Mark Ronson on his surprise no. 1 hit

[RoadWarrior]

In this week's Billboard cover story producer, songwriter and musician Mark Ronson, whose recent track "Uptown Funk!" featuring Bruno Mars, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, dishes on Amy Winehouse, his neurotic ways, his surprise No. 1 hit, and more.

Ronson talks his extreme anxiety over the course of making his recent album, which caused his hair to begin to fall out, trouble sleeping and loss of appetite. One afternoon, on a lunch break from recording his guitar part on "Uptown Funk," Ronson vomited, passed out and had to be carried from the restaurant.

He describes his levels of neuroses as "somewhere between a normal person and Woody Allen."

Mark Ronson Billboard Cover Story Quotes:

On working with Amy Winehouse:
Working with Winehouse, he says, "was inspiring, because when you work with someone that great, you suddenly want to be better. In every way, it put me on the map. Take that album away, and you and I would definitely not be talking right now."

On him and Bruno Mars finding out that their song "Uptown Funk!" hit No. 1 on the Hot 100:
"I called Bruno, we talked for a minute, and I said, 'I'm going to let out a primal scream right now, if that's OK,' " Ronson later says. "I cupped the phone to protect his golden ears, and that's what I did."

​On his unusual childhood:
"I remember when I was 5 years old, I was doing a Happy Meal crossword. My dad was hung over for a lot of the '80s, and I was like, 'Daddy, what's a five-letter word for something they put in hamburgers?' He looked over from the bed and said, 'Vomit.' So I wrote that down."

On initially being tagged as a "celebrity DJ":
"It's a terrible claim, but I must have been one of the people for whom the term was dreamed up," Ronson says now. "It was a slap in the face. But then I produced some important records and I didn't have to deal with it too much anymore."