I was stumbling through this club called The Tunnel. And I was just having this terrible, sort of like meltdown, out of body experience. And then David Blaine just came up to me and was like, hey, wanna see some magic? And I was just like,

• 11:56Speaker 00

  already on another dimension. He bit a coin in half, spit it into himself, made it reappear, and to the point where I just really had no idea what was actually really happening anymore.

• 12:08Elizabeth Day?

  What was Blaine and what was the heroin?

• 12:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 12:12Elizabeth Day?

  Before we get onto your failures, I want to ask, if you're still a night person, you're now the father of two young girls. So has, has your night personhood served you well?

• 12:23Speaker 00

  It's so funny, you know, I met my wife Grace during COVID, so we really had this relationship in the way that it started. Of course, she knew that I had been a DJ, but the way that we were first together, and she didn't see any of that side of me, never saw me DJ even for the first few years we were together. And then, you know, we have these two amazing daughters. But as a result of the book, I've kind of gone back to DJing. And something about it just triggered like, I want to go out and play vinyl again. I want to play in some clubs, play in some underground places, just show up with records. So, you know, now I like come home at three in the morning. She's like, I can't like, she's in a sweet way.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  I was like, I can't believe this book has like made you go back to a night person. Like I married a DJ, didn't I? I was like, sort of, but I definitely had left most of that time behind. But it's no surprise the book has reopened a little bit of that.

• 13:23Elizabeth Day?

  But I guess when you come back at 3am, you can do the feeds.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, you can do the feeds and, you know, I don't need a lot of sleep. I'm pretty lucky, so I'm up at 6:30 anyway.

• 13:34Elizabeth Day?

  Your first failure is, as you put it, the Jay-Z approach disaster.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:42Elizabeth Day?

  Tell us this story.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  There's, there's quite a few people in the book that, that start off as these characters that, you know, I like really hero worship, like Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, Jay-Z. And then as I, you know, kind of get a little further in my career, they start to be in the clubs and we start to almost, with Q-Tip, we became really good friends with Jay-Z. You know, he started to know my name, come to where I DJed. They go from being these heroes on your record sleeves to these people that you actually know. So, but early on with Jay-Z, there was a club night that I used to do on a Tuesday that one night him and Biggie came down to. And it was such a big deal because Biggie was the king of New York at that time.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Jay-Z was like, sort of like the prince, like he only had one or two records out, but they, they came down. And, and so I was at this other nightclub once on a Monday and I saw Jay-Z. And I'd had a few drinks and I was thinking to myself, you know, What a great time to just go up to Jay-Z and just say something really, really intelligent and insightful that's just gonna make him so curious about me and we'll be best friends by the end of the night and he'll be saying, "Call me Jigga," you know, and we're toasting Cristal. But I was kinda tipsy and as I was thinking of what to say, sometimes in a really packed club, there's almost like a current in the club and I remember just being like pushed right in front of him.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Before I really thought of anything to say and I don't think I had anything intelligent to say anyway to him.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Cause the truth was, I just wanted him to think I was probably cool or something. And I said, "Uh, I play all your songs." The absolute most inane thing I could have said, like, "I'm the DJ Tuesday night, you come down and hear me play," like anything. It was just like, I could have literally been anyone, could have said like, "I have an iPod." So, and then just as I really got to, you know, barely finished the line, you know, the, the club current like was like kinda pushes me away from him. And I can see out the corner of my eyes, I look back, like, he actually, probably because I was drunk in the manner that I went up to him, thought like maybe I was like a heckler or something or like some kid being a wise ass.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Cause I saw him like slightly tense up and say to his friend, like, "What'd that kid say?" You know? And, uh, and, uh, his friend's just like, "I don't know, like probably a fan or something." And I think I just like, I wouldn't say I was like absolutely shattered because I knew like the way that I gone up to him, like what was I actually really expecting? But, um, there was this slight like embarrassed, um, thing as I, you know, made my way through the club.

• 16:33Elizabeth Day?

  The mortification.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, a light mortification. For some reason, everybody has like, you know, I, I get together with some of my friends, um, Friend Ezra, who's in this, leads in on this band Vampire Weekend. Like, everybody's got a really good mortifying Jay-Z story from somewhere early in their career. Yeah, because I think everybody loves Jay-Z. So everybody, everybody at some point has like gone up to Jay-Z and tried to say something. And I'm, I'm sure like, I wonder if Jay-Z just keeps a tally of like all the people. Like he can just flip through a magazine and be like, yeah, that, I remember that person said some dumb shit. That person, that person made an ass out of themselves. Yeah, something about Jay-Z, the power that he, he wields.

• 17:17Elizabeth Day?

  Have you ever crossed paths with him since?

• 17:20Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, very much.

• 17:21Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  I mean, I've never reminded him of that story. Like, I don't think that he would even remember. And he figures importantly in the book because he was just such an important part of, of New York and how the scene transformed in the late 90s.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  And then, you know, he rapped on a remix of Rehab with, he was a huge Amy fan. He was at Amy's first ever show in, in New York at Joe's Pub.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  I remember it was on Valentine's Day. That's a weird fact that stays in my mind. So, yeah, there, um, yeah, he's, we've had a, I would say, a basic, normal relationship since that.

• 18:02Elizabeth Day?

  Well, he listens to this podcast regularly, so now he'll know this story.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  Now he'll know, yeah.

• 18:08Elizabeth Day?

  But when you see someone like that for the first time, you mentioned earlier seeing Beyonce, and she just came hung out in the club. Can you tell that there is star quality there?

• 18:18Speaker 00

  I think so. I mean, anybody on that level of Beyonce or Jay-Z, like certainly radiates something. Jay-Z was, I don't want to use the word remarkable or unique, but Jay-Z was just so memorable because I just remember seeing him cut through the club and he must have been like, he's a couple of years older than me. I was 20, he was probably 24, DJing in the club. And he was just like a force. I don't know what it is. And then there was such a sense of, even at that age, I just remember he just had this like kind of poise. I don't want to use these cheesy words like magnetism. It wasn't that, it was just like, he was just serious and yes, and kind of intimidating because everybody knew like, you know, he rapped about his street rap and everything else.

• 19:07Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD, because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialized treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's exposure and response prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable, so you can live more of the life you want to

• 19:51Elizabeth Day?

  live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. You have described yourself in the past as a people pleaser who longed to be cool. And this anecdote, I feel, really illuminates quite a bit of that.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Right, yeah.

• 20:15Elizabeth Day?

  Where are you now on your journey with people pleasing?

• 20:18Speaker 00

  I think I've definitely mellowed out. There's still some old habits die hard. There's just, there's something probably still in me that, like, some kind of validation or something, or to people to think you're cool. But yeah, I've grown up a lot. I don't feel that happening too much anymore. But I don't think it's because I've learned to hide it better. I've just, like, got better at playing it cool. I think that I probably have gotten better at needing people's, the validation of strangers. But that is a big part of DJing. You know, that's a big part of why I loved it. And in the 90s and late 90s in New York, we hung out with, for some reason, I hung out with DJs and stand-up comedians. We all,

• 21:02Speaker 00

  like, hung out together, I think, because it was same things, kind of late hours. You all get off work around the same time. It's 150 bucks in cash. And, you know, it was this era where Dave Chappelle and all these really talented comedians, you could just go into the Comedy Cellar, go see him on any night, and then walk over to the club. And it's, I felt like there was a strong parallel between...

• 21:28Speaker 00

  Comedians and DJs, even in the way that like, we both use the word kill and we both play clubs and for crowds and our entire thing revolves around the validation of strangers in a room. You're just going to a room of people you've never seen and you have to win them over.

• 21:44Elizabeth Day?

  And you get immediate feedback as well.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 21:47Elizabeth Day?

  Whereas putting a podcast episode out or writing a book, it's not as immediate or present or in your face.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, or making a record. No, absolutely. And it's, and there's also something I write about briefly in the book. It's like, I'm sure it must be the same, I imagine, for stand up, stand ups. Like, you can have the best night, you can have 300 people, but if there's one person that just is not having a good time or didn't dance, you just go home and you're haunted by that person's face until you fall asleep.

• 22:17Elizabeth Day?

  I think it goes back to control again, doesn't it? I mean, I speak as a fellow people pleaser.

• 22:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:22Elizabeth Day?

  And I realized after a while that I was, I guess, you're trying to control other people's responses to you in order to feel safe. So that all connects as well. But I'm very interested in the idea of self-esteem. Do you think great creativity thrives if you have lower self-esteem or higher self-esteem?

• 22:45Speaker 00

  It's tough to, I know, drive and ambition, you can definitely connect to lower self-esteem, I'm sure, because you just constantly feel you have to prove yourself. Creativity is interesting because I'm sure that there are well-adjusted people, and I don't know many, so I'm just saying, I'm sure there are, but who are incredibly creative and, you know, through all the, I hate to use all these things, but like, the therapy and all the work and the things I've done, I certainly have less of those drivers that come from, you know, needing to prove myself, low self-esteem, whatever that is. But creativity, that's the one thing that.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  I still see as this pure little beam in the middle of it all. So you have drivers, ambitions and all the things that can drive you to do all the work and stay in the studio till four in the morning. But creativity is like, almost just like the newborn baby that's just pure. And I'm not sure if that's really affected by esteem or not.

• 23:51Elizabeth Day?

  Beautifully put.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  Thanks.

• 23:53Elizabeth Day?

  Can you talk to me about how you came up with Uptown Funk?

• 23:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uptown Funk came out of a jam with Bruno. And actually, it kind of was like a definitely linked to a, there's a failure origin story. So we had this song called Magic that had nothing to do with the song Bruno went on to do 24 karat magic. And it was a song that was leftover from Bruno's album, Unorthodox Jukebox, that I'd worked on. And I was convinced this was going to be like a huge hit. And it had this great hook and it had this cool beat. And I was working on my album and I was like, Bruno, can we finish this song Magic? Can we just do it for my album? And he was like, yeah. And every time, get in the studio, crank it loud and sit back for maybe like, man, isn't this great? And everybody was like, yeah.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  And then after like 20 minutes, just couldn't write a shred of lyric, nothing else on it other than this little hook, just wasn't moving anyone. And so we just decided to take a break for a second and we're like, let's just jam on something else, fuck it. And Bruno got behind the drums and he had this really modest, tiny studio at the time. And the drum kit was like, basically in the fax machine closet. It was like a tiny cocktail kit, which is just like three drums. And I think he was like, it was like a, almost like a child's kit. Bruno's playing, I'm playing bass, our friend Jeff Bask is playing keys. And we just jammed for like five hours and we just got the basic doon. Just like, just a disco groove that was fun.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  We didn't come up with the doo doo doo till much later, but we wrote the whole first verse that night. And we were like, wow, this is exciting. So, but that's all we had. And then every time we got back together to try and finish the song, we could never match that like.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Brand new excitement of the first night. If things started to feel forced and labored and didn't match that like this here, that white gold, like this really initial excitement. So it took seven months. Sometimes we'd get together for three days to write and all we'd get was like maybe two lines, like the Jackson, Mississippi, you know, that part. And Bruno was on tour. And then by the end of three days, everybody would just had it with each other. Tempers were flaring with like frustrations kind of. And, and then I'd wait two weeks for everybody just to calm down and be like, hey, you guys wanna get together, try and finish that song? And, and then after seven months, we kind of got it to a place we were all happy with.

• 26:23Elizabeth Day?

  That's amazing. So you always knew that there was something there, that it was worth, it was worth pushing through.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  I did. And honestly, I had the most at stake because it was for my album. So like, I kind of needed, I was like, I can't, I can't afford to like ditch this song fully. Bruno was on tour, this giant arena tour. So I'd just get on a plane with my bass, just go wherever he was and we'd just keep chipping away at the song.

• 26:49Elizabeth Day?

  What's your relationship with that song like now?

• 26:52Speaker 00

  It's, it's just so beyond me, like meaning it doesn't belong to me. It's such an interesting thing. I mean, obviously we were so excited when it came out and, because it didn't sound like anything on the radio at the time. It was all a bit of a risk. I remember someone at my record company saying like, I don't know, do you wanna put funk in the titles or another title you could possibly call it? Cause it's a little like, like there were just all these reasons. It was four minutes long. Everyone was like, can you make a radio edit? We tried all these things to make radio edits, it didn't work.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  So it was, it was always like a bit of a roll of the dice. So then when it started to blow out, we were obviously over the moon. And then when it became a hit and then six months later, it was like, oh, my friends with the young children. And it sort of went, made its way, it became a children's song and then a wedding song. And it's just, it's just incredible. Like I am, as you know, I, I write in the book like. Even though it's a wedding song now, like I heard it's been banned, actually, like some brides ban it from the wedding because they don't want the whole best man choreo. But I made sure to say I'm as proud of it as anything I've ever done because it's not a slight to that song, but it really is just like, it's part of the kind of ether almost now, you know?

• 28:10Elizabeth Day?

  I remember when I first heard it and I remember it sounding so original, but also so cool. And cool is something that you, Mark Watson, strive to be. And from my perspective, I think you achieve it. But there's a very funny bit in your acknowledgements of the book where you say you did a word search for cool. One of your friends told you to do a word search and you'd used it 73 times.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:31Elizabeth Day?

  You've now used it 31 times.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:33Elizabeth Day?

  Do you feel, do you feel cool?

• 28:37Speaker 00

  I mean, at this point, I know I'm all right. There's cool, there's like MIA and Travis Scott and like cool, Scissor, cool in that way, like I'll never be, like I made my peace with that. But I think like, what's cool is like, if you're around long enough and you make good music that people like, sort of get somewhere in the end. But I don't really care so much about being cool anymore. And then you reminded me with the, in the acknowledgements, so like, my wife's grace, her cousin Abe, is a really beautiful writer and has written some incredible books and writes for The New Yorker and all these things. So when I

• 29:18Speaker 00

  had finished the book and I thought it was done, I showed it to him and he was like,

• 29:25Speaker 00

  there's a permanence to books. And I was like, okay, how long do I need? He's like, I think you need three months. And I asked my editor and he was like, I can get you six weeks, which I then did stretch to three months. But I really went so deep back into the book and Abe, and then he put me with his features editor at The New Yorker and they just, I went to school for 18 hours a day rewriting the whole thing, putting it,

• 29:51Speaker 00

  you know, on much more under, I don't know, just a deeper lens. And that was one of the things. He was like, you cannot use the word cool 73 times. You have to dig deeper in your lexicon than that.

• 30:03Elizabeth Day?

  Your second failure is the shattering of your guitar dreams.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:08Elizabeth Day?

  So growing up, you always wanted to be a lead guitarist, is that right?

• 30:11Speaker 00

  I did, you know, I was, you know, I played guitar. I listened to Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and Living Color and all these kind of shreddy bands and then Guns N' Roses and I wanted to be like that. And I was in this band with another guitar player who actually technically was ridiculously gifted and can play all those crazy solos. And I was the rhythm guitar player, but like, I just, that wasn't my thing. And I was coming to terms with the fact that I just didn't have those chops. And then my best friend, who I write about in the book, Sean Lennon, we were always about the same level as musicians.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  And he came back from a summer and, I don't know, he'd been studying and was just so far beyond me. I just remember thinking like, if that's what being a guitarist sounds like, I need to just find a new thing. And it just sort of happened at the same time I was really falling in love with hip hop music and I didn't know anything about rapping or making beats. So I was like DJing. This is this one art form in this thing, this music that I love so much that I could maybe do. So it made me switch to DJing. But yeah, I had this like, you know, this kind of like ridiculous fantasy of like being like Slash with the top hat, no shirt on stage shredding a Les Paul, but it just, that

• 31:36Speaker 00

  wasn't supposed to be me.

• 31:38Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think being average at certain things can lead to you being brilliant to others?

• 31:43Speaker 00

  I absolutely think that for being a producer, which is what I went on to do, it was really great that I had like rudimentary or maybe above rudimentary knowledge of all these different things, a little bit of guitar, bass, piano. But yes, because I never had a virtuosic talent that was like pointed the way like, this is what you go do. I had to find it. It took me much longer, but then by the time I found it, I had these little tools in my box because of these, all these other things I had tried.

• 32:20Elizabeth Day?

  Talk to me a bit about friendship because you write so lovingly of Sean in the book and you express that time when he moved away, I think you were 14 and you express it as heartbreak.

• 32:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:33Elizabeth Day?

  Can you tell me a bit more about that? Because I think friendship is so underplayed in our modern culture.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. There was that recent meme that went around in. America where I live of like, uh, guys calling each other up just before bedtime just to say goodnight, but not telling anybody. It was like in this bro culture. It was suddenly like, just calling up like, hey, man, just thinking about you, just calling to say goodnight, partly just to see what kind of weird reactions you might get. But yeah, maybe male friendship is still a thing that we don't, we don't feel quite as comfortable with beyond like, love you, man. But um, yeah, with Sean, we were best friends. I'd finally felt like I'd sort of found like a musical kindred spirit and somebody

• 33:20Speaker 00

  who, and Sean was just so wonderful and charming and magnetic. And he was my best friend. And I probably even looked up to him in some ways. And, and I remember him calling me one summer to say like, hey, so I'm going to go off to boarding school in Europe with, with Max. And Max was our other really close friend. There were three of us. And he was like, but well, you know, we'll still have the summers to jam, right? Like, you know, he was trying to sort of like, keep this sunny side for me. But I also knew they were about to go off and have the best time ever. And I was just like, yeah, but I did. It was my first heartbreak in some ways. Cause I, you know, those were, those are my best

• 34:04Speaker 00

  friends. That was sort of my life at that time. But then by then moving away, I had to put my own band together and, you know, it led to other things.

• 34:13Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm. And how important is friendship still to you now? Because you also have a bevy of siblings and half siblings. I know you're all very close.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:21Elizabeth Day?

  So, but it, does friendship perform a different function?

• 34:24Speaker 00

  It doesn't. Because I've had children, you know, a bit later in life, like, it's so hard beyond the work and just the time that you want to spend with family, keeping those relationships. Like, I've felt some of my friendships, like, then not what they were. And that makes me a little bit sad, but there's just like, there are not enough hours in the day. But I, I really value friendship. I think I'm really lucky that also a lot of the people that I work with, my songwriting partner, Andrew, like, I spend so many days in a tiny room or just in a very close confines with people that I really love. And

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Working with people on records,

• 35:12Speaker 00

  do you do have these sort of like very intense, quick friendships as well? Because you're, you know, working with duos, somebody like, you know,

• 35:24Speaker 00

  you're absorbing everything that they're going through in their life. And you're, you know, and when they happen to be really great, wonderful people as well, you, um, you do become friends. But it's definitely something that I've really noticed lately.

• 35:40Elizabeth Day?

  It sounds a bit like your job is also a therapist.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:45Elizabeth Day?

  And you mentioned, although I know you feel uneasy talking about it, that you have been in therapy yourself. And I wonder if part of that is a bit like you needed a therapist, almost like a supervisor.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  I think I always thought therapy was something loosely like, oh, you're in trouble or you're having anxiety attacks or something like that. It's good to check in. I didn't think of it was really something to like have consistently in my life. And then after my first marriage ended, I noticed that the series of relationships that I was in afterwards were actually getting worse and worse than, than even my marriage. I was like, man, how am I getting like, I should be getting better after this. I really need, I want to say kick in the ass, but it sounds like I'm trying to make light of it. But I do, I need to figure this out.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  So I did actually find somebody who was quite intense and put rules of, basically rules of conduct and whatever, you're not going to date anyone for six months. You're going to sort yourself out. I went to this place called Hoffman as well. I don't think that having, dealing with some of the emotional baggage of these incredibly wonderful, complicated artists was like.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Getting heaved on to me, but I do think that you can definitely use it as a way to ignore skirt issues that you're dealing with in your own life because you can just take on other people's baggage or just use it as a way. Work was always something that I used to like blot out any kind of dealing with personal stuff as well.

• 37:29Elizabeth Day?

  Hard relate.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:31Elizabeth Day?

  I'm also someone who was married, got divorced, made some dubious life choices. So I could and is addicted to work. If I have an addiction, it is that.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:39Elizabeth Day?

  You mentioned earlier that you met your wife Grace during COVID.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:44Elizabeth Day?

  How did that happen?

• 37:45Speaker 00

  I had met Grace on one or two other occasions and I always was just impressed by her and I had a crush on her, but the timing was never right. And so in September 2020,

• 38:03Speaker 00

  a mutual friend of ours just knew that we were both single at the same time and played matchmaker. And it was all, it was that really, you know, I can't remember exactly what it was like in London at the time or in England, but in New York, it was definitely like you were looking out for your family. You were go, if you're going on a date, you were, somebody was getting tested. You're asking them like, had they been around anybody in the past five days? But yes, so we met in that time. And then I think because I wasn't traveling like crazy and working like crazy, we had such a lovely intense period of spending time. It's almost like we got to know each other in six months, what might've been three years during any other time. And then we were married eight months later.

• 38:48Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so happy for you.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 38:50Elizabeth Day?

  How do you feel about turning 50?

• 38:53Speaker 00

  I haven't really thought about it in the way that like, I mean, it's undeniably sounds like a big milestone, that's for sure. But there's no part of me that like wants to have like some crazy celebration or I did that on my 40th. I feel fine with it. It's just like, I want to be somewhere with my Grace and my two kids somewhere. I'm not, yeah, I guess my life is a bit different.

• 39:20Elizabeth Day?

  I mean, I said before we started recording, your skin is excellent.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 39:24Elizabeth Day?

  I mean, you could definitely pass for, I would say like 32.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  Maybe thirty-nine, forty-two. But thank you, thanks.

• 39:32Elizabeth Day?

  Do you have a special skincare regime? I do sometimes ask men this.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  I do not. I do not have a special regime. I have a little moisturizer, that's really it.

• 39:43Elizabeth Day?

  Just blessed, genetically blessed.

• 39:47Speaker 02

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• 40:06Speaker 03

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• 40:10Speaker 02

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• 40:16Speaker 04

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• 40:45Elizabeth Day?

  Your final failure is your first solo album tanking.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:52Elizabeth Day?

  And then you say you were sent into industry exile.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:55Elizabeth Day?

  Which is a particularly strong term, but tell us the story.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, so my first album came out and here comes the fuzz. I don't think I had huge expectations for it anyway. I just, you know, I'd made my name as a DJ in New York. I just produced this album for this artist, Nika Costa, that was kind of like, you know, people were really into. And I just couldn't believe that some record company was giving me a blank checkbook to make songs with people that I loved, like Jack White and Mos Def and MOP and Q-Tip. So I made this record. And I hadn't really thought about whether it was going to be successful or not. But then when it came out and it really tanked, it was suddenly like, oh, God, like, yeah, nobody cares about this record.

• 41:43Speaker 00

  The thing that was the saving grace really was that I'd made the record in such this New York lens, you know, I'm a DJ in New York. I want things to do well in New York, you know, like those, I want the people who I see every week to be like pumping my records. And what had happened that was a really unexpected turn was that the record actually did much better in the UK and Oui was like, you know, kind of top 15 hit here. And it made me realize that, oh, even though I left England when I was seven, it's obvious that this growing up here has had some kind of influence on my music and it would make sense that why it's like embraced here.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  So I started to come back to London quite a lot to DJ and do gigs and then just really reconnect with this English part of me. But, um, yeah, the, the album just really tanked and I think I got dropped by the label like maybe two weeks after the album came out, like they weren't taking any chances. They were just like, all right, we're cutting you loose. And because I had to pay, I was booked on some late night show and I remember having to paying like on air miles to get Ghostface Killer to come out to LA so he could like perform on the show. So, yeah, it was really like that kind of thing and like in the movies where you call and then suddenly the people that were talking to you a week ago and no longer taking your calls is exactly what happened.

• 43:09Elizabeth Day?

  How did that make you feel?

• 43:10Speaker 00

  It was certainly a downer. I mean, I do think that at the time, luckily, the combination of low expectations or low self-esteem or whatever it comes from, definitely.

• 43:24Speaker 00

  In some weird way, help because I probably hadn't expected it to be huge anyway, but it was a sobering reality. And I went back to doing music for TV commercials and just like anything that I could, just because at that point, just to keep the lights on. But this one, you know, silver lining of the of the record doing well in the UK, or slightly better, was that this A and R person from EMI named Guy Moot remembered it and he introduced me to Amy Winehouse. So when Amy was in New York, he was like, you know, I've got this girl, Amy Winehouse. And I was like, yeah, I remember Frank. I love that song in my bed. And he's like, she's in New York for a day. Do you want

• 44:09Speaker 00

  to meet her? And I was like, yeah, sure. Send it up to my studio. And then we met that day. And then literally wrote Back to Black that night, the next day. So there was this thing that even though this record that I had made kind of for New York, intending a New York audience, completely bombed in New York, had a little bit of a ripple in England, but then led to me meeting Amy and then Lily Allen as well.

• 44:36Elizabeth Day?

  When you met Amy for the first time, and then that evening wrote Back to Black, would you describe it as a kind of falling in love?

• 44:44Speaker 00

  Yes. She came up to my studio, like falling in love in a platonic sense, like just like this person who like is just so funny and entertaining and it just has such an instant connection where she could be a sister or someone I knew growing up. Yeah, she just came up and we had this talk and I said, what do you want your record to sound like? And she said, well, they play all this music down at my local. And she played me all this 60s girl group stuff. And she left and I just wanted to make something because she was supposed to go back to London the next day. I was like, I just have to make something that's exciting enough to this girl that she's going to want to stay

• 45:26Speaker 00

  in New York for two more days or something to make music. And that night, just like had the inspiration from her and came up with the piano for Back to Black, just really sparse demo. And she came in and heard it the next day and she was, she wrote the lyrics in about an hour or something.

• 45:45Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so aware when I ask you about this of the legendary status of that album, also of Amy, and that you get asked about it a lot. And it must also be incredibly grief soaked for you. And I wonder how that feels, the combination.

• 46:04Speaker 00

  I think when I think of us making the record, there's no grief at all. Like, I only just remember the

• 46:13Speaker 00

  spark of her and inspiration and just, you know. I think it's only when I start to think about later and, you know, what happened when she sort of fell back into addiction and those things that it starts to get, obviously, into those, you know, darker, sad grief soaked, as you say, things. But it's all of those things. It's tough. Sometimes I can hear, I mean, I hear the music so much, it could be in a restaurant or walking through an airport and hear Valerie and it's sort of like a sunny, lovely feeling. Or sometimes it just goes past me and then hearing maybe Back to Black

• 46:56Speaker 00

  or something that's a little more, you know, desperate and heart wrenching is some of those sometimes are hard to listen to.

• 47:05Elizabeth Day?

  It must be so strange that you've orchestrated this soundtrack for so many people that you catch snatches of as you go about your daily life and they take you right back to the place where they were created.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, sometimes I'd just be like at a New York Knicks game, you know, a basketball team from New York, and I'll just play uptown funk. And I'm just there on like the eighth throne and I'm just watching everybody dance. And nobody has any idea that I had anything to do with the song. And it's like, it's a, it's a nice feeling.

• 47:34Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, indulge me before we have to draw this to a close on Barbie. I just want to know everything about writing that soundtrack. And because it's so brilliant, but it's so fun and funny at the same time as not losing any artistic integrity.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:48Elizabeth Day?

  How do you go about something like that?

• 47:51Speaker 00

  I think it's the same thing that like.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  I read the script, the same thing we were talking about a little bit with meeting Amy. I read the script. It was so brilliant and so heartfelt and moving and so clever. And I spoke to Greta Gerwig. I met her on a Zoom and I was just like, I just remember like just having this ball, this wellspring of like inspiration. And we were originally only supposed to do two songs. There was the dance number, what became Dance the Night. And she was like, and can you just write a Ken song? Like, just meaning like, maybe in the credits, we'll have a song about Ken. And so I came up with the idea for I'm Just Ken and wrote a demo with my partner,

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Andrew, and sent it. And she was like, I love this. I think I want Ryan to sing this. I played it for Ryan. He digs it. We're going to put it in the movie. It was just such a crazy thing to go from like, writing a demo and loving this script to being like, no, your song's actually going to be in there like with our words, you know? And then as it went from being two songs, like, well, let's maybe try some more songs. And then Billie, she knew Billie Eilish a little bit from, I think they had crossed paths at something. And Billie was a big fan of Greta and said she wanted to write a song. And then in two or three weeks, Billie and Finneas sent us the demo of what was I made for. And then we were just floored by that.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  And then Greta asked us to do the score. So we started to weave, you know, little bits of all these songs into the score. And it was just such a fun. It was sort of like, if a year long thing could be a whirlwind, like it was just, it just became my life. Like, there were Barbies and Kens all around the studio. It was just like, I was just fully immersed in it. So it was great.

• 49:47Elizabeth Day?

  Final question, just because I've always wanted to ask you. Do you dream in music? Do your dreams have a soundtrack?

• 49:54Speaker 00

  It's very rare that I've woken up, oh my God, what's that melody? I've got to sing it into the phone.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  No, actually, maybe my dreams are sadly devoid of music because maybe that's like the only place I can go to that's just like free of music. I'm not sure. Now, most of the music what I listen to is what our two-year-old daughter wants to listen to around the house, too. So it's like, when you say, listen to music, like, I'm just thinking either of like, everything from, she likes The Wheels on the Bus and things like that, but then she loves Joni Mitchell and then she loves Chapel Rhone and she loves like old dance hall like Sister Nancy. It's, it's kind of amazing watching what she gravitates to.

• 50:41Elizabeth Day?

  Mark Ronson, it's been such a pleasure talking to you on How to Fail. Thank you.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 50:47Elizabeth Day?

  Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.