Fatboy Slim

With Fatboy Slim albums, the clue is always in the title, and Norman Cook's third outing is no exception. While "You've Come A Long Way, Baby" was one long whoop of triumph, "Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars" is the sound of a person taking stock of their life.

Norman was staying at LA's Chateau Marmont hotel, when the title came to him. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had come along to see him DJ the night before, Bill Murray said hello in the lobby and the pop star life was his for the taking. But as for Norman himself?

"I was wandering around sweating and shaking, not having been to bed for about two days," he remembers with a wry grin. "And I was thinking, 'You can take the boy out of the gutter but you can't take the gutter out of the boy'."

When you remember that the whole Fatboy Slim alias started out as a fun side project to help launch the hip UK label, Skint, and have a laugh making party records to DJ with, no wonder Norman has found the last couple of years surreal. "You've Come A Long Way Baby" wasn't just a great record - it was a pop phenomenon that made him the world's biggest dance artist and redefined the concept of the superstar DJ. He was the biggest British artist in the US last year.

During those two rollercoaster years, everyone from Madonna to Robbie Williams was bidding for his remixing talents, his kitchen shelf groaned with trophies and virtually every weekend found him jetting off to major DJ gigs and award ceremonies. In the midst of all this, he fell in love with, and married British television and radio personality, Zoe Ball. A personal high, but one that made the couple reluctant tabloid material.

"I'm not moaning about it but I definitely had pop star fatigue," he reflects. "The pressure of being in the limelight all the time was beginning to take its toll. For about three months my job was to go to awards ceremonies. When that was all I did, and I wasn't making any music I was getting hacked off with what my life had become. I'm not very good at being a celebrity."

In 1999 he played two defining events - the boxing-themed face-off with Armand Van Helden at London's Brixton Academy, and a legendary show with The Chemical Brothers at Red Rocks, Colorado (the first time these superstar artists performed together in America) - which effectively closed a chapter in his career. Time to move on.

As the new year dawned Norman ventured back into his home studio in Brighton, England to make the most emotional, innovative album of his career. Norman explains the progression by pointing out that "The Rockafeller Skank" was the first track he recorded for his last album, and "Right Here Right Now" was the last.

"I thought, 'Actually maybe I can do something with a bit more power and soul rather than just thrills and spills'. When I started this album I just sat there for about a month thinking what I didn't want it to sound like. It took ages to work out what I did want it to sound like."

Helpful advice came from longstanding friends The Chemical Brothers, who suggested he work with guest vocalists. Reluctant at first, Norman drew up a wish list of possible collaborators and the first name on it was charismatic soul diva Macy Gray.

They recorded two songs together in LA at the beginning of the year: the hormonal funk of 'Love Life' and the glorious breakbeat gospel of 'Demons', which Norman describes as the album's pivotal track. Macy, meanwhile, calls it the best thing she's ever done and she's right, too.

"She was lovely," Norman reports. "She's very eccentric but really beautiful. And she smells great. That was the first thing I noticed when I met her!"

After that the album had