'I got to the point in my life where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired all the time," says Norman 'Fatboy Slim' Cook, of his recent spell at a residential facility for alcohol addiction. "I was beginning to have a problem and I wanted to do something about it. It wasn't a career move, let's put it that way. It would have been a cliche if I had gone to The Priory. I went to somewhere a lot tougher. It was like boot camp."

How is he feeling now? Fine, as it turns out. No midnight sweats, no sudden urges to wrap his lips around a bottle of vodka. The closest he came to a crisis moment was when, at a huge open-air show in Japan, he had to perform sober for the first time in his career.

"The idea of doing it without drink was like 'oh no... what if you're not in the mood. What happens if you don't feel like Mr Saturday night'," he says. "But no, it was fine. I receive such an adrenaline shock from the crowd that I've found I can actually do it without drinking."

Needless to say, news of Cook's rehab stint kicked off a firestorm in the British tabloids, where he's been a fixture since getting hitched to radio presenter Zoe Ball a decade ago (it was speculated that he had sought help for his drinking after the couple decided to have a second child -- shortly after this interview Ball duly announced she was pregnant again). Does the incessant prying ever drive him to despair?

"Sometimes it's confusing -- I started in a pop band, then I was known for DJing and dance music and latterly the tabloid stuff, which has to do with being married to Zoe. It's kind of all wrapped up in the same parcel. I have to put different hats on -- you know, who am I today? Am I Norman? Am I Fatboy Slim? Am I a Dad? Am I a C-list celebrity? It can be tough."

This must be especially true if the media is picking over the bones of your marriage, as happened in 2003 when Ball briefly took up with a close friend of Cook's, DJ Dan Peppe (she moved back with Cook a few months later and their relationship has appeared solid ever since).

"Definitely, it can be hard being in the full glare of the tabloids. If I slip up in public, it becomes very ... well, public. Occasionally, it does get to you. It comes with the job. You live by the sword, you die by it."

Besides, it's not as if celebrity arrived overnight, he points out. In his 20s, Cook was quasi famous by dint of playing bass with The Housemartins, who clocked up several hit singles before songwriter Paul Heaton packed it in to form The Beautiful South. From there, he went on to enjoy success as the creative force behind Beats International (Dub Me Good To Me) and funk crew Freak Power (Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out). The fame that came with being Fatboy Slim was an escalation -- not a whole new way of living.

"I was semi-famous in The Housemartins. Had I had that [the celebrity he achieved as Fatboy Slim] at 18, it would have blown my mind. Because I'd been doing it for 10 years, had flirted with it for 10 years, well, it was easier. Of course, there were moments that stand out as particularly crazy. I remember one week I knocked Robbie Williams off Number One, won a Brit and got engaged to Zoe -- from that week on, my life was never going to be the same again. What helped me survive all that, I think, is that I had been doing it for 10 years previously."

Not so easily shrugged aside was the controversy over a huge open-air gig that Fatboy Slim headlined in Brighton in 2002, in which a woman died amid serious overcrowding (more than 250,000 people had arrived on the beach, four times the number police or promoters had anticipated). To be accused of being complicit in a person's death was deeply distressing, he says.

"I learned some valuable lessons in what the tabloids can do to your life. Trying to blame someone's death on me... you know, that was hurtful. At the same time, it sort of launched my new career as this sort of uber-DJ. Everybody saw the video of what we did on Brighton Beach. From there, we did it in Rio in Brazil and in Australia on Bondi Beach. It opened a whole new career for me playing these enormous beach parties."

Though he remains one of the world's most recognisable DJs, in the 90s Fatboy Slim was a fully-signed up member of the celebrity A-list. Zeitgeist-seizing hits such as The Rockafeller Skank, Right Here, Right Now and Praise You were ubiquitous on radio and dancefloor alike, spawning their very own genre of 'big beat'. Witty and strewn with curveball samples, his 1998 album You've Come A Long Way Baby seemed to point to a block rocking new future for electronica -- one which was proudly populist, cheerfully hedonistic and performed by people living proper rock-star lifestyles.

"I don't feel overshadowed by ... A Long Way Baby," he says, reflecting on the fact that his last Fatboy Slim LP, 2004's Palookaville was a relative flop. "I've had quite a few zeitgeists. I was overshadowed for a while by [Housemartins' hit] Caravan of Love and then by Dub Be Good To Me, then by Tune In. You are always known for the last really big thing you did. It was nice to have a pinnacle -- it makes you look forward to the next one."

And anyway, it's not as if he's resting on past achievements. He's just put out a well-reviewed record as Brighton Port Authority, a series of collaborations with, among others, punk warhorse Iggy Pop and indie wallflower Emmy The Great. Plus, he's working on a musical about Imelda Marcos in collaboration with ex-Talking Heads man David Byrne. No, you won't be seeing it on Broadway anytime soon.

"It's called Here Lies Love and it's not exactly Evita," chuckles Cook. "It's firmly off Broadway. It's about what Imelda Marcos got up to in her Studio 54 days rather than what she was doing for the Philippines. We sort of united under a groove. I've always really, really liked what David did -- the whole white boy into black music thing. Which was something he heard in my music. I was interested in working with him 'cos I grew up listening to his records. We're not chalk and cheese at all. He's a lovely man."

He's also good mates with Paul McCartney, a neighbour in Brighton until Heather Mills was awarded their beachside property in their divorce settlement. "He used to come around to borrow sugar," says Cook. "I kind of knew him from the business. Actually, it was me who put him on to Brighton. He was around at the house and said, 'these places are lovely'. And I said, 'well, one next door was up for sale'. And off he went. He was a very good neighbour."

McCartney never asked Cook to remix one of his songs -- making him perhaps the only musician in the western hemisphere not to seek Fatboy Slim's golden touch. Through the years, people as far flung as Madonna and The Prodigy have come knocking on his door. Sometimes he's said yes. Sometimes he's concluded that, well, "you can't polish a turd".

"With Madonna, the song was Ray of Light. It was a tune I couldn't do anything with apart from destroy. I said to her, 'it's fine as it is'. Some big names have been quite persistent. But, you know what they say, 'a gentleman never kisses and tells'."

Fatboy Slim plays Marlay Park, Bank Holiday Sunday, August 2. David Guetta, Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris support

- Ed Power