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"Those of you who haven&amp;#039;t heard Mark Ronson&amp;#039;s new single might be in for a shock. The man behind the brass-laden covers album Version - which angered as many Smiths/Radiohead fans as it entertained - has seemingly gone back to his hip-hop DJ roots and there&amp;#039;s nary a trumpet in earshot! Ahead of the release of his Record Collection album, we caught up with Mark to quiz him about the passing of the so-called &amp;quot;Ronson Sound&amp;quot;, that pesky &amp;quot;Celeb DJ&amp;quot; label, and what it was like to get behind the mike - yes, really! - as well as the mixing desk. Why isn&amp;#039;t your new album credited just to &amp;#039;Mark Ronson&amp;#039;? &amp;quot;As we were making the record, it became quite evident that it was the handiwork of a bunch of people. I knew I wanted to go into the studio with four or five of my favourite musicians and just write - as opposed to Version, which was very much me alone in the studio playing all the instruments and making all the beats.&amp;quot; So where did the title &amp;#039;The Business Intl&amp;#039; come from? &amp;quot;My old manager, Dom, had just seen the Nick Love movie The Business. It&amp;#039;s about a bunch of English guys selling ecstasy in the Costal del Sol in the &amp;#039;80s and because he&amp;#039;s American, that seemed really exotic to him. He was like, &amp;#039;The Business would work for you, don&amp;#039;t you think? You guys wear the suits and all that s**t&amp;#039;. I didn&amp;#039;t want to have something with an &amp;#039;s&amp;#039; on it - like Mark Ronson and the Wardrobes, or Neckties, or f**king Chest Of Drawers.&amp;quot; Have you made a conscious effort to move away from the &amp;#039;Mark Ronson Sound&amp;#039;? &amp;quot;I was definitely aware of being extremely synonymous with a certain sound - there&amp;#039;s this running punchline of Mark Ronson and his Merry Band of Trumpeteers or whatever. Most artists are pretty thin-skinned whatever they have you believe. You read that enough about yourself and you think, &amp;#039;F**k, maybe I do need to change up?&amp;#039;. Every now and then you need a shot in the arm from somewhere to do something different. I think if Version hadn&amp;#039;t been as successful as it was, and if not that many people had heard it, maybe I&amp;#039;d still be doing those kind of arrangements.&amp;quot; Is it fair to call Record Collection a return to the sound of your first LP ? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a return to the spirit and attitude. There are parallels - it&amp;#039;s got raps from Q-Tip and Ghostface, who were also on the first LP. I&amp;#039;ve always been drawn to strong rhythm sections and powerful beats. Yes, it probably does have more in common with Here Comes The Fuzz than Version.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;ve heard that you actually sing on the album... &amp;quot;Yeah, it was pretty intimidating and it was pretty challenging too. I&amp;#039;ve been going to see a vocal coach for about six months though, so I was a little bit primed for it. I&amp;#039;d written a song with Jonathan from The Drums and he wasn&amp;#039;t available to sing it, so I just thought I&amp;#039;d try it. When Jonathan played it to his band, they thought it was him singing, so I obviously did a decent impression!&amp;quot; Would you ever be tempted to make a full-on singer-songwritery album? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think I really make singer-songwritery-type music - it&amp;#039;s not my strong point. I don&amp;#039;t know if I&amp;#039;d ever sing a whole album because I don&amp;#039;t know if I&amp;#039;d want to hear my voice for more than three or four songs. That said, you never know what you&amp;#039;re going to do next. It&amp;#039;s good to surprise yourself sometimes whether it&amp;#039;s good or bad.&amp;quot; As a man with your own label, what do you think about the future of the industry? &amp;quot;Sales dip 12-13% every year and you wonder at what point that&amp;#039;s going to plateau or if the bottom&amp;#039;s going to drop out. Thom Yorke&amp;#039;s being the arbiter of doom and saying that record labels are going to be over in six months, but I can&amp;#039;t imagine they are. A label like XL - which has The White Stripes, Radiohead, M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend - prove you can thrive if you do it right.&amp;quot; But have the glory days gone? &amp;quot;You know, I recently went to [producer] Nellee Hooper&amp;#039;s house in London and it&amp;#039;s f**king amazing! I&amp;#039;m looking around and thinking, &amp;#039;F**k! Maybe I was born 15 years too late?&amp;#039;. You can&amp;#039;t get hung up on that though - this is the time you were born into and you just have to make the most of now.&amp;quot; What was it like performing with the Plastic Ono Band recently? &amp;quot;It was great. People didn&amp;#039;t really get it so much when Yoko first came out, but now you see Scissor Sisters and Sonic Youth and Eric Clapton lining up to play these gigs for her. Once people caught on, they realised how talented and singular she is. I read somewhere that Lady GaGa had a Yoko Ono poster on her wall when she was growing up.&amp;quot; Would you ever go back to so-called &amp;#039;Celebrity DJing&amp;#039;? &amp;quot;I made my name and reputation DJing in hip-hop clubs in New York. &amp;#039;Celebrity DJ&amp;#039; is a term that I hated. To me a celebrity DJ is someone that&amp;#039;s on Big Brother or in some kind of B-movie who gets a gig to DJ even though they&amp;#039;re not talented enough to do it. DJing is an art that I have the utmost respect for and I&amp;#039;ve been practising it since I was 17 years old. Doing Tom Cruise wedding-type things becomes the focal point of every interview and you realise that you have to cut it out if you don&amp;#039;t want to be answering questions about that.&amp;quot; Has there been any progress with the third Amy Winehouse record? &amp;quot;Not that I know of. You&amp;#039;d have to speak to somebody at her label. We made a song together about a month ago for a Quincy Jones tribute collection and that was the last time we spoke.&amp;quot; Mark Ronson releases new single &amp;#039;Bang Bang Bang&amp;#039; on July 12. The album Record Collection follows in September. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/interviews/a239871/mark-ronson/>