Smash hit

“Well, thanks. Certain social skills do come into it, yes. It’s about making them feel confident, helping them to feel good about themselves. You’re this support system, creatively and emotionally. But still before every new job I’m racked with a massive insecurity: ‘OK, this’ll be the one that exposes me as a fraud and a talentless f***.’” Ultimately, Ronson says, the secret lies in just pleasing himself and whoever he is working with. “Doing Back to Black with Amy, we felt no pressure at all to come up with hits. We were in our own bubble, just making music we liked. So while I knew it was good, I had no idea why her A&R guy saw dollar signs the very instant we first played him Rehab.”

Such unwitting genius has recently resulted in a slew of awards and independent wealth, while a growing mainstream profile has replaced Ronson’s previously cult-ish fame. Doubtless all kinds of artists would now love to benefit from his Midas touch, though laudably he remains most interested in emergent talent (some of it appearing on his own record label, Allido) or personal old favourites (this month will see an onstage collaboration with Duran Duran). And while he admits that women have also now discovered him in a big way, “I’m not really interested in… Well, let’s just say there’s enough chaos in my life and that I prefer being either by myself or with just one person.”

For three years, and until recently, that person was American artist Cosi Theodoli-Braschi. “But now I’m with someone else whom I like a lot [model Daisy Lowe] and that’s good because it’s an anchor.” Which, you sense, is something he feels increasingly in need of. Take this past weekend, the first he’d had free in four months and spent at his Greenwich Village apartment. “The weather was great, so despite barely being able to cook and never having had one in my life before, I decided to go out and buy a barbecue. And we had the absolute loveliest, most perfect time. My girlfriend’s there and my mum pops over and then my neighbour comes out to see what’s happening…”

Right. And you just know it’s going to be someone cool and interesting. “Justin Theroux. This brilliant actor/writer. He’s been in a couple of David Lynch films and has now written this great new action comedy, Tropic Thunder. Anyway, he says, ‘What’re you guys doing?’, and I tell him we’re having a cook-out. So he fires up his George Foreman grill and there’s me putting briquettes on my barbie and it’s the most civilised, domesticated thing I’ve ever been a part of in New York. It really is – was – the most special day.”

Recalling what for many would be (the Washington Square location notwithstanding) a pleasantly run-of-the-mill summer experience, Ronson is soft-eyed, his tone almost wistful. In other words, he appears as bewitched by normality as Joe Public is by the event-driven, celebrity-packed, effortlessly hip world that he inhabits and is coming to personify. But further frankfurter-fests will be few and far between this summer. Our man is busy, busy, busy between now and mid-October (his next scheduled Saturday and Sunday off), what with DJing and gigging and producing and running that record label. Then will come the challenge of beginning work on a follow-up to Version. “I’m not sure what form it will take yet, except to say it won’t be full of covers. There’s only one I have in mind.”

But before any of that, and just hours away, there is the small consideration of the Glamour Awards, the reason for his flying visit and at which he is to be the sole male honoured (Man of the Year, no less). Ronson the unselfconscious dandy takes over here. He describes his largely self-created look (there is occasional help from a stylist friend at GQ in New York) as being based on Sixties Bob Dylan Monday through Friday, with a little Alain Delon on the weekends. So for tonight? “I’ve brought this Seventies-style Yves St Laurent dinner suit complete with ruffled shirt and bow tie. A Liberace-meets-Dean Martin kind of look. It’s almost in homage. The thing is, though, it’s more of an Oscars outfit. I could be seriously overdressed and look like a dick.” It is indeed a worry.

Ronson is expecting a fun night, but part of him wishes instead that he were joining his dad, stepmum and half-siblings for Henrietta’s coming-of-age dinner. And that he’d be going back not to a hotel, but to the room in which he slept on boyhood visits back to his dad in London. “It’s still got the same bed. My feet hang over the end of it so I have to curl up in a foetal position. But I like that and the way that family grounds me, both here and in New York. Running around town is in the nature of what I do, but if you’re living from a suitcase and going out every night, it’s very easy to get caught up in the lifestyle. So it’s good to be able to go home to your parents. It’s a valuable alternative to falling into cliché.” Saying which, he offers a handshake and thanks me for my time. Well brought up, you see. Any mother would be proud.

Explore Music

• CD Reviews

• Live Reviews

• Classical

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010