BIOGRAPHY

Her stepfather's a jukebox hero — as in Foreigner's Mick Jones — and her brother's a star DJ — that'd be Mark Ronson — so for Samantha Ronson to get a word in at the dinner table, she had to know her tunes.  It wasn’t until Ronson was 20 that she discovered her music talents.

Ronson grew up around music — going on tour with Foreigner for family vacations and cutting class at her stepfather's studio — but she was never interested in playing.  Then, after spending a year in Paris after high school, she returned to New York and realized she had nothing to listen to.   Ronson taught herself to play and sing and eventually put her poetry to the music. She was still a closet performer, though, when a different sort of music opportunity knocked.

"I got a call one night from a club that I used to hang out at and they were like, 'Do you want to DJ?' " Ronson remembered. "I was like, 'No way,' [but] my friends were like, 'Come on, just do it. How hard could it be?' I was always in the club; [I figured I] might as well get paid for it. And basically they didn't care if I was a good DJ ... they just wanted my friends at their club." 

Samantha took the gig and before she knew it she was filling in for her brother at other clubs while he finished his album. "I was like, 'I am working seven days a week ... why don't I actually practice [DJing] while I am doing it?' " she said. "I am a pretty good DJ. I give myself props." 
As a DJ, Samantha has had some high profile gigs in the last 12 months.  She’s appeared at Jessica Simpsons Birthday Party, with Lindsey Lohan on the American Music Awards, ElleGirl Prom, Blender, Maxim, Playstation, IFC Awards, Playstation at the Super Bowl, Sundance and the VMA’s in Miami.

Ronson's solo material is as infectious as an Avril Lavigne single with the maturity of a Sheryl Crow tune, although neither are necessarily influences.  "I love Joni Mitchell," Ronson said. "I like anything lyric-based. I know most people listen to melody first ... but I've always liked Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder."  "When I first started doing music stuff it was really folky and acoustic because that was what I was listening to at the time," she explained. "And then I started thinking about, 'Well, do I want to be that girl playing on a stool, with, like, flowers and candles or do I want to have a fun record?' And as I got more and more into hip-hop, I was like, 'Oh, let's have loops and let's make it more fun and let's make it move.  "Now, with the live show, I am so used to having no gaps in between songs that the guys want to kill me because I am like, 'All right. We will go straight out of this song into this [one] and let's make that work and then we will blend right into the next one,’ she continued. "They are like, 'We are going to need a break at some point ... I am going to need to rest my hands.' The drummer is like, 'I'm tired.' "

Samantha’s song “Built This Way” appeared through the 2004 smash movie, MEAN GIRLS, featuring Lindsey Lohan.  The song is featured on the soundtrack as well.

Samantha originally struck up a friendship with Roc-A-Fella honcho Damon Dash through the New York club scene, where Sam was a rising star behind the ones-and-twos and Damon was, well, Damon Dash. "I thought Samantha was a cool chick," remembers Damon. "She had a great taste in music, and her sneaker game was on point." But upon hearing her unfinished demo on an iPod late one night, Damon signed her immediately to Roc-A-Fella.