Norman Cook

Norman dissolves into giggles: "Robbie Williams is sorry to bother me at home?" This sort of thing has been happening a lot since Norman's 'Brimful Of Asha' remix turned Cornershop into reluctant chart-toppers. Everybody wants his irresistible production touch, but Norman has got a simple rule that ensures he'll never get stressed, or depressed again ­ the way he did when Beats International broke up ­ "I don't do anything I don't want to do". That's why he never plays live. "I tried that with Freakpower," he sighs. "I wasn't that good at it. Or at writing proper songs. I've realised now that what I do is dumb-arse, repetitive sample and breakbeat-based dance music. I'm not an actor, I'm not a dancer, I'm not attractive to look at, so I don't play live and I don't appear in videos. Anyway, if you start appearing on the telly people recognise you in the street and come up and tell you how crap you are. It happens a bit now, actually, builders on scaffolding shouting "Hoy! Fatboy!' I get really embarrassed at stuff like that."

That makes you sound quite shy, but when you DJ you're a right show-off, always talking to the crowd and waving your arms about, aren't you? "Oh yeah," he smiles, "I love being the centre of attention. I'm a natural-born show off, but I can only show off if I'm comfortable with what I'm doing. I've been DJing for 16 years, I know what I'm doing, I feel confident." Which brings us to the other famous Norman Cook rule: no DJing North of the Watford Gap. His unhinged sets of breakbeats, acid techno, dumb comedy records and anything else he can mix in are legendary down south, but if you club in Liverpool, you won't know what the fuss is about.

"It would take up too much of my week," he says. "I'd never get any work done. My capacity for... well, let's just say I like a drink, so once I've played I'm not going to go straight to bed. I used to end up going to sleep at 11 am, half an hour before I got thrown out of the hotel. I'd end up sitting in Nottingham off me nut, thinking 'How am I going to drive home?' I wouldn't get home till six or seven at night, I'd have a hairy drive so I would need a drink when I get home... There are places I'd be flattered and excited to play ­ Cream, or Bugged Out ­ but if I played Cream everyone else would moan, so I've got to have the rule."

Not that it stops promoters trying anything to buy an hour of Norman's time mind. "A promoter from Wales rang up and said 'What would it take for Norman to play here? How about a stretch limo to his front door, full of champagne and cocaine, and when he plays we'll have two naked women dancing in front of him?' Tempting though it was, I have to keep my, erm, will power strong." And will power is something that matters more to Norman Cook nowadays. Everybody knows about the druggy fool behaviour, the all-back-to-mine mentality that made his terraced home ­ legendarily dubbed 'The House Of Love' ­ Brighton's number one after-party venue. But recently, he's been talking about calming down, particularly after he collapsed while on tour in the US. He's moving out of The House Of Love when he's finished the Fatboy Slim album, to a massive seafront house. In it's own small way, it's the end of a clubland era.

"There's only so much you can do to your body," he reasons. "I'm 35 and it starts to hurt. Things like Tony de Vit's death make you stop and wonder how much his workload exacerbated his illness. Carl Cox collapsed when I was in Australia with him. You just think 'There but for the grace of God go I'. I can't do 48-hour benders anymore... so I'm going to do 24-hour ones instead." Norman Cook dissolves into giggles again.

HE can refuse to do videos. He can refuse to play live. He can tell you he hates interviews because "It's always boring when I read it back. And it means I'm not in the studio making tunes, or out having fun." But none of it matters: in 1998, Norman Cook is a star, with chart positions and the mad celebrity stories to prove it. Tim Roth wants to direct his next video. Sean Ryder interrupted him while he was DJing in Ibiza and asked if Norman would teach him to beatmix. When Norman said "Well, thanks very much, but I haven't got the time," Ryder dropped to his knees, grabbed his legs and refused to let go until Norman fluffed the next mix. He says he's "amazed by the warmth of people on the dance scene". Other dance celebs love him, you suspect because, in a dance world of concept triple-albums, DJ sets that are spiritual journeys and producers that think they're serious artists, Norman Cook is as unpretentious as the "dumb-arsed dance music" he makes. This is, after all, the man who claims that his only interests were "making tunes and getting twatted". "I was gobsmacked recently," he grins. "I bumped into Armand Van Helden in Ibiza and he gave me this massive hug and started going 'Don't ever stop making records, man, I love everything you do!' Then I was introduced to Deep Dish. I was going 'I'm not worthy!' and then they started going 'No! We're not worthy!' The people I rate liking me, that's more important than Radio One or Dave Lee Travis liking me or something."

But you're proper famous nowadays. You've had big hits and Robbie Williams is sorry to bother you at home. Depeche Mode and "Natalie Imbonglio or whatever she's called" were turned away from your recent New York gig. You're also notoriously open about your love of a line and a cheeky half. So do you worry about the tabloids whacking you on the front page? "When I was in The Housemartins, we got really battered by the tabloids [the band thought the Royal Family should be "cut up into little pieces and sold to Japanese tourists", and they said so], so they must have a file on me this thick, but I think I've pre-empted them. There's nothing they could expose about me that I haven't told everybody about anyway. If they were to do some headline, CHART-TOPPING NORMAN IS A DRUGS MONSTER, I think everyone would just go 'Yeah? Tell me something I didn't know'."

So, what's the best rumour you've heard about yourself? "When my last girlfriend met me, she was told I was a gay smack addict. I thought it was really nice that she gave me a chance. This rumour about me being gay always persists. When Beats International were recording in Africa, one of the band sent a postcard to his girlfriend saying Norman's bought two small boys to keep in his bedroom. Chinese whispers went round and by the time I got back to England, everyone was going 'Well, now we know why your wife left you...'"

NORMAN's been forced to cancel his set at the Big Beat Boutique tonight ­ what with the album still to finish and everything ­ but, at around 2am, just as Dan and Jon Kahuna are finishing their set, a familiar figure appears behind the decks at The Beach, the seafront club the Boutique now calls home. As soon as the packed audience recognise him, they surge towards the decks. This, quite clearly, is Norman's crowd. He mixes in his first record, a particularly insane track from the forthcoming album called 'Fucking In Heaven', and a vocal loop lurches around the room: "Fatboy Slim is fucking in heaven... Fatboy Slim is fucking in heaven..." Chaos ensues. "If I'm in Brighton, I can't keep away," admits Norman. "And if I was to go there and not play, it'd be like watching another bloke shag your girlfriend. The crowd that's built up over the last two and a half years get my joke and go with me on it, so I can just be me.

"I know the first four rows by sight. They ponce fags off me, they give me cheeky halves, we have a chat. When it was at the Concorde, we put up crowd control barriers to stop people getting crushed and every time I played a good record, they'd pick up the barriers and bang them on the floor. It was like DJing in the middle of a riot."

He remembers the night he turned up with just a box of old seven-inches, starting his set with 'The Monster Mash' by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett And The Crypt Kickers ("Everyone was looking at me and I just kept holding up the record box, going 'that's all I've got!'"). Or the night he broke the mixer, and the crowd started chanting 'Norman's blown the mixer! Norman's blown the mixer!' while doing a conga around the room. He says it's the only club in the country where he could get away with playing the records he does. And, as if to prove his point, he follows a wall of acid noise and an unreleased mix of 'The Rockafeller Skank' with Queen's 'Another One Bites The Dust'. Standing behind him, the Kahunas' looks of faint bemusement turn to broad smiles. The crowd, unsurprisingly, go berserk. Behind the decks Norman Cook is singing along. And laughing his head off.

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