A glance at Mark Ronson's colourful family tree and you start to understand the story behind why he chose to release an album entirely comprising covers of recent songs. Born in London before moving to New York at eight years old, Mark has dual nationality and an accent to match. His mother is socialite writer Ann Dexter-Jones, he is the nephew of property tycoon Gerald Ronson and the brother of singer and DJ Samantha Ronson and clothing designer Charlotte Ronson.

Oh, and his stepfather was Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones.

He's now a household name thanks to the massive radio play of hit singles Stop Me, Oh My God and Valerie, and exhaustive appearances at most of this summer's festivals.

"I grew up in the States so I didn't get to go to any festivals, so playing them this year was the first time of even being there. A whole new experience and I can't think of anything better. It sounds cliched, but it's why you make music. To go out and play a show," said Mark.

When Ronson arrives at the Opera House on Saturday, he'll have several familiar faces looking back at him: "I've never played live in Bournemouth before but my uncle and auntie live there and may be coming along. I've been to Bournemouth with my mum but not in about 15 years, so I'm not sure what I'll remember when I get there."

Before 2007, Mark had been more commonly seen behind the turntables, so playing live was a new experience. "It's definitely weird, the first gigs were really awkward but now I'm totally used to it. But I definitely take it seriously. I took intense guitar and piano lessons so that I didn't sound like a DJ trying to play an instrument."

Speaking about the audience that he attracts to his live performances, Mark said: "It's a total mix, from the stage you can see some hip hop kids and music heads. It just looks like a crowd that loves music. There's nothing trendy or hipstery. We're not like a boy band where people want to see our choreographed dance moves.

"It's an amazing crowd and I love them."

Ronson's well-received second album Version will provide the majority of the material for his tour, but despite it being mainly covers, the writing process was still difficult.

"It was tricky to clear many of the covers and that raised issues. I didn't have a record deal when I made Version and they were all just the songs that I loved. I was messing around making my music and started laying down chords from The Smiths and had Daniel Merriweather sing over it instead of a rapper."

"I also wanted to be able to tour it and play live. I didn't have the money to put a lot of big guests on it as I had no deal. So I rang up my friends, like Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen who just happened to have giant years where they had become superstars. It was like a labour of love."

Covering so many classic songs from bands such as The Smiths, Kaiser Chiefs, Radiohead and Zutons have increased Mark's celebrity chums.

"All the original artists approved the covers and everyone's cool with it. Morrissey nearly came to our show in LA, which would have been quite surreal to meet him. I saw Chris Martin once in a restaurant and I wanted to go up to him and say hey did you hear our song on the radio? I covered your song!' But he was having dinner with his wife. Generally everyone seems to be really into the album, though."

Why not decide for yourself whether Mark Ronson has done justice to the original artists and see him at the Opera House on Saturday.