We are sitting in a van outside a venue in an east London basement. Mike Skinner and Rob Harvey, former member of Leeds rave-rockers the Music, are preparing to play another spit'n'sawdust show as the DOT, their nascent classic pop outfit. It is not exactly the lifestyle of the high-roller.In his former life as UK garage savant the Streets, Skinner forged a new way of being a pop star, breaking down the barriers between performer and producer. Along the way he became king of the lads: a poster boy for hedonism but with traces of street poet. This quickly saw him graduate to international playboy. The inevitable descent into post-fame psychosis was laid down in harrowing detail through his five-album arc. Skinner wound up the Streets in 2011, producing an eye-watering memoir, The Story of the Streets, a year later.

With the DOT, he seems happy to take the back seat. "I always wanted to be the other guy in the Pet Shop Boys," he says when we suggest he is playing the Chris Lowe figure in this new outfit. "I always wanted to be a producer. When I was starting the Streets, I didn't want to have any photos taken." Yet still his rise was fast. "The moment it became a pop star thing, it exploded and fell away to nothing. But I like that."