Questlove Supreme: Mark Ronson

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Course Love Supreme.
I am your host Quest Love.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
We have Team Supreme with us. Uh.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
You know what, guys, I've been getting a lot of
feedback on the internet's and saying that I'm not asking
enough of Team Supreme where.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Their life is right now? Someone actually, wow, they actually care,
they care.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Someone went like, yo, you used to check up on
how Fante's house is doing and any repairs.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
So I'm I'm I'm.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Asking how how's your uh, how's your time been?

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Fonte? The last month or so, it's been good man
doing doing more repairs. We did.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
We did windows and we're waiting on like windows like
the gum because like they measured something wrong so they
gotta come and replace them. But the windows, but else
I had to replace. I had to replace my age
rat unit that went out. I think that was actually
last summer that went out that went recording right No no, no,

(01:19):
my a, Yeah, so I do that.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
So did that and yeah, but other than that were
killing man. I'm cool. It's good here.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Uh Steve, how's how's your life going?

Speaker 4 (01:35):
It's going keeping it moving. I'm inspired by the reopening
of everything and hoping that have you.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Been going places? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Hell now, so you're places opening, but you're not going
to these places I'm finding.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm I'm finding my solace and work, going to going
to work every day, as as we happened for a
long time. But now that the audiences are coming back,
it's uh, it's it's another step.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
I feel you.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Last night I went to uh, I went to a
brother Love event and I think I think I stayed
of all of two minutes.

Speaker 5 (02:15):
So I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
That's the other Oh yeah, oh.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, the miss the missus wasn't happening that like this
second we walked in and it was like a nightclub.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Are they requiring at at fallon? Are they requiring like
vaccination or for the audience, like what's you gotta get?

Speaker 1 (02:39):
You gotta get vaccines and and.

Speaker 6 (02:41):
You know cars that they had the kids feeling out
at the CBS.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Oh guard homemade bootleg joints their hand. That's great. How
are you?

Speaker 6 (02:53):
I'm great, I'm great. Working a lot podcasts after the podcast.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
And you got three podcasts, you're like your like quest love.

Speaker 6 (02:59):
Here, I'm trying to be sir, I'm trying to diversify,
and by the time this podcast airs, I would have
had my first museum showing. My father would have had
his first museum showing for his photos at the National
Museum of African American Music in Tennessee. So we've been
curating that, me and Deianna for Black Music Month, and
it's been a lot and it's I'm just happy that

(03:20):
it's probably gonna be over by the time you'll have.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Word to fuck out. Congratulations, man's thanks, that's what's up.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We are honored to have
a gentleman with us. Yes, I consider him a gentleman
and a friend. He's pretty much accomplished the world in
the past two decades. Wait side question, Mark, does it
even feel like you've been You're like a you're a

(03:44):
twenty year veteran, you're a twenty three year veteran, Like, yeah,
you're You're not like our kid brother anymore.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
You're you're You're.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
I was just looking like, Wow, Martin's been doing this
shit for twenty years.

Speaker 7 (04:00):
Yeah, Mark looks old.

Speaker 5 (04:02):
That's what I was about to say. You look the same.

Speaker 7 (04:04):
No, I guess none of those things And you know.
Of course, we all know that as you get older,
pockets of time, uh they quicker because they're less a
fraction of your life. But it is bizarre, And I
think like when like, certainly to me, the people I
grew up, you know, looking up to you Q tip
like you don't like when you guys And I'm not

(04:24):
trying to blow you up turned fifty, Like I certainly
like you didn't feel fifty to me at all. Like
that's kind of bizarre, But maybe that's because I need
to just not think that anybody's older who's older than me.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
You literally, if I were to see like my memory
of you as a nineteen year old or twenty year
older versus now, I wouldn't tell the difference, right, Like
you have a you have a gene and you that
might be the cousin who black don't crack because you're
you look the same, Uh.

Speaker 7 (04:56):
You don't, stew I don't know.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
What anyway, y'all.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
You know he's accomplished musician and songwriter, producer, label CEO
and still an accomplished DJ. If that doesn't impress you,
you know, check his resume. Name him Adele Winehouse Mars
Meriwether Cyrus Wialle DiAngelo freaking Duran Duran. Oh my god,

(05:29):
I can't wait to get to that part. Seven time?
Am I getting the number right? It's definitely seven time
Grammy winner. Yes, yes, okay, including the coveted Producer of
the Year. I'm only asking that because even now, like
people keep fudging my numbers and they never get the
number five right. They're like two time Grammy winner quest
Love three times. I kind of want to be that

(05:51):
guy that's like Grammy. Yeah, you know, I can't do that.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to quest Love Supreme, the
One and only ark Onson.

Speaker 7 (06:03):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, where you Where are you right now? Mark? You're
in your your lab?

Speaker 7 (06:10):
Yeah, I'm in my lab in Soho in New York.
I just moved back in. This is the place I
actually had in the mid two thousands, right when I
met Amy. And you know, I was in this place
for a couple of years and then moved back to
England for a while, moved to la and you know,
because of COVID and people fleeing the city like they did.

(06:31):
I was walking past this building and it was actually
on Amy's birthday and I was just like like feeling
a little sentimental, like, let me just buzz up and
see what's see what's in there? So I buzzed in
the the landlord I kind of gave I have horrible
making long winded stories that don't get to the point,
so please put me.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
That's what.

Speaker 7 (06:54):
Okay. So I was like, hey, I don't know if
you remember, Mark, I used to be on the fifth
floor and I got it done, and I just thought
because I wanted to come upstairs. He's like, what, you
want to rent the space again? And I was like, yeah, yeah,
that's it. I want to rent the space again. So
I came upstairs and I see this abandoned probably what

(07:14):
was like a jingle house in between when I was
here last, and I was just like wow, I mean
and you know, New York rents are a bit of
a song right now. And I took this place back over,
so you know, I really just came in thinking of Amy.
It was her birthday. I just thought like, maybe i'll
get a little picture. I remember what that room felt like.
And then it just led to me being.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Back here, and then you got cond into ring it again.

Speaker 7 (07:37):
Yeah, but I loved I forgot this place has a
really good vibe. It was never like a very like
a name studio, like a hip factory or you know,
power station. But the but Norah Jones's first record, you know,
the big one, was made here. We did most of
Back to Black, like all the demo writing. So there's like,
you know, just places have a juju like it's just

(08:00):
just something in the walls.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
It's just.

Speaker 7 (08:03):
Kind of nice.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, I'm telling you right now, don't give it up,
because I mean I have a I have a certain
superstition when it comes to whenever producer's upgrade, and so
the place where you found that magic, and I know
in producers' minds is like.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
I gotta grow and I gotta expand. But I can
show you.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
The history of where the slow wan starts, and it's
usually when success comes in and then they upgrade, and
then they upgrade and then it's just not the same anymore.
So you know, if if this is, if that's your
spot where you know you're you're, you're the good vibes were,

(08:49):
then I tell you you should spot you should.

Speaker 7 (08:52):
Can I definitely I've been on the other side of
that equation too. I moved into this like basement kind
of hole. It was mildew and like damp in the
East village and in like two thousand and three, and
I remember getting a call from this guise and I
was like, hey, uh, you know, the Strokes used to
have that room and they're working on their second record

(09:14):
and they're really having like a hard time, like they
might want that room back because that was their weird
magic room where they it was called the Transporter room
where they made the first record. I was, yeah, I
was a big Strokes fan, so I was just like, yeah,
fuck it, I'll move out of here. It never happened
in the end, but like I know that that what that?

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Uh?

Speaker 7 (09:32):
What that.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Right?

Speaker 7 (09:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (09:35):
All right?

Speaker 2 (09:35):
So I'll ask you, and I actually said this on
your podcast that you know, I purposely held back from
asking you certain questions in real life, knowing that one
day you'd eventually make it to the show. So I
don't want to waste any answers or whatnot. So great
for those of us that don't know, could you please

(09:56):
tell us where you were born, what city you were.

Speaker 7 (10:00):
Yeah, I was born in London. My parents are English,
and then I moved to New York when I was
eight and I was pretty much I consider myself in
New Yorker, like definitely, but I have ties to London.
My family, there, a lot of family that I go.
I've spent time there. I didn't really realize, weirdly, until
I started making music and the music came out and

(10:22):
it did well in England and like when like fucking
sold eight copies here that I had to be like, oh,
maybe this connection to England that I like completely forgot
about most of my life musically is more is kind
of more in my output than I really realized.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
You know.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
So wait, let me ask you about your your time
in England. First of all, are you consciously aware or
unaware of when your.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Accent sneaks in and sneaks out?

Speaker 7 (10:53):
Yeah, it's fucking terrible. I mean I used to hate it.
I mean when you moved to a country. I moved
here when I was eight from England, and like, you know,
kids are merciless at that age, and they tease you,
and I you know, they call me, call me, which
doesn't make any sense because yeah, they call me, call me,
like shut up, call me, like you know, because it's

(11:14):
like the middle of like the you know, the Cold
War or something. Right, I have a funny accent, and
then and then you try and lose it to fit
in as quickly. And then I would go back to
England to see my friends and be like, why do
you sound so American? Like I realized it was just
my you know, my little like it was. I was
never going to be able to kind of sound like
I was from one place. I hear it when I'm

(11:35):
in England and my voice starts to change in the
back of a taccent, and as part of it, it
makes me think, like, what am I like this spineless
guy who can't commit to one accent? Am I such
a chameleon? And am I so like unsure like or
trying to please people in public snaries that I'm that easily?
But I just I realized I have no control over
it anymore. So I just fucking I've just given up.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
No, you definitely talk like you like I don't think
you'd talk American or English. But like I'd always wondered
in your head, are you trying to navigate the vehicle
so that you.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Don't reveal your English side to us?

Speaker 2 (12:12):
And if you're over there, you don't reveal your American
side to them?

Speaker 7 (12:16):
No, because I definitely. I've definitely sounded American as soon
as I went back to England the first time. I'd
only been in America for like a year. And they're like,
why you sound like a fucking yank now, mate? And
or you know, obviously there were nine year old kids.
They didn't sound like a like a like a pub bartender.
But yeah, no, I hear it when I'm like, I mean,

(12:38):
we all have all these different mechanisms that we used
to assimilate, you know, their social mechanisms. How we just
like if you're standing next to the one and they
crossing their arms and suddenly you start crossing arms. It's
just like coding and genetics and evolution. But I just like,
you know, poor Josh Stone, she got it really bad.
She was like the first person her and I remember,

(12:59):
I'm a right, Everyone's like, why they fucking sound like
that now? Josh Stone for sounding American? Madonna for sounding English?

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Right?

Speaker 7 (13:05):
But and so I always was like, oh, is there
something that when you sound when you switch it up
that much? Is that is that inauthentic? Like that's the
only thing I didn't want to be read as inauthentic.

Speaker 5 (13:17):
Reason for sounding like that? They did well. I don't
know about Josh, I didn't know about that.

Speaker 6 (13:20):
But Donna, Madonna just came out of nowhere and was like,
why does she sound like that?

Speaker 2 (13:25):
That happens though, Yo, Like after the year I was
saying the word yeah after everything yeah rum yeah yeah, like.

Speaker 7 (13:33):
Oh yeah yeah yeah exactly, and everything has to end
exactly In England, all the sentences end like on a
slightly higher note than they started, and you say yeah
at the answer, it's like, all right, so I see
at the club lady yeah. Fuck. Like everything just like
goes into this like lilt.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's kind of like Brooklyn, Brooklyn, like when we first
got here to record do you want more? Like every
that whole era of like ninety three to ninety four,
especially like when Tarik was hanging with like the Gang
Star Foundation and all those cats and they were just
talking mad Brooklyn, but like everything was interrogative like they
were it was asked if they were always asking questions.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, Yo, how many pairs of booms you got?

Speaker 7 (14:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Eat over there, kid, Like everything is a question.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah, And using the word aggie, which I've yet to
see any other place in the world use aggie except.

Speaker 7 (14:28):
For yeah, my sister. Weirdly, Charlotte uses that word all
the time, but just only from like hearing it in
jay Z songs and she just loves that show. She
just always goes like, why are you acting all Aggie?

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Right? Mark, what was your first musical memory?

Speaker 7 (14:47):
I have like almost snapshots in my head, like partial memories.
I remember having a little trap drum kit when I
was three or four. I I remember also having it
was either a Sony or Fisher Price record player that
was like plastic, like.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
A brown joint or like a little tan one, like
a little tan joint, whereas.

Speaker 7 (15:13):
No, this was like primary colors. It was like red.
Maybe it was just like an English one. It was
like red, yellow, green. And I just remember lifting the
needle and putting it down on the record and just
that excitement when the first like crackle happened, and then
like just being like whoa, I can control this. I
mean it's so not I mean it's not even deep

(15:34):
enough to compare it to DJ because it literally is DJing.
But yeah, those are some of my first first memories.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Mark.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
I'll be the first to admit I was today years
old before I realized that you're not at all related
to Mick Ronson no, which I think the whole world
thinks you are. Yeah, your stepfather is Mick Jones. At
how is this a common mistake that all of us
had made. Yeah, in my mind, your dad was Mick Ronson,

(16:05):
and I'm like, no, his dad was Mick Jones.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Now I get it.

Speaker 7 (16:08):
Yeah, No, it was crazy because even before like Wikipedia,
like in the early two thousand, when I first came out,
like you know, Wikipedia's made it pretty common that if
like somebody gets a fact wrong, it just kind of
just stays there. It stays there, stays there. But this
is weirdly like one of the examples of of a
wrong fact staying there before Wikipedia. And I think it
was because when I first came out in England, where

(16:31):
I had my initials, like my only success really with
my with my solo record, the first one that yeah,
they knew that my stepdad was a musician named Mick,
or they knew I was related to somebody music They Mike,
and my last name is Ronson, so it must be
Mick Ronson. So this started to get written a lot
in the in the in the Times of London or something,

(16:53):
and uh, Mick Ronson's poor like widow Mick Ronson obviously
being the genius arranger guitar player for Boeing and Spiders
from Mars rights to the newspaper, and she's like, she's
she's like, if my you know, thinks that I'm some
either some weird bastard child that he had out of

(17:14):
wedlock or maybe somebody claiming falsely to be the son
of mcronson. And she sued the newspaper, I think cause
she's like, you know, I think that was probably stressful
for her to be, like, wait, is there some fucking
ronson running around here? Well up, so I think she's
I think mc ronson's widow sued the paper at that time.
But then, you know, obviously I did my best to
clear up and also because you know, I'm proud of

(17:35):
my stepdad, I don't want people to think I'm trying
to write off the coattails of some wrong information. But yeah,
I'm not related to mc ronson, just a fan.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
I never It's never even occurred to me that I
can just start suing people for false rumors or whatever,
because yeah, you know, Wikipedia insists that my grandfather is
a member of the Dicks Hummingbird's Beachie Thompson and people.
But the thing is like reporters just fall in love

(18:06):
with this whole thing of like wow, three three generations
of music makers. Your your grandfather is in the rock
and roll Hall of Fame. Your dad was a legendary
d opera. Now it's you and now just I don't
have the strength anymore. I actually met Beachy Thompson's family,
like I think maybe a nephew or two lives out
in LA and they just they're claiming me now.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
So yeah, it's like we got the same last name.
You might as well.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Just myth becomes legend, print the legend exactly, fuck exactly exactly.

Speaker 7 (18:38):
Also, Wikipedia is like the easiest thing to sort of
fix anyway, So what like there's just some guy that
whenever someone works for you change it, it just goes
back and just puts it back like we like the
old way.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, I to try to erase it, and it just
winds up back there like three days later, So forget it.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, I can't do nothing about it.

Speaker 7 (18:59):
My favorite like weird thing on somebody posts on Wikipedia
that was just so preposterous that I just had to
laugh and leave it was that. It said, it was like,
you know, all the way down the thing personal life,
he grew up in Dada dah, it's like the fourth paragraph,
it's like And also at the age of six years old,
he actually wrote the theme song to the hit cartoon ThunderCats,

(19:20):
but originally wrote it as a tribute. Bennett wrote as
a tribute to Benedict Cumberbatch, and the theme went cumber Bat,
cumber Bat, cumber Back, and I was like, I can't
even take that out. It's too good.

Speaker 5 (19:35):
That's awesome, all.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Right, So there you have it. You're all exclusive. You
sleep writ in the ThunderCats. I'll take that. I'll take that.
So in growing up, you're saying that drums was might
have been your first weapon.

Speaker 7 (19:51):
Yeah. When I was my parents were kind of like,
they liked to party. They had a lot. There was
always people over in the house. And I would wake
up in the middle the night and I would probably
I walk into what I'm told and vaguely recalls his
sea have grown up, smoking, drinking whatever, probably walking through
the room, getting pat on the head, and I would

(20:11):
just go straight for the speakers wherever the music was playing,
and I would sin front of the speakers and just
close my eyes and play air drums to like whatever
was playing like that was my like zone. And Simon Kirk,
the drummer from Bad Company and Free was there one
night and just was like a friend and and the

(20:32):
of my parents was like, hey, like he looks like
he'd have fun on the drums, Like he kind of
looks like he knows what he's doing. Getting a kit
and they got me a little kit. My and my dad,
my real dad, loved music like a typical English soul
boy in the sixties, like had Stacks, winder k Frog,
like all those forty five's and you know, northern soul

(20:54):
stuff too, and just that's what he played in the house.
So that's kind of just what it was like. It
was like groove music, you know, and that's what I
was kind of drawn to.

Speaker 6 (21:04):
Can I just want to ask what your parents did,
because I feel like in some way your life has
been romanticized or even hell a dopey as.

Speaker 7 (21:11):
Far as my dad managed bands, and he he came
from like a kind of like you know, a family
that was like you're supposed to like North London Jews
are like a very I wou'd say insular, but it's
like you do the family business, you go. It was
like old school tradition, this kind of thing. My dad's
family were like one generation removed from being like fucking

(21:35):
butchers on brick Lane, like not quite peaky blinders, but
like that kind of shit. And so they so he
my grandfather made the successful business like gas stations. It
was like, that's what you do, You go work in
the family business. So my dad was loved music and
they just weren't trying to hear that. So that he
kind of like became a little bit of like the
black Sheep, and he went and managed bands and did
all this kind of things. And do you remember the

(21:57):
band Rochford, Yes, and yeah, so he managed Roachford. Uh,
this was like a little later, but yeah, he like
discovered Andrew was in another band and was like, hey,
the keyboard play is really good. You should fucking go
to your solo shit. So he kind of you know,
plucked Andrew out and you know, you know those first
couple of Roach for records. And he just loved music

(22:18):
and stuff and he loved to party, and so did
my mom. And my mom was from Liverpool and she
was just kind of you know, wonderful mother of you know,
kind of dynamic persona.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
And how many of them?

Speaker 7 (22:34):
How many Ronsons there's Okay, so there's my mom and
dad had three of us, and then my dad remarried
had three more Ronson's, and my mom remarried and had
a couple more Joneses. So there's ten, ten brothers and
sisters altogether.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yike, yeah, okay, speaking of which, Yeah, I was going
to say, why it's it's Andrew Rochfort who would bring
if you remember New Jehan from three seven thousand and
nine in the Black.

Speaker 5 (23:09):
Lily Days to.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Our very first show when we moved to London, Okay,
and that's how we met New and then New became
our tour manager.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
But at the time she was dating Roachfort, so that's
how we knew Okay, Yeah, that's how we knew him.
All right.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
So in addition, like I know, of course I know
Sam DJs, I know that she Ronson is I assume
fashion designer? Yeah, and that's not your shout out on
the jay Z record, but your sister, yes exactly, you'll
take it. But like, is anyone any of your other siblings?

(23:46):
Are they accomplished musicians as well? Or just in terms
of producing and songwriting.

Speaker 7 (23:54):
Yeah, my brothers, like my brother Alexander is really talented.
He's in LA and he's more in that kind of
like avant garde LA. Seemed like he did stuff with
Ario Pink before it was bad to say Ario Pink's name,
I guess, but uh right, I forget. But yeah, just
like just cool, more weird shit than I do. And
uh but and then and then my brother Chris actually

(24:18):
lives in Miami and he's like part of terrorist squad
and he like makes music with like poohgre and Scott Storage.
So like, yeah, everybody's everybody has a has a kind
of musical gene somehow, except my family in England, who
I'm very close with. They all decided to like do
real ship. So they're like lawyers and you know, business

(24:39):
and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
I see, Hey, I heard his story once about you,
and I thought, this is weird that we kind of
have this thing in common. Can you talk about your
interning at Rolling Stone at the age of twelve?

Speaker 1 (24:54):
I believe yes.

Speaker 7 (24:55):
Wow, So you know, one of the parks of growing
up up in New York City and on the Upper
West Side of my stepdad being a musician. It's like,
you know, the cool people were over a lot of
the time, and whenever I jan Weena would come over,
the founder of Rolling Stone, like I knew exactly who
it was. I was a you know, nerdy kid. I read.

(25:17):
I loved music, and I loved everything about it, and
like I would read Billboard and the trade mags and
liner notes and stuff just because I just wanted to
absorb all of it. So when Yan would come over,
I would always just like want to grill him about stuff.
And I'm sure it was sweet and to a point
it was probably annoying because he just wanted to hang

(25:38):
with the grown ups too, But I would just.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Really am as in, like why did Jagger get like
four and a half stars for a primitive cool world?

Speaker 7 (25:46):
Yeah? Yeah, Like why did you give the police don't
stand so close to me eighty six remix such a
bad Like I would really like it was like showing
that I probably read it. And I think like he
was very to me and probably part exasperatedly once he
was like, listen, just stop, I'll give you a job
this summer, just like stop bothering me please. So so yeah,

(26:09):
I went to Rolling soon and for the summers when
I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, I was I interned there
like and I was just like manning the phones. I
was doing all sorts of shit like that. At that time,
they had their own chart. They had their own album chart,
which was a very random thing of calling up mom

(26:31):
and pop stores around thirty mama pop stores and then
they would average and then make their own chart, which
is kind of weird because they could have just called
Billboard and be like, hey, what's the top ten this week?
But you know, they had their own shit. So that
was partly my job to call these mom pop stores.
My voice hadn't even broken. I was like, Hi, I'm
calling from Rolling Stone and we just want to know
you're ten, you know. And then I would have to

(26:52):
compile the chart then go down to the art department
and tell them what the number one album was so
they could put the little picture in their box hofs
with the bucks. So you were.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Responsible for that.

Speaker 7 (27:04):
Yeah, nobody should have made me responsible for that. So
I went down to the art department and that year
the Batman soundtrack, the Prince Soundtrack that week was number one,
and they were like, go tell Jenny and art the
head of art department. It's Batman's you know, it's the
number one record. So I go down and I'm like
walking around. I've never been in the art department before.
It's a different floor. I'm like, hi, like I'm looking

(27:24):
for Jenny and they're like she's just there, and I'm like, Jenny,
She's like, what do you want, kid, I was like,
Batman's number one. She just thought it was like a prank,
like some kid just came down to just say like
he loves like Batman or something. And I was like, yeah,
it was the album.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
I was going to say that, out of all your
life accomplishments, that's probably the one that I'm super jealous
of the most because, you know, like my relationship with
that periodical, like I'd been endless saturdays going through like
back then, you know, if you didn't we had a
large library in Philadelphia, but our local ones of course,

(28:11):
like they maybe have like two years of back issues
and then you wouldn't see anything. So you would have
to put these, uh you know, these scrolls in like
the way these microsh right, and so just eons, just
hours upon hours upon hours of like they would just

(28:32):
keep the entire Rolling Stone collection, like you know, thirteen
years of they would have like somewhere between like seventy
three to you know, whatever year it was at the
time when I was doing like eighty seven eighty eight,
and I'd sit there endlessly and like just all my
walls were wallpapered with all the leave reviews.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
So like Robert Risco.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yeah, so when I turned four party, I think Jimmy
did this for me. Jimmy had Robert Risco, uh do
a caricature of.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Oh cool and that. Yeah, that's that's amazing. Wow, maybe
Rolling Stone, that's crazy.

Speaker 7 (29:14):
And now being like obviously I was aware that it
was special in being there, but now like I realized,
like the people I was around are grabbing coffee for
from whether it was David wild David Frick, Anthony the Curtis,
Sheila Rodgers who went on to be the music booker
at Letterman, Like all these people that like had this
little like like I was just their little pet like toy,

(29:35):
Like it was fun and they all thought it was
kind of amusing that I was in there, But I
also like, do.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
You think they're aware that you were that twelve year
old kid? Now?

Speaker 7 (29:44):
David Wilde like definitely comments on my Twitter and he'll
be like, hey, you know whatever. And Sheila Rodgers when
I you know, when we played Letterman before, She's always
been sweet. So yeah, some somehow they kind of kept track.
I had this, you know phase where I didn't really
have any of my first musical success from my early thirties.
So really my twenties, while I'm making is a hip

(30:06):
hop DJ was not something that really registered on Yon
Winner's radar, you know, so, so I think he would
always be like, hey, what are you up to? Oh yeah,
I stood in the club's great So when Amy came out,
and obviously she was on the cover of Rolling Sona
was a big thing. I have this letter still framed
from Yahn. That's just like, hey, Mark, so glad that

(30:26):
you know that you finally made something of yourself essentially right, Yeah, like,
congrats on on the Amy racket. It's fantastic and that
that kind of meant a lot to me.

Speaker 5 (30:35):
Wow, But he also hip hopped you.

Speaker 6 (30:37):
That's ill, Like I mean, it was a compliment, but
it was also a slap in the face to like.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Keep doing that little rap cool keeping.

Speaker 6 (30:47):
In that moment, I was like, yeah, that's a whole
moment and being a you know, a hip hop artist
icon or whatever.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Exactly, Mark, do you remember the first album that you purchased?
I know, there's a weird question to ask, being as
though you grew up in a musical household.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, I'm certain that collections.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
All right, well, let me let me put it this way.
What was the collection like in your household as you're
growing up? And then do you remember the first album
that you went out and purchased with your own money?

Speaker 7 (31:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Away from your parents' influence.

Speaker 7 (31:24):
Yeah, so the collection was like, certainly my dad we
left England when I was six or seven, so you know,
I'd come back once or twice a year to see
my dad. That that was always just like I remember
really clearly, like my dad playing He loved Grandmaster Flash
and the Furious Five, so the message in New York.

(31:45):
He would always play those and me and my sisters
would jump on the bed and you know, that was
a very when you're a saw, when you're a kid,
like that song a like it's so clear that you
can understand every lyric. It's so hooky and even though
you don't know what you're talking talking about, it just
like I remember just learning that wrote and then I
also remember like things because he probably he didn't really

(32:07):
get three feet high in Rising, but probably someone told
him that. He liked, like, hey, you should check this out.
This is the new shit, and he kind of probably
took it home and was like, oh, this is a
little too like avant garde from me or something. I
remember him giving me that. But the first time I
really remember buying something for myself was like, I got
my pocket money. This is New York and I went
to the Tower Records on sixty six to buy a

(32:29):
twelve inch. I think my stepdad was like, here's ten bucks,
go buy a couple of twelve inches, And I bought
just bugging by Whistle Whistle Wow and sly Fox Let's
go all the way the way yeah, and maybe something else.
And then those are the first things I remember like

(32:50):
really like buying that. This is my own money. I
want to get this.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Oh wow, Okay, by the way, the listeners maybe I
found out maybe three years ago that one of the
members of sly Fox was Booty Cowns is main singer,
the one that sings real cartoony.

Speaker 7 (33:09):
Okay, yeah yeah, like uh damn almost like think Gary.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
No, not Gary Shot. I think Gary Mubum and Cooper.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Okay, I hope I get this right because anytime I
get p funk uh trivia wrong, they you know, they
beat up on me.

Speaker 7 (33:30):
That I love. Like when I listen to record now,
it's so funny because like you don't have any of
when you're a kid, any of that like uh sneary
attitude or like jadenness, And I'm like, oh my god,
if I was twenty when that record came out, I'd
be like, what the fuck is this Prince rip off?
You know he's singing exactly like Prince. I mean, the
beat is incredible, is an incredible song. But I love

(33:51):
when you hear songs from your youth and you have
none of that like Barrier Jadens. You're just like, this
is my ship. And that is still still that still
is on a lot of workout playlists for me.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
That song.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
I'm still trying to figure out how come no one
never made the correlation between the Bookie Boys A fly
Girl and that song, which was the and B version
of Yeah Fly Girls, Like it's.

Speaker 7 (34:18):
Just what's just they took the drums off of fly
Go right?

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Or was it I believe it's sort of like can't
trust it and don't be afraid.

Speaker 7 (34:28):
Like right, right, right, it's the same.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
It's the same two inch they just you know it
right exactly.

Speaker 6 (34:35):
Yeah, I didn't think about it.

Speaker 7 (34:39):
It's this, It's the exact same track that side Fox
record was like, uh, one of the first records to
be like huge on alternative rock radio and R and
B and just pop because it had that dumb beat
that just like spoke to everybody, which was kind of cool.

Speaker 5 (34:57):
Wait the of it again because some of us, well,
let's go.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
All the way. You know, it's a flag girl. Here's
the weird thing. I actually thought when jay Z. When
jay Z used it for I know what girls like,
I know what girls like, I thought that was gonna
blow up for him.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, come on, you were like twelve back then.

Speaker 5 (35:17):
Nah.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
That was my first because you know where he sucked
up at with that, because he started the album off
with a million and one in rhyme no more.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Right, and I was like, holy ship, here we go.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yes, and then yeah, the Black Streak joined and then
it was the Flager Nigga.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
No.

Speaker 7 (35:36):
It had a even I like in my weird like
even though I was like a club DJ. So I
was just like looking for anything that was like commercial
and bouncy, like I could even feel like there was
something sticky there on that record, Like I was like,
this feels like this feels like reach And that had
the city his mind on it too, probably c Yeah,
that was that's because in Germany.

Speaker 6 (35:58):
That's because that song had been remixed on the play
around about fifty thousand times by the time he put
that version out, because like it's was just making cheers.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
That was a check y'all remember that.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
You're right, Yeah, you're right, Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, But I don't know, I feel I don't know.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
I get frustrated that he denies it like a bastard
son and.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Girls like the girls like record.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Well yeah, I mean just that album in general, that
album had moments it was I mean, it's it was.

Speaker 7 (36:28):
It's not a bad album.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
But it was most defining song is on that moment
and which one?

Speaker 2 (36:33):
All right, here's the deal, you know, how like when
at the beginning, Earth Wind and Fire obviously didn't plan
on September being the biggest thing they ever in the one, right,
but how that was chosen even though they did, like
Star and all this other shit. I feel like the
song that really defines jay Z isn't even the sits.
I think imaginary players. One yes, because of the j

(36:56):
C song. It's arrogant as fucked, like yeah, I feel
like you know, I love that just one yeah, he.

Speaker 7 (37:03):
Just like whatever, I'm my my face off twelve inch,
Like that was a song I love to play. I
love it well. It just says a club DJ and
then back and forth. And I just like that was
just like one twelve beats per minute, Like I needed
that in the set at that at that moment, I'm
looking out and that was the one.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
That was over the it was over to.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
So yeah, yeah, I'll never figured that out ever since.
Here in Jadakiss's version of how that song went down,
like I'll never see it the same again. Basically, like
they were on like a trip from the UK and
they had to go straight to the studio to do
their verse. They couldn't shower or anything, so it's like

(37:45):
after they got our customs, you know, they were on
a nine hour flight and then had some customs thing
for like four hours and then had to go straight
to the studio or else they were going to not
be on the record, and you know, Jaded just has
this like weird other take about it that totally takes
me out of what I thought.

Speaker 7 (38:04):
That was also Pitchfork eight point four for Volume one.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
They just recently re reviewed that.

Speaker 7 (38:12):
I don't know because I just wikipedd because I wanted
to remember what's on that album because I was like, oh, actually,
who you were face off Imaginary Player, this very strong album.
But eight point four, yeah, I know what.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
I like that record, so I will quasi agree, even
though he hates that record. And f was trying to
chase Puffy. He was trying to chase Puffy bad Boy,
but it was like it was ninety seven. It was
time to do like.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yeah, we it's understandable. It's like we get it, but
not right. It wasn't it.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
You know.

Speaker 7 (38:46):
You know, it's funny we were talking about we're talking
so much about God Now I'm such an idiot. But
when we when I interviewed me for my podcast and
we talked about the huge album and then the one
for the first one for Interscope, and you weren't really
swearing it off like in the way that we're talking
about Jay, but you were kind of you know, saying

(39:07):
like it was rush and you were trying to make
a record maybe just to fit where you were, and
I think, don't say nothing came up. And I was
trying to please.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yes, I was trying to please my label president.

Speaker 7 (39:18):
So I was sitting. I was sitting the other day
with my girl now fiance, who's ten years younger than me.
Don't congratulate.

Speaker 5 (39:31):
She's a.

Speaker 7 (39:33):
Thank you, thank you. I'll tell her you said that,
and don't or hopefully she'll listen to this or both,
but don't say nothing came on. And she's like, that's
my ship. And because she was she she was a
teenager like that agent. It comes out and you're just like,
oh this, I just fucking love this. Like you have
no context. You're not thinking like where it rests in
the cannon. You're just like, you know, like it's just Yeah, she's.

Speaker 5 (39:56):
Not being a music's not like y'all the rest of us.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yes, exactly. Well, I'm extremely thank you. I appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (40:08):
Can I Speaking of that snobbery, I wanted to ask
Mark a set question because I'm so curious about where
you started like working out your sets and where you
how you started like refining and knowing what to do
and what what what the crowd wanted, and what crowd
wanted what and what I would.

Speaker 7 (40:24):
Import to you. In the beginning, I would just go
and I would watch uh Stretch arm Sean and Clark
Can and Goldfinger and just rip off all of their routines,
like I'm not I'm not afraid to say, like I know,
I stretched when he first came and I said, it's
like was not happy with me because I wouldn't literally
rip off his mixes. But he invented this, or maybe

(40:46):
not invented, but his big thing was this thing where
you'd be playing a song and then the line that
everybody would sing you turn the volume off so be
like double x posse, Like, oh no much Jim happened
Broke Broke June June June. Before then, I saw on
the on the thing and I just thought it was
like uptown baby, up town baby, we got down baby,

(41:09):
you know, to dinner, and like so this was so
and I loved that. I thought it was so clever,
and I just started doing it all the time. And
then obviously in the beginning, you're just picking up scraps
of the people that you that you look up to.
But I guess I also I loved what was called
rare groove music, like from all that kind of like

(41:30):
mid tempo nineties, like you know, not really rare records.
But don't look any further, baby, I'm scared of you
saw me a striplin And I would play all those
and and I loved building a night and I was
never afraid to play like seven hours, like I just
loved playing. And eventually I got this sort of reputation
as this teacher had good taste, knew the classics new
hip hop, knew how to build a room. And that's

(41:52):
when I guess also Puffy and Jay and those people
were coming to the clubs I was playing, So it
was all this kind of nice dovetailing of I was.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
I was going to say, what was the name of
the club? Damn?

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Now now you're you're now you're pulling me out where
Now I'm remembering that maybe I was a New York
club kid for half a second, because I definitely remembered
what was the club that was across the street from Justin's.

Speaker 7 (42:24):
Oh yeah, yeah a lot, Yeah on seventeen That was Cheetah.
That's Cheetah and a Monday Nights and Jay shouts that
out and uh and do it again on one of
those songs. Yeah, man, And and he says, I used
to fill in on Cheetah, and then I did Wednesday
Nights at Shine and then Fridays at Life. So every

(42:45):
night that he mentioned in that Cheetah Monday Night, Wednesday
Nights at Shy and Evan with the Model bitches, Friday
Night at Life or whatever it is. And I was like,
that's are online right now?

Speaker 1 (42:57):
He used to.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yes, he would often be there, like was an event
like until until the ABT came along and solidified Mondays.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Yes, like you were basically.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
You know, usually my club nights would be like if
back then, especially on two inch Real, you know, a
mix with Bob Power would probably be something like kind
of like eight nine hours or whatever. So yeah, you know,
if you're starting at three in the afternoon or something like,
we get there late and the reel gets there at four,

(43:30):
you know, Bob is basically like, you know, get out
of my hair and come back at midnight, like let
me least get the you know, get the mixed straight
first before you guys start micromanaging. So usually you know,
on on Mondays or whatever coming see you play and whatnot?

Speaker 1 (43:45):
What was it all right?

Speaker 7 (43:46):
So well to be I just wanted to cut out too,
because Jules and Julian were the main DJs on Monday,
specifically a cheater, but they would let me fill in
or I play the basementwise.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah, I usually I'd watch your sets, you know. So
that's like my memories of it, all right. So one
of the one of the discoveries we made in the
last five years of doing the show is that, you know,
a lot of our a lot of the accomplished producers
that we admire were great DJs.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
And you know, that's the case with.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Jimmy jam Uh, definitely the case with doctor Dre. And
then you know, when I brought this up to Dre,
he explained to me that because of the duress that
he was under, he would say, like, if you basically
played the wrong song, you might risk the club getting
shot up. Yeah, he so he was hyper aware of

(44:41):
what he played, and he says that that informs him
of how he produces because it's almost like there's no
room for experiments. You have to be spot on knowing
what your audience responds to. So for you though in
that particular atmosphere. Because the thing is is that I
know I can get away with murder, and you heard

(45:02):
me experiment and do crazy shit often, but I know
I can get away with murder and in front of
a particular crowd that will let me do that. But
you know, my clientele was really never Puff or jay
Z or any of those, like any of those parties
that you know Steve Stout's going to show up at.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
So what is it? What is what is the What
is it like when you are the attraction at these
particular parties?

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Because is it like what you really want to do
or what you think serves them that keeps you working?

Speaker 1 (45:41):
Like what mind state are you in?

Speaker 7 (45:43):
It's a little bit of both, you know. I love
starting the night at ten pm because you could start
building and you could play classics and different records in
R and B and builded into the hip hop. I
hated coming on at twelve thirty when the parties at
the peak and it's like, what's the first record? Like
that just gives me like the anxiety of life. But
the parties that I was playing, I was pretty like,

(46:06):
you know, this was I was never on the mic.
This is before people really cared or even looked at
the DJ like it. They only looked at it you
if you fucked up, really so like I love the
anonymity of being a DJ and just keeping the night
rocking and that that was it. But I remember like, yeah,
occasionally i'd throw a curveball or you know, after eight
years of playing the same kind of shit'll be like, oh,
I wonder if I could sprinkle like rock and Roll

(46:29):
in here or something. And I remember the Benjamin's was
the biggest record at the time, and there was that
rock and Roll remix of it, and I was I
wanted to play somehow, I wanted to play back in
Black by ac DC. By the end of this set,
I was like I just got you know, when you
go to the the set and you're just like, if
I can just play these one or two songs for
me tonight, like that'll kind of that'll do it. That'll

(46:51):
do it. And I remember I was like, all right,
so right on the Biggie I'll switch to the rock
version right on the Biggie verse because no one's gonna
stop dancing. I know what the fuck's happening if Biggie's rapping,
right and then right on that thing when he goes
it's all about the Benji d obviously, like ac DC
is is like kind of in the books as like

(47:12):
as a hip hop break beat in some ways, but
not in the clubs where it was like a lot
of you know, people's got like squire yeah, and it
was like, you know a lot of like cool people
in downtown types and then a lot of like drug
dealers who were spending twenty grand at like a banquette
to like look cool. So like one of the banquettes
was right behind the DJ booth, and right when I

(47:35):
played that once that was playing for like eight seconds,
this drug dealer with like his friends and a lot
of money and champagne everywhere, like leaned over to me.
It was like, what the fuck are you playing? I mean,
I can't remember exactly what he said, but there were
like times where it was like definitely like you couldn't
get too creative, but I think that, yeah, I had
a mix. I was playing those crowds some night, and

(47:56):
then sometimes I was playing for like slightly more like
kind of you know, just like miscellaneous crowds. You could
play more underground shit or different stuff.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
So at this period when you're kind of like the
darling of hip New York society as far as like
being there go to DJ you know, like you were
doing the campaign with Aliyah or Tommy Hillfig or whatever,
so we knew you. Asked DJ Mark Ronson, like, what

(48:29):
is how are you navigating in this double Dutch game
of how to get in the roups so that we
now know that you are a musician and a producer, Like,
at what point are you trying to figure out how
to really get inside of this thing so that we
take you seriously as a producer.

Speaker 7 (48:47):
Yeah, well I was trying all the time to be honest.
Anytime I met someone at the club who wrapped and
be like, come to my house tomorrow like one pm,
and you know, let's make shit. And that was like
when someone introduced me to a Psygom when he had
just got out of prisoner, was like that, you know,
Saigon and I would be together every day making music,
and but I really didn't know what I was doing.

(49:08):
I probably thought I did like everybody does at that age.
Oh I'm fully formed, I'm arrived, i know what I'm doing,
and I was just figuring it out.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
And then was this, wait, let me interrupt one second
was this was the first entry like Okay, you're gonna
be You're gonna be making rap beats and work with rappers,
I think, I think. And if that's the case, what
was the album? What was the hip hop album that
called you to This is exactly what I want to do.

Speaker 8 (49:36):
Mecca and the Soul Brother Yes, no, yes, yes, because
although I think main ingredient is probably my favorite of
it too, but Mecca is still I mean, that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
It's funny you said that.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
I ridiculed Kanye for saying that publicly, but when I
really think about it, I have a way different relationship
with me even though my face it's almost like Role
is my favorite album, but I know that eighteen fourteen
is the better record for me. I think it's only
because the main ingredient is all that we had living

(50:11):
in London, and this is without the Internet, without computers,
without change the station, like you could turn on the
radio and you gotta listen to Scatman forty times and
you know, like for real, like Scatman was the only
thing on radio in Jamarquai. So it's like put that
peap rock figure in. So even though I never say

(50:33):
that's my favorite record of theirs. But I have a
way more fuzzier memory of that saving my life than
Mecca and the Soul b Yeah, Wow.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
What was it? What was about Mecca for you? Bart? Like?
What was what?

Speaker 7 (50:49):
How?

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Why was that your your kind of life?

Speaker 7 (50:51):
I played in a band. I played guitar in this
band in high school, and my drammer, Scott was just
like he just loved rhythms, and he was a really
good drama and he'd want to talk about like Dave
fucking I don't even know these drummers and paradiddles and
like real like he was just into rhythms, interesting rhythms.
So he discovered it. He loved it obviously, probably because

(51:12):
like the drum fills and the things Dada Da da
Dat spoke to him and he just played me reminisced.
One day we'd come home from like a band rehearsal,
maybe like a really late night gig, and I was
sleeping on his floor and he played it for me,
and I was so moved by it. I'd never heard
a rap song that really hit me like that hard
and emo way, and I listened to it probably eleven

(51:34):
times in a row that night. After he went to bed,
I was just like wanted to keep hearing it over
and over, and I think that that was probably one
of the first things we had rappers come up on
stage with us when we were like this band, but
we were like sloppy kids, like we were not holding
it down. So I was just like, Okay, well, I'm
not a rapper, I don't know anything about producing, but
I love this music and that's what kind of led

(51:56):
me out of the band and to become a DJ.
And then so that's why I though it still has
that once I did discover production. I think that was
always this kind of like, I don't know, Touchstone.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
What year did you start DJing?

Speaker 7 (52:11):
Ninety three so just at the end of my senior year,
and I remember the first four to twelve inches I
bought at Rock and Sall. I bought Time for Some Action,
Rebirth of Slick ZIGGI Raking in the Dough and the
original Yeah, the original of Protect Your Neck, the original,

(52:33):
the original Risk.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Makers Orange and Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Okay, I hope you still got that because that shit
is worth money, man, Listen, Yeah, it's worth money.

Speaker 5 (52:43):
Now still say ninety three was the best year.

Speaker 7 (52:46):
I don't care really ninety three years music. Yeah, it
was amazing.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
So what was the what was your what was your
weapon of choice when you are making these beats?

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Like, what did you did you start off.

Speaker 7 (53:00):
On the three thousand and I got I went in
the store to get this NPC sixty or i'd kind
of saved up or I had enough for half of it,
and then I was like, I want to pay for
this on layaway or whatever it is. And he was like, well,
by the time you were ready to pay it off,
actually the NPC three thousand will be out. So so
I managed to get that. It was a year later

(53:21):
and I had made really archaic beats. My stepdad, you know,
being a musician, had a S nine hundred or a
kit I don't even know which one it was in
his stuff the rack mount and I made some really
like like really like rudimentary beats where I didn't know
how to adjust the time, but I knew that if

(53:43):
I could get the samples to be exactly the same
tempo and lent that if I just hit play on
both of them at the same time, I could kind
of make it work. And that's and someone was like
this kid that I was making beats for in my
school was like, you know, that's what djaying is, essentially,
like blending two things together on time. You would probably
like that, and so that was part of the reason
as well that I'm sure that I've kind of led

(54:04):
me to the path, But NPC three thousand was my
first beat machine.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Also side note, speaking of your stepfather, this is he's
not to be mistaken for Mick Jones of the Clash.

Speaker 7 (54:18):
Not to be another second, that's another Mick Jones.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
I was about to say, you got crazy Mick ronson
Mick Jones, the mc jones and the other mc jones.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yeah, yeah, still legendary.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
But yeah, I was going to say, because I was like,
wait a minute, you're not.

Speaker 7 (54:35):
In the class, right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Right, exactly, Okay, So would you would you say your
first steady client was Saigon?

Speaker 7 (54:46):
He was the first, like I guess rapper. There are
some rappers from from my school, Like I went to
Vassar College for one year, uh, and there were some
rappers up there who I worked with, Lodi and Ian
lovely guys. And then I came back to the city
and someone introduced me to Saigon. So he was like
the first person that was like over my house, and

(55:06):
actually John Forte as well at this time as good
friends with John, and we had this weird production duo
called Epstein and Sons. I have no idea why we
called it Steine and Sons, and uh weird. He would
be over at my place all the time, and so yeah,
and then and then Sigon sometimes would bring down like

(55:28):
sticking and one from deb Present. I remember, for very
obvious reasons, being like very nervous when they came over
to my house. I don't know what they're gonna think
of me, and then also being slightly disappointed when they
weren't like horrible to me, like almost like standing in
the front sitting in the front road of at Don
Rickles concert and he doesn't insult she does? What then?

(55:49):
What is going on? That's why I paid for they
were They were they were. They were very very cool
and and patient with me because I really know now
that I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
But the person that really plucked me from like just anonymity,
like just to kind of DJ was like djaying the
hot parties was our friend Dominic Chaneer.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, and so tell the story of how that morphs
into you can I say that is Nikga like.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Your first like major work as a producer.

Speaker 7 (56:26):
Of course by a country mile for sure.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Okay, wow, so wait I worked on like your first production.

Speaker 7 (56:32):
I was like, yeah, that's why I was so fucking spoiled.
I laugh about that, Like the first time we go
into the studio, it's like I've been in the studio.
It's like you and Pino and Jane. Somebody was just
saying like, don't get used to this, like I remember
that real.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
Yeah, yeah, this this is one of those legendary moments
where where you know, like Electric Lady is just going
to be just an open house of whoever comes in,
and you know, it's it's not it's not normal for
a person to be generous and let like usually like
if someone finds a good sound in a good room

(57:08):
or whatever, they like.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Lock it down and they're like, no one else goes
in this room but us.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
But it was almost like, you know, de was like, well,
you know, obviously if I say three pm, I'll be
here at seven or eight pm. So you know, whatever
y'all do in the daytime is cool with me as
long as that, you know, once I get there, so
we would just take advantage of all those early hours
and work on other things.

Speaker 5 (57:32):
I kind of.

Speaker 6 (57:32):
Feel like that album needs to be re released in
a way released, yeah, because I feel like there's a
whole generation of people who don't understand nick A Costa
killed that shit and didn't drop them like it was like,
I don't know that's what.

Speaker 7 (57:46):
Yeah, it was the twentieth anniversary like last week, and
I was like, doesn't get you know a lot of
a lot of people anytime that song comes up, people like,
oh yeah, fuck, I love that song. Was like my
fiance partner whatever included like people because it was in
the Hill Figure commercial and then everybody got there's something

(58:06):
you know ended up as the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
I was so have oft for you. That was my
favorite rong on that record. I love that song.

Speaker 7 (58:13):
Yeah, no, she's she really wrote some wonderful songs on
that record.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
So what was what was the collaboration process like with
you uh Nikka and I assume Justin also worked justin Stanley.

Speaker 7 (58:25):
Yeah. So so Dom would come to the parties that
I would DJ, like Life and stuff, and he would
be like I'd be playing one of my regular sets.
I would be like Rufus, the Chaka Khan e p MD,
then the Biggie and then at the end maybe Seven
Nation Army or that probably wasn't even out yet, but
some kind of rock shit missed you by the Stones.
And he was like, He's like, I don't know if

(58:46):
you make music or not, but like I have this
singer and I just like, she's incredible. She has the
best voice, and all I know is that her record's
supposed to sound like this DJ set.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
It's amazing that Dom saw something in you that was
Dom's real gift.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Dom was able to.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
See something in you that you yourself wouldn't see. I would
almost say, like, you know, you know, like Puffy kind
of has that he can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge
thing against your will or I mean, there's something about
him that makes you say yes, even if it's like
like I know instantly when he calls the phone, I'm like, no,
I'm not doing this gig. I can't spend what's up, playboy?

(59:24):
We got we got magic to make. And then suddenly
you're like, yes, Dudy, I will do yeah, yeah, for
seventy off the price that I normally charge.

Speaker 7 (59:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
But Dom also had Dom was just one of the
greatest motivational yes pushers.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Like he's the one.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
That talked all that all the magic that came from
Electric Lady. Chances are Dom was there as the foundation
of YO do this idea?

Speaker 7 (59:56):
So you know he he yes, he did, and he's
he's like, I'll come to your studios. Because I was
probably just like, yeah, I make beads or whatever. He's like,
let me come to your studios that we do. So
I had this little studio in my bedroom's apartment on
Sullivan Street and he was doing space Jam at the
time or it just finished it, and he was like,
I need a remix of Seal did Fly Like an Eagle?

(01:00:17):
And I need a hip hop remix, So why don't
we try. I think that was like just to see
if I could do anything. And yeah, and it was
not very good. And I tell you, I almost feel
like I can still remember him like almost like holding
my hand through like the production of this remix to
try and get me to make it better. Like I like,
you know, like I was doing these kind of STEVJ
puffy type drums, a lot of shakers, yeah, yeah, before

(01:00:41):
the top thing, yeah, all of it. And then and
but then somehow I must have done something that just
gave him a little more faith. And then a couple
of months later he brought Nika to my studio U
and I still didn't have the match for her musicality,
but then justin her husband came into the equation. It

(01:01:02):
was very musical and knew his way around a studio.
And then that was kind of the trio.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
You were there for that, Steve, were you not? Yes?
I was there for the back. Yes, Rush rusted all
the work out.

Speaker 4 (01:01:14):
But I'm a secret sauce.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
It's the same old story. He got the bacon, I
get it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
Yes, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Those were very very cool sessions. I mean very memorable
for me because I was just starting out too, and
the music was so good, so happy to be because
I had to do all kinds of different sessions where
the music was of varying degrees of quality.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Let's say, I was about to say, if you're an
engineer on a session that of a song you don't like,
then I don't even know what that's like for a person,
you know what I mean, just to be held against
their will listening to a song where shit ain't good,
it's not good at all. Yeah, I remember, like my

(01:02:01):
favorite was just because man, that that shit could still be.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
That shit could.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Come out tomorrow and I'd still ride for that thing.
And that's also one of my favorite. I would probably
say that's probably if I were to compile a top
five of like my drumming performance, because the thing is,
the weird thing is is that I'm serving the song
so much that I'd never get to not have fun

(01:02:30):
but just be be myself. I don't know if it's
like me being tofu like I have to bend to
the will of what the song sounds is. Yeah, and
just because usually if I wind up sounding like Steve Faron,
that's more like the natural me, Like, that's not me
trying to sound like a break beat or me trying
to redo this beat or not get kicked off my

(01:02:53):
own song because it doesn't sound.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Hip hop enough or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
So it's but I'll yeah, I'll say that just because
it was was one of my Probably i'd put that
in my top five, Like drum sounds that I actually
that I dig I.

Speaker 7 (01:03:08):
Need to listen back. I remember Billy Preston came in
and we were really excited for him to play piano
on it, like that was the whole thing. And he
came into the studio and we were like wow, and
he just like sat down and listened to the whole thing.
I was like, nah, the demo piano is pretty good
and she's like, no, no, that's just something that I
just played like just for you. Go I don't hear
I'll play some clad though, and like that was it.

(01:03:30):
There was like no talk. We were just so psyched,
like Billy Press is gonna play piano this thing and
he was just like, no, play some clap for you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
How long was it until.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
You got a chance to work on I'm about to
say the OUI record, not OUI your You're here, Here
comes the Fuzz, your first solo job.

Speaker 7 (01:03:55):
Yeah, that was basically off the back of Nika's album.
There was like a lot of buzz about it just
before it came out, and it was in this hill
Figure commercial and I had this little moment of like,
you know it's there. It's never better than the moment
just before the record comes out, because it's just like
the possibilities are endless and you look just look like it,

(01:04:16):
you know, that's whatever. So I got this deal with
Electra Records that thing at the time, because you know,
I had a little name as a DJ, nowhere near
like the name recognition of the Clues and the Flexes
and the people that were getting those big mixtape deals.
But I also had this record that people were excited
about and like a feather and the slightly new sound.
So I got this deal and then uh then it

(01:04:37):
took me a year to make that record, and that
came out in two thousand and three, and I got
dropped a week after the album came out because it's wow, yeah,
pretty much got dropped. Like the record, I think they
spent a lot of money on it. I had a
lot of big cameos on it, they did, but I

(01:04:59):
think that it just you know, did it charted in
England where it was sort of like, you know, number
twelve or something, But yeah, I was gonna say I
heard it again in Europe? Yes, a lot in Europe.
It was big enough to make a little dent there.
But no, I remember having to pay out of my
own pocket to get Nate Dogg and ghost Face to
come out to do the Craig Kilbourn show because at

(01:05:20):
that point, like a week later, lecture just like closed
the close the budget.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Wow, So how did you at least at that point,
I think this that The Fuzz came out with like
two thousand and two, two thousand and three, three, Yeah,
it was like around okay, So at that point, like
were you your own point person Like did you know
Rivers Cuomo and Jack White and like all the people

(01:05:45):
that were on that that first secord.

Speaker 7 (01:05:47):
For the most part, the people that I didn't really
know personally were Rivers Cuomo and Jack White because they
were sort of more from rock world and Jack was
in Detroit and Rivers's la that wasn't but anybody else
that could kind of call because of b you know,
just being in the New York clubs for so long.
And I even remember when Yes Seen Then Most came

(01:06:07):
and we did our song. We were like, you know,
what sounds so good on this mop, Like wouldn't it
be cool if it was just like the seventies when
like Eric Clapton would call up like Dwayne Allman and
be like come down and play on this thing. I
was like, well, let's just try and call them and
see if they'll they'll come. So we were like called
Lai's or whatever. The manager. And then they did come.

(01:06:28):
They just they came three days later. We just didn't know.
I was still waiting in the studio. They came Sunday afternoon.
But you know it was amazing. But no, all the
people Freeway, Sean Paul, these were just people that I
somehow had a relationship with from just like one degree
of separation from the clubs or just like I knew them,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Okay, when did uh?

Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
When did because around the time, but I mean I
knew you're the stuff you did with Niak and everything.
But around the time that I came became familiar with
you with the hip hop stuff was with Saigon Us
I had to done Didnt record and then also with
ron Fest.

Speaker 7 (01:07:05):
Yeah how did how did?

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
How did all that come about?

Speaker 7 (01:07:07):
We used to play the Foreign Exchange Records so much
on the tour.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Oh wow, thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (01:07:12):
Loved it. That came about through uh my friend Ron
minor DJ Indiana Jones, who you know in the past. Yeah, yeah,
I know. Yeah, it's crazy when you start talking all
these people that just don't seem that far away in
your life. They're not with us. But anyway, Ron was

(01:07:33):
Ryan Fest was Chicago, but was living in Indianapolis at
the time, and and Ron but I knew, and it
brought him to New York and we just started hanging out.
I just loved the way that he just like he
just liked all this weird other ship too, because I'm
not very good at making straight up the middle of music,
you know, to a fault. I can't like pick a

(01:07:55):
genre even within one song. But me and Ryan Fest
had a lot of funny together, and then he kind
of came on the road, and then we had a
labels we put out his record and yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
Yeah, was Alito?

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
Was that the only was his record the only record
that came out on that label?

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Or did y'all put out anything else?

Speaker 7 (01:08:12):
Daniel Merriweather right, and the first album Wait a minute, Yeah,
I forgot before he went into may Back. Everyone was
way better after they left us. No, Daniel Mary, Daniel
Marray that sold a lot of records.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
His love and War that was that was yours? Right?
War was on you there?

Speaker 7 (01:08:34):
Yeah, James Saw was my I love that song so coolly,
you know that's great. Daniel would love listening to this.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Wait a minute, damn, this is killing me now because
I was under the impression. Okay, I'll admit there's a
lot of like transparency admissions by quest Love this episode. Yes,
of course, I when I saw your label name, I
couldn't for some reason.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
I just it just read dildo to me. Wow, But
I didn't. I didn't expect that coming.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
But the thing is is that when I read it again,
I was like, oh, all I do because he probably
loves it for Stevie won the record.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
What is the name of your label?

Speaker 7 (01:09:20):
Well, that's the thing. It was all I do for
the Stevie song. But the first records that Saigon, you know,
put out a few signals with us, and he would
just yell out Alito, like at the end of the song.
We're like, okay, well the first person who said our
name is public record has already said Alito, you know
it's not a great.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
That's exactly what it was. I heard him say it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
Yeah, And that's why I thought the label name was
because Brian Face will hol it to Alito.

Speaker 7 (01:09:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's not a good sign when the
people within the label can't even agree how to pronounce
this the you know, the title, so you know that's
how it was.

Speaker 5 (01:09:54):
But how did you say it Mark.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Yeah, what was the why'd you name it that?

Speaker 7 (01:09:59):
It's so I don't know because dildo was already taken.
So I just love the TV song and I should
have just made everybody commit to one pronunciation that's correct.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
I was correct.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
It is all I Doah, Okay, I was getting worried
about myself for a second. I was like, damn, I
have it wrong.

Speaker 6 (01:10:22):
The whole time when music Soul Child album came out,
was you mad? Because it was like everybody got those.

Speaker 7 (01:10:28):
Just what But for some reason, I love I love
the idea of like this kind of like bad like
nerdous comedy sketch, of like mispronouncing all the word famous
famous rap labels. So it's like I'd like to play
this record by good Boy.

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
Oh wait, that's another see I wish I'm paying Bill
was here. It just hit me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
I was trying to figure out remember when we were
trying to figure out what a Manda Green was, like
the Prince way of writing things out, and it's called
a Manda Green.

Speaker 7 (01:11:08):
I was.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
I was trying to figure out who's the king of
Manda Greens now? And that's yeah, that's music Soul Child's
lame music unpaid bill is not here for that, all right.

Speaker 7 (01:11:17):
So with hashtags, my mom's hashtags on Instagram are just
like crazy run on sentences that are just wild.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
So Mark two thousand and six, Man, I mean I
probably told you this story before, but to even the
amount of paralyzed producers that sat and tried.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
To figure this shit out.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
When we got back to black and I got a
call from Jazzy, I didn't get a call.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
I was.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
I was in Barcelona and Jazzy Jeff Instant messaged me
whatever AOL instant message and he's like, man, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Depressed, and he's like what, He's like, Ronson's King. I
was like huh. And then he sent me.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
The fiul to the album and literally the I called
it and I was like, wait, who produced this? And
he says Mark Ronson. I said no, no, no DJ
Mark Ronson. He's like, yes, that Mark Ronson. No DJ Mark,
like you know NBC sixty with the New York Knicks

(01:12:28):
beats that Mark Ronson.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
He's like yes. And I was just frozen. Yo.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
I sat until showtime. I sat in that room and
listened to that album for seven hours.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
So how did.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
You connect with Amy at the time, like he just
explained the working relationship.

Speaker 7 (01:12:49):
Yeah, like, well, I remember just saw that Jazzy Jeff thing.
I remember this because records weren't so global then, they
didn't just blow up like this, So like I didn't
know if people in America had heard the album yet.
And I remember being about to board a plane in
some airports somehow, and there was a message from Jazzy
Jeff and I heard on my phone and he goes, yo, Mark,
this is Jeff. He had never called me before, but

(01:13:11):
you know we were cool, and he was like, which
you just did, like everybody's fucking with this, Like that
was the first call I got from one of my
peers or someone I looked up to. Was this affirmation
of the record. It meant so much. I remember exactly.
I was standing outside looking at the window at the
planes on the ground when I listened to that message
from Jeff. That's how like much it meant to me.
But to go back, so I met Amy because I

(01:13:36):
had had a little bit of you know, heat off
of that we record in England, just people kind of
knew where I was. And Guy Moot, who was the
head of EMI Music Publishing at the time, amazing air
cool guy called me and he said, hey, Amy Winehouse
is in is in New York for a couple of days.
You want to meet with her? And I didn't have

(01:13:56):
fucking shit else going on anyway, but I was like, yeah,
I remember that girl because I because Made You Look
is one of my favorite tracks of all time. And
I loved her song in my bed. I used to
play it, you know, in the sets here. And she
came to the studio and I met her, and I
actually met her at the front door, and uh, she
came up the same time and she was like, yeah,

(01:14:17):
I'm here to see Mark Ronson. I was like, yeah,
I'm Mark and she goes, no, no like Mark Ronson.
I was like, no, no, I am him, and she goes,
I thought you were like an old guy with a
bid or something like. I think she just like probably
heard my name for longer, like thought I was somebody
or whatever it was old guy. Yeah, just like a
different like an older producer or something.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
So you were Mick Ronson, Yeah, that's it exactly, or
Rick exactly.

Speaker 7 (01:14:44):
So we like when and we went and sat in
Lapang coutiden On Grand and Mercer and we just talked
for a minute. I instantly liked it because she was
so funny, I mean, you know, and uh, we came
up into my room, and you know, usually at that
point it was this thing where I'd play beats for people,
do you like this?

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
You like this?

Speaker 7 (01:15:00):
But the minute she started talking about music, I just
knew that I had nothing near what she was talking about.
But it was so exciting, and I said, what kind
of record do you want to make? Because she says, well,
they play this stuff down at my local, like the
Shangri Laws and stuff. So we listened to it and
it's maybe a little familiar with something from like a
Scorsese film, but that wasn't my shit. And then I

(01:15:22):
was like, well, listen, I don't have anything like that,
but if you come back tomorrow, like, let me just
fuck around tonight and come back and see if there's
anything you like. So I stayed up all night and
I was like running around in this live room back here,
I say, with every fucking instrument, And I came up
with the chords on the piano for back to Black,
and I just put a little like kick and tambourine
on it and put a fucking reverb on everything, because

(01:15:44):
I was like, oh, that's she likes this shit, that's
what it sounds like. And she came back the next
morning and I was I was like nervous, but I
was also so delirious from being up all night, like
lack of sleep, working on this thing. And she sat
behind me and I just kind of hit play. I
was like, yeah, I made this thing last night, what
do you think? And she just kind of had her
head down like this, and and then it finished and

(01:16:04):
she just looks up and she goes, yeah, I love it.
I want my whole fucking album to sound like this,
because she never had to. I wasn't even a poker face.
She just never was gonna like gush. She didn't, you know,
that wasn't her hard thing. And so she like took
the CD, ran in the back room, wrote like the
words and the everything in like an hour, and and

(01:16:27):
she stayed in New York an extra five days so
we could do the rest of the songs and demo them.
And then I was using every plug in in the
book to try and make it sound old. I didn't
know what the fuck I was doing. And just about
that time I had met Dave Guy and he had
been playing on some other stuff I was doing. I'd
started to do this version record of these covers, so
they were playing. I didn't know how to record a band.

(01:16:50):
I could barely just record a horn section. So they
had just played me this Verizon commercial they had done
with Sharon Jones that was like a cover of Sin
Sealed Delivered or something like that, and I was blown away.
I was like, wait, you guys made this like like today,
Like how this you know, this sounds old. I don't
understand how this happened. Like, yeah, it's Gabe Man, He's

(01:17:11):
a genius engineers the guys, and we plan this is
our other band. So I asked Amy. I played it
for Amy. I was like, Yo, this shit sounds incredible, right,
we let me go ask this band to play these demos,
these songs have been working on. She said. I played
it for She goes, yeah, it's the nuts, Like that
was her expression if something was really good. She liked
that fucking Verizon commercial, whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
So then talking about by that point, you'd never heard
of Sharon Jones and the dap Kings and just that
whole underground Brooklyn E.

Speaker 7 (01:17:40):
I knew this stuff. I'm pure because I had sampled
something off there on my first record, so something else
they had done. But I didn't really know the Brooklyn scene,
and because I got dropped from my label rather unceremoniously
a week after my album came out. Apparently some of
the samples hadn't been paid for either. So when I
finally met Gabe, bro oh, wait, did you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Do brand new from Rhymfest?

Speaker 7 (01:18:03):
No? No, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Joint.

Speaker 7 (01:18:06):
Okay, I was walking past the Mercury Lounge. I probably
knew that somehow how it's gonna get in touch with
the Dap Kings. I didn't really know, and it said
tonight Sharon Jones and the Dapkings. I was like, fuck,
these are the guys I'm looking for, you know. So
I walk in up the street and Gabe's kind of
like closing up his bass. The gig is over. I'm like, hey,

(01:18:27):
I start talking a mile a minute, probably trying to
give him the seal and da da da he like clicks.
He's like, I need the guy that sampled. Yeah, I
never got paid for that song that you sampled from
your record. I was like, I'll definitely take care of that. Yeah,
I'm so sorry, and like can you just come and
like if can I play these demos and like if
you like him, maybe like we works on the out
and we could do the recorded And so I think

(01:18:50):
Gabe just relented eventually and he came to my studio
a couple of days later. Amy was already back in
London and I played the demos and Gabe was like, Okay, well,
I'm gonna have to check with Homer. Like Homer it's
hard for him to get someone to watch his dog
a lot of the time, Like he's thick caroly, like
they're sewing their own world. He wasn't caught up. There
was anotherhing that would have enticed about money. I think

(01:19:12):
he always found and he said this before the Amy
songs quite intense emotionally and like a little down and
there music is so uplifting and soulful that like he
also wasn't quite sure about like the lyrics and stuff.
You know, it wasn't really his thing. He's a very pure,
like instinctual guy, Gabe. But we got it together and

(01:19:32):
we cut. Amy wasn't here, but I had all her
vocals from the demos on a CDJ that I brought
to the studio. And the band, you know, doesn't play
to click. So the band would start and I would
run Amy's a Cappella on a CDJ, speeding it up
and slowing it down with the band so they could
hear the vocal while they track, like you know, so

(01:19:55):
you so you're pitch it, well not pitch, but you
change the tempo with the temple so they hear her
voice while they're tracking. From the demo, and the one
song I really didn't have an arrangement that I liked
for was you know I'm No Good. I kind of
hated it, and I didn't know what to do with
those chords because it was kind of like it reminded

(01:20:15):
me of like a Spanish flamencoy thing because of the chords,
and I had this very on the nose beat that
was like boom got bud herd dunt dun dud dun
dun jun ja. And I remember just playing that one
for the band we had already done Back to Black
and some of the other shit. I was confident enough
to be like, I hate this thing that I did.

(01:20:38):
Can you guys just think of like anything cooler to
just play right there? And I think like three seconds
home where Nick looked at each other and I was
just like, how about doom did you do?

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
Doom? June?

Speaker 7 (01:20:48):
Doom? Doom did you do do? And I just remember
just being like, this is one of the greatest moments
of my life.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
I know it. I know you know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
So you did all the tracking at Daptone Studios.

Speaker 7 (01:21:02):
The reason I'm coming off the mic is because I
remember I just found because these are the lyrics to
back to Black, how she wrote them in the background,
and it's got these are going to a museum and
ship but like just for the last couple of days
I get to hold on to him. But yeah, it's
even got like a phone number of this guy like
Broncas who used to do this thing last night's party,

(01:21:24):
so she must have got his number the night before
and all the other ship.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
That is amazing.

Speaker 5 (01:21:28):
Man, What museum is it going to be in?

Speaker 7 (01:21:31):
Oh? Anybody who wants it? I mean, I'm just I
just realized, like I found these rather recently, and I
just realized that I do not need to have these.
These need to be somewhere where people can see it,
enjoy it. Yeah, got okay.

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
I wanted to ask mart Man what was the what
were your thoughts on the Amy documentary, the one that uh,
the one that came.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
I saw it in theater.

Speaker 3 (01:21:52):
I can't remember the name of it years ago, but yeah,
I think it was just It might have been just Amy.
What were your thoughts on that and do you think
that captured in your opinion, you know who she really
was as a person.

Speaker 7 (01:22:04):
I remember the first hour of it. I was just
in love with it because you got all of the
joy of Amy, all the humor, the wit, like the talent.
I hadn't even really understood how amazing the lyrics to
songs like fuck Me pumps and stuff on the first
album that I wasn't that familiar was. Until I saw that,
I was like wow, and it was like spending time

(01:22:25):
with an old friend. The second half is very hard
to watch, but I thought it was well done. I
have a little bit of a problem relationship with it
because you know, Ray Cosbert and her dad are people
that I care about and that Amy cared a lot
about and probably wouldn't feel great about them being treated disparagingly.

(01:22:46):
But then it was also brutally on his film, so
I thought it was a very difficult to watch. I've
only seen it once, but I did think it was
a powerful film that was like I think as I
saw that scent of film, and I was like the
other documentary that guy made for us, and I was like,
this guy's gonna make a movie as weighty as her work,

(01:23:08):
Like I feel like she deserves a great filmmaker.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
This is what I want to know, because you and
and Salaam sort of held the majority of the weight
of the album that production. Are you two comparing notes?
Are you hearing each other's demos? Because the thing is
is that sonically that album sounds, you know, it's seamless,

(01:23:36):
it's it's it's absolutely seamless.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
But you know, how are you two even knowing what
the do you are you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
Even comparing notes? Like what the other is doing to
make it make it that way? And who sort of
gets the who's the fifty one percent of the forty nine?
Like who decides yea song order and all that stuff. Really,
I'm asking why was Addicted treated like a bastard step job?
I know that wasn't your song, but yeah, in the

(01:24:07):
London version, the album opens with Addicted.

Speaker 7 (01:24:09):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
In the American version, it's like the last song, like, yeah,
the American version opens with Rehab and I'm like, wait, what, Like.

Speaker 7 (01:24:18):
Yeah, because they're like Americans have short detention spans, we
have to I don't I really don't know. I'm sure.
I'm sure she had nothing to do with that either.
But yes, I think, to be fully honest, Solam and
had an incredible musical bond, and uh Slam has made

(01:24:38):
many of my favorite tracks, like Stone.

Speaker 3 (01:24:41):
I mean, just the fact that he bought you know
you said when you said your twelve inch was breaking
the dough, I'm like, man.

Speaker 7 (01:24:46):
Yeah, that's fujila all of it. And but I think
that they were doing a similar thing, a little closer
to what they had been doing on on Frank and
they heard and Slam heard the demos. Amy said she
was very excited about it, and then Salam took it
into more of a live direction that maybe he would
have done anyway, but I think he was probably excited

(01:25:08):
to get to do that as well.

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
So initially his work was more contemporary and whatnot, and
then once you brought it to the sixties, then he
adjusted his music accordingly.

Speaker 7 (01:25:19):
Yeah, that's what I've been told.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
Yeah, okay, okay, I get it.

Speaker 5 (01:25:24):
You know, in a.

Speaker 2 (01:25:27):
Year of highlights, like in two thousand and six, two
thousand and seven, especially when you win Producer of the Year,
Like what's going through your mind as they're reading off
the nominations. And I mean by that point, were you
basically like I got this or no?

Speaker 7 (01:25:46):
No, because it was still like, you know, Timbaland was up,
and I was like they could easily give it to
him for like a life service whatever. But you know,
I'm not an idiot again and not going to pretend
like I know what ticks Grammy otis boxes and this
was like a record that really fell in that zone
because it had touches of the classics and the past,

(01:26:06):
and it's like a nod to the old school shit.
But no, I don't. I do remember I was very
hungover at the Grammys, which because I was just like
part like that was my first time at the rodeo.
Suddenly I kind of made it like I'm like high
fiving Rhianna some party the night before, like with my
stupid like beetles blowout bob or something that I was wearing.

(01:26:29):
But I was pretty hungover. It was very surreal. I
do remember when they read out Producer of the Year,
my friend had to like kind of like shake. It
was like hey, they said your name, like you know,
like it's in the movie, but the Grammys themselves. I
took my mom and you know, we sat next to
each other. Obviously it was my first time there, but like,
you know, there's no food, there's no water, you're hungover.

(01:26:51):
It's like there, you know, it's basically like sitting next
to my mom in synagogue on Yong Kapor. It's like
the same thing, or just like okay, when is this
gonna end?

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
But it was.

Speaker 7 (01:27:01):
It was also a magical night.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
Where do you keep your Grammys?

Speaker 7 (01:27:06):
Right now? They're in storage

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