Hitmaker Mark Ronson - I'm A Neurotic Mess

Lady Gaga’s music man is far from ‘Shallow’

As the afternoon sunlight slants through the window of London’s most infamous celebrity hangout, The Chiltern Firehouse, Mark Ronson is exuding the effortless cool of a man who belongs at the beating heart of the international A-list.

The 43-year-old DJ and musician, who grew up living between London and New York, is known in the record industry for his Midas touch. From producing Amy Winehouse’s 2006 Back to Black album, to being the only man allowed to remix Bob Dylan’s back catalogue, to writing and producing the biggest hit of the decade, “Uptown Funk” in 2014, his career is pure gold.

Last month, he added an Oscar and Golden Globe for Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” to his seven Grammy trophies and he’s just released his fifth studio album, Late Night Feelings.

Mark’s manners are impeccable and he looks like a man who’s fazed by nothing, as befits someone who grew up with famous family friends – he was saved from drowning by Sir Paul McCartney when he was six, and late actor Robin Williams read him bedtime stories. So what does it feel like to be Mark Ronson?

There’s a long pause before he says, “I guess I’m coming to terms with the fact I’m a f*** up, an emotional, neurotic mess, so I’m dealing with that.”

Fans would be astonished to hear that a man at the top of his game – with a lifestyle of private jets, Oscar parties, Gaga and Adele on speed-dial, career success and critical acclaim – should feel like that.

He tells, “What you see on the outside is not always how it is on the inside. I know I’m successful, but it doesn’t necessarily make me feel I’m successful, and if I’m confident in terms of my opinions on music, it doesn’t follow that I’m confident in my personal opinions or my emotions. I never have been.