You find Robbie Williams in a Hollywood bungalow, towel around his waist, sopping wet, straight from a hot tub. "I'm currently riding the tidal wave of success- a big success where I'm from," he says between drags on his cigarette. "I'm not known here, but fortunately I have ego enough to sail me through America and not notice that nobody's noticing."

True enough: In his native England the 25-year- old Williams is an enormous star. A former sensation in the boy band Take That, owner of two mutiplatinum solo albums and a huge star of tabloid grade tales of drugs and debauchery. But here in Hollywood he's just another half naked guy with a glib expression and a plan to take over the entertainment industry.

Certainly Williams has the confidence to believe he can storm these former colonies by sheer force of will. Witness his American debut ( a composite of his two British albums, Life through a lens and I've been expecting you) Title the ego has landed. A joke yes, but with Williams, things are never that simple. In his single " Millennium" he sings, " get up and see the sarcasm in my eyes" but in reality, Williams views the world with a kind of ironic double vision: one eye starry the other winking. So you tell Williams that for someone who makes his living mocking pop stardom, he certainly seems to love being a pop star.

The man still wet from being in the hot tub grins. "damn right" he says. Room service rings with a steak dinner, so Williams stubs out his cigarette and starts in on the fillet. Between bites, he attempts to offer a little perspective.

"Coming down to London, one of my first trips was to go to an Absolutely fabulous wrap party," says Williams. He adjusts his towel and continues, "it was amazing to find out they're not playing characters. I remember saying to the husband of Jennifer Saunders, " I thought Ab Fab was taking the piss out of this whole thing," and he got really offended. Now I am that. I am in a way the very pop star that I'm taking the piss out of. And this is how a pop star lives.....

First things first. The pop star needs some pants. There is a party at Capitol records, so Williams throws on some clothes and pile into an urban assault style vehicle, complete with a device for listening in on other peoples mobile phone conversations. to ensure he stays entertained on the 10 minute ride. The plan is to press the flesh, toss a paper airplane off the famous round roof and then schmooze a bit more before high tailing it to his nine o'clock concert in downtown Los Angeles.

It's tough to imagine anyone working a roof top more smoothly than Williams. He is disarmingly likeable- Roger Moore in a soccer hooligans body. and is happy to dispense this mixture of sophistication and blue collar grit in greater than over the counter doses. Forget that most of the label executives and other musicians on hand had never herd of Williams a few months ago; everyone succumbs to the Williams charm as if star struck. In many ways, Williams has been doing this his entire life. Growing up in Stoke on Trent, an industrial town in the north of England. Williams began opening his family's pub at the age of three. His father Pete Conway, was a famous comedian, and by age eight, Williams was acting in local stage productions. At 16 he was recruited to join the teen group "Take That" and soon Williams was off to see the world, a soundtrack of screaming girls the only constant from London to Tokyo.

When Williams hit 20 and tired of the confinement of Take That's good boy image ( and they in turn grew very tired of him), He got himself fired from the group and promptly decided to turn solo. The only problem was that Take That's label owned the rights to Williams solo career ( for $150,000) as well as the rights to Take Thats best boy, Gary Barlow ( to the tune of $750.000) .

" So now I'm left with a situation where, Your my record company. Are you going to treat me with priority, or are you going to say " Gary Barlow is the talent. He's going to make it"? says Williams. " So I had to leave that record company. Because if he was telling that to TV and magazines, what was he saying to the record company?"

The legal battle lasted more than six months, but eventually, Williams landed at a new label. The only problem was that in the interim, he had also landed in a number of pubs, and that in turn led to his bloated countenance landing on the fronts of the London tabloids. Rehab was the next logical resting place.

" I couldn't stop drinking, and I didn't know how to," says Williams of that period. " I also knew that I had quite a good album coming out and that I'd never sort myself out by myself. I needed that kick up the arse, that five or six weeks. Now where I am is the point where I do enough until I become slightly pudgy, then I stop. My vanity has saved my life. And thats basically it. I'm in limbo with it all at the moment. I seem to be all right, but I've been told I'm an addict."

These days Williams says he craves normalcy. He has bought a place in Stoke on Trent ( where his Mother and Sister still live) and claims he wants to some day settle down, get married and raise a family. He was engaged once but, being a pop star by design, Williams got engaged to Nicole Appleton of All Saint fame, yet another tabloid ready relationship in his tabloid heavy life.

" I think of it in the way of two fucked up people in the same fucked up world," says Williams. " I'm not talking about the world in general, I'm talking about our business and what it entails. If you've got two minus's , you're not going to get a plus, and that's basically it. I want to get a T-shirt that says STAR FUCKER, because all I seem to end up with is famous birds. But who else di I meet? I don't meet anyone else. Who are the other people- makeup artists?"

You mention to Williams that he has slept with his last two makeup artists before his current one. He close his eyes for a long moment. " Yes I have done that," he finally says. " Thank you for pointing that out."

First there os sudden darkness, followed by the Starwars theme and, finally Robbie Williams, the man himself, midstage, String mock disco poses. When the band kicks in, Williams opens with "Let me entertain you", a sincere little dance pop sentiment that features the declaration " I'm a burning effigy of everything I used to be"

For a while Williams angers over his teen idol days dominated his music, but these day songs like " Karma Killer" about former Take That Manager Nigel Martin Smith have given way to more diverse and thoughtful lyrics.. The whole angst ridden response to my past became part of the gag that people started expecting from me," says Williams. " I mean if you have a hand puppet that's part of your show, you bring the hand puppet out and people cheer. So I wrote the songs people wanted to hear, about the people they wanted to hear it about. Until the point comes where you go 'it's really fucking silly now.' But then you wonder how to stop."

Tonight Williams keeps those demons at bay by working the stage like it's a Las Vegas revue. Banter is incessant, corny jokes spike the song introductions, and audience sing a longs are strongly encouraged. " My passion is performance," says Williams. " I've always felt slightly embarrassed about that. I've always felt tremendous guilt that somebody else should be here, someone that dies for music, which is where Guy Chambers comes in.

When Williams first signed his record deal with EMI, the label quickly realised that he was in better drinking than writing shape and forced him into writing collaborations with chambers, the former World Party keyboardist and the man Williams now considers his musical partner for life. In the Robbie Williams world domination manifesto, Chambers supplies the music, Williams provides the words, face and attitude. The Williams Chambers collaboration breaks down into three distinct sounds, and tonight each is in full effect. One typified by Millennium, is smooth, hip hop laced dance pop; another is aggressive guitar driven rock ( Man machine) that parks a few spaces shy of edgy; and finally there are the power ballads like Williams career making single Angels that could play over loudspeakers at camp Elton John for generations to come. " It's all different stuff that going to have to be played on all different radio stations," says Williams. " I don't know how it will work." But no matter which style he plays, Williams manages to stay within the distinctly Brit-pop carved out by pioneers like George Michael and Simply Red's Mick Hucknall. Which leaves the suprisingly large number of 40 year olds in the audience yelling as if Williams is the latest coming of Tom Jones, while the teenage girls scream as if Williams is, well a handsome 25- year old dancing wildly to his own digestible selections. Both reactions seem to suit Williams just fine. He stalks the stage, happy to leave musical chores to his seriously underrated band in order to more persuasively exude his patented bon vivant.

When the band close with a blistering version of Blur's " song 2" Williams oozes his last ounce of charisma and his band shatters its guitars, leaving the stage a mess of sweat and splinters.

Backstage there are hugs and screams, opened beers and celebrity guests like Rose Mcgowan, Twiggy Ramirez and the Spice girl currently known a sporty. Williams floats through it all, instigating raucous bursts of congratulations to his bans mates and occasionally drifting off, as if wanting to take it all in from a quiet vantage point. Affirmation is extremely important to Willaims and, in his James Bond as a pop star persona, there is no greater affirmation than that bestowed by fellow celebrities. The bigger the star, the better Williams feels. "I can remember when I was 14 and I started to smoke, and it gave me this funny feeling," says Williams. " I used to say as soon as this funny feeling ends, then I'm going to stop smoking", He shows off the cigarette in his hand " and here I am at 25. The same thing happened when I started hanging around with bands: " This gives me a funny sensation, and as soon as this funny sensation ends, I'm going to get out of here and do something else," "Well I'm still here. I'm addicted."

So much so that WIlliams has actually fought a fix or two. " Anyone that I admire that's said anything bad about me, I've actually gone round and beaten them up," says Williams. "And that's happened twice.'' You ask for names. I'm not going to say who because it's embarrassing for them," says Williams.

But you've actually beaten up pop stars? " Yeah" he says. " two. but that's only because it was like, " I really fucking like you, really fucking like you. I have a lot of respect for you. What the fuck were you saying that about me for? And then I beat them up. I'm not saying I'm a hard man in anyway, because I'm not. It's just like " You really hurt my feeling." These days Williams swears he is secure enough in his work ( and his teenage idol past) to shake off any criticism. His response, in fact , is vintage Williams, Cocksure boasting couched in the language of self deprecation, as if revelling in pop stardom and being a regular Joe aren't mutually exclusive.

Explains Williams, "They can say anything thy want about my music, because I know what my music is: Straightforward good songs. That all it is. And I'm not pretending it's anything more than that.

As the dressing room thins out, Williams make his own way out and climbs into the urban assault vehicle for the journey to OceanWay studios. The stated objective is to record a B side or two, but, in reality tonight is a celebration.

The studio itself is a step back in time to the 70s rock mecca that it was. Instruments are surrounded by rows and rows of lighted candles. tapestries drape the walls. and in the corner is a fully stocked bar where Williams manager begins mixing cocktails. Williams band plugs in and plays in the centre of it all. and when the solitude of the vocal booth becomes too much, Williams heads out to belt cover songs live in the room, dozens of friends and randomly selected young women hanging on every syllable. It's a party in it's purest form. Band and guests drinking and dancing in a kind of exhausted bliss. and to see Williams running the show, It's tough to believe that not long ago substance problem and loneliness had him at the cracking point.

" I didn't choose to have these problems, and they are as real to me as yours are to you," says Williams of his feeling of isolation. " tell me they're not real when I was standing on the tenth floor about to throw myself off the fucking balcony because I was so unhappy, that my problems aren't real.

You ask for details, and Williams is hesitant. A short while later you ask again.

"I'd just bought fucking four grams of cocaine, and I'm jittering like a fool," he answers. " I stood on the balcony. I've got a plane to catch, and I'm going, "throw yourself off" This is last year, " Throw yourself off." And I didn't. That's why I can't take coke. And I haven't since. In fact Williams counts right now as the best time of his life, as if he is finally enjoying the fruits of work that he began 10 years ago at the age of 15. A king in England Williams is convinced that America will soon recognise that sovereignty.

As he holds court in Ocean way studios, bounding from guest to guest, bellowing out songs with his band and delivering drinks from the bar, you can almost see the years of rehearsal that have gone into this moment. " I just fell in love with rock & roll mythology and took bits of it for myself," says Williams. " I'm such a fucking scared, bad-fighting, timid, insecure person. That's where I come from. I'm not hip, I'm not cool. I'm not. So I pretend to be.

As midnight fades further and further into the past. Williams continues his successful role-playing into the late night hours. Finally as the crowd starts to dwindle, the character Williams has created steps out of the studio, hops into the life sized Tonka toy and heads down the Sunset strip, the night still young and the worlds most ironic pop star set loose in a city without irony......

Taken from just-news@onelist.com.