Norman Cook

"you've come a long way, Fatboy..."

Madonna hassles him for remixes, Tim Roth wants to direct his next video, and promoters tempt him with promises of coke and champagne-filled limos. But Norman Cook's having none of it. Well, he might have some of it, but right now, there are more important things to do...

NORMAN Cook looks knackered. Sitting outside a peeling café on the Brighton seafront, The Artist Usually Known As Fatboy Slim is boasting a full complement of bloodshot pupils, black-bagged eyes and a two day growth of mangy stubble. He says he's had about three hours sleep. Are we witnessing the aftermath of the legendary party animal's latest big night out? He shakes his head with a rueful smile. He's been in his studio all night, trying to get the second Fatboy Slim album finished. It's long overdue and his record label are, by all accounts, furious.

Not that Norman helped matters with that business in Ibiza. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. He was out there at the same time as Radio One, combining a holiday with a brief residency in Manumission's back room. Why not do an interview on the breakfast show? He'd been out all night, doing the stuff that Norman Cook is justly famous for doing, but it was all going fine until Zoë Ball asked him about the album. "I just sort of giggled," he recalls, "and said 'Who cares?'"

How was he to know that one of the big-wigs at the major label behind Fatboy Slim, would be tuned in? "The next thing that happened, Damien [Harris, Skint label head] got a phone call from him. He's German and he was shouting down the phone at Damien: 'VOT IS NORMAN DOINK? HIS ALBUM IS NOT FINISHED AND I HEAR HIM SITTING IN IBIZA, DRUNK, LAUGHINK AT US BECAUSE HE HASN'T FINISHED HIS ALBUM?'" Norman Cook laughs and shakes his head. But is it all getting a bit much for him? By anyone's standards, 1998 has been a hell of a year. Top Ten singles left, right and centre. DJing all over the place. And then, all the usual Norman Cook antics the endless after-parties, the two-day benders, the mammoth drug intake. Is he getting a bit sick of this whole Fatboy Slim thing? Norman Cook laughs again.

"Nah. It's been a blast. It would be really miserable of me to say anything other than this year's been tops. Someone said the other day, 'D'you realise that for little kids, bedroom DJs, you're living their dream?' And I thought 'It used to be my dream too and now it's come true', so I'm determined to enjoy it. I'm not gonna go 'Oh, I have to work too hard, I don't enjoy it.' To tell you the truth, I'm... chuffed."

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