Yahoo Lifestyle Frankly Speaking With Mark Ronson
Jackie Frank and Mark Ronson. Photo: Jason Ierace
Jackie Frank: Growing up, your father was a band manager and your mother was a socialite. According to her, your love of music showed itself very early on. What are your recollections of that time?
Mark Ronson: My parents were young when they had us. They were living in London and they liked to, shall we say, party. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and there would be 100 people in the living room at 2am and music blaring. I would just go and sit in front of the speakers. I’d be like this two-foot munchkin navigating my way through, to go and listen and play air drums.
JF: I heard that when you were seven years old you asked Keith Richards about [guitar] chords. Is that right?
MR: No, that’s definitely not what happened. I’ve never met Keith Richards. That’s kind of like the internet, you know.
JF: One of the folk tales around your family.
MR: It happens a little bit. I understand, because it wasn’t a completely normal childhood, but things definitely get blown out of proportion.
JF: Let’s try another ... were you really saved from drowning by Paul McCartney in the Hamptons? I heard it was a story your mother told, but you didn’t believe it and then you met him.
MR: Yeah, he basically corroborated it. So that was one of her stories where I was like, “OK, well, that was true.”
JF: On the topic of celebrities, you were hired to DJ at Tom Cruise’s wedding [to Katie Holmes in 2006]. Did he have any special requests?
MR: I remember asking [him]. You always want to be prepared for one of the most special nights in somebody’s life, whether it’s a movie star or whoever. But, no, at that time I was playing at a lot of hip-hop clubs in LA and that was the kind of music they [wanted].
JF: But you did play the theme song from Top Gun? Did you mix it?
MR: I did. I mixed it with the drums from “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani – those heavy brooo-brum-brum [beats]. I always just loved the Top Gun thing when I was a kid. I did the mix, [but] couldn’t look up because I was concentrating so hard on keeping the speed of the two turntables locked. But my friend was standing next to me and was telling me, “Hey man, he [Tom] is like shooting you the fingers and the thumbs up for this mix.”
To read the full interview, pick up our May issue with Kate Hudson on the cover, out now.
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