“I have no level of fame and I don’t aspire to any, honestly I don’t, not at all. I want just enough to make a living.” Chatting down the line from his Hackney home, leftfield electronic producer Mekon (aka John Gosling) admits he’s got little time for the marketing side of music, cheerfully declaring he really doesn’t care. “It’s a double-edged sword – you have to be famous enough for people to book you into clubs, then it becomes a whole other situation where you start craving it. If I could release records without doing any press at all I’d be quite happy, but you have to do it, really.”

The record he’s promoting, Something Came Up, is his third artist album, and features collaborations from stars including Marc Almond, Alan Vega Afrika Bambattaa and Roxanne Shante, and was created in tricky but ultimately positive circumstances, he explains. “I funded it myself, so therefore I didn’t have any pressure to deliver anything in particular and I could please myself,” he says, “But having no money made it really hard as well, having to come up with the dough to pay for some of the vocalists I wanted to use.”

Admitting he used his collaborators partially for company (‘I get bored on my own’) he also selected from both friends and people he came across along the way. “I’ve known Marc Almond for years, through Psychic TV and Roxanne (Shante) I’ve also known for years, she was on the last album, Alan Vega was someone I’ve always would have liked to work with and someone just happened to have mentioned to me – a guy called Ross Alan, told me, I’m in touch with this guy Alan Vega, and he hooked that up, which was nice of him, purely by chance.”

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Starting with the collaborators, how did it work generally?

Mekon: “With the Alan Vega one, I just sent him a track and he sent me a CD back with the vocal. With the Shante and the Bambaata tracks I went over and recorded them. I prefer to do that if possible.”

Skrufff: With Alan Vega, was it a matter of whatever he gives you, you take?

Mekon: “Yeah, I wouldn’t dare to try and say ‘do it like this or that’ to someone like him”

Skrufff: How about Afrikaa Bambaataa, how is he perceived in New York these days, is he like a Puff Daddy super acclaimed celebrity?

Mekon: “No not at all, he’s more like a Godfather of hip hop type. He’s from a different era than the bullets and bling of Puff Daddy. A much more innocent time. He’s massive. Everyone knows who Bam is.”

Skrufff: You were involved in some of the original acid house parties of the 80s at Leabridge Road in Hackney. What do you make of the supposed return of rave now and squat parties?

Mekon: “As far as I’m concerned, raving never went away. And squat parties, as far as I’m concerned, can only be a good thing – I like that element of lawlessness. Those are my favourite times, even before acid house kicked off, when it was warehouse parties and it was all sort of rare groove and that, that’s where the whole ethos of acid house was actually born, in the squatted buildings and putting on raves, that’s where the foundations were laid in that rare groove warehouse scene.”

Skrufff: Are you still politicised?

Mekon: “I’m as politicised as I ever was.”

Skrufff: Do you see dance culture, rave culture and club culture as a genuine force for change?

Mekon: “I don’t know. Not really. I’m a bit cynical of that. Having said that, it’s not something I’ve ever really given much thought to. Obviously I’m against them clamping down on free parties. If people want to party they should be allowed to party. A lot of that rave stuff that was going on in the late eighties, such as the Orbital (M25) raves thing – that whole scene wasn’t really free. It was run by a bunch of gangsters. A lot of people made a lot of money. But if you are talking about free parties, then absolutely, I’m all for them.”

Skrufff: Did you go through any periods of actively pursuing the superstar DJ culture?

Mekon: “No, not at all. I’ve never been interested in that, which is just as well because it never happened for me. I don’t think DJs deserve to be superstars because they are just playing records. I got very disillusioned with it all when it became like that. I think now it’s much more healthy now, it’s much more underground and there’s a lot of kids coming through who you’ve probably never heard of who are doing it for all the right reasons.”

Skrufff: I don’t know you did Bassomatic with William Orbit. When the two of you were doing Bassomatic, did you think he would end up being extremely rich, owning a million pound townhouse in London?

Mekon: “He was certainly ambitious enough to end up being that rich and he always had the faith that he would be. He’s also certainly talented enough to warrant that kind of success.”

Skrufff: Were the two of you sitting there thinking Bassomatic would be massively successful?

Mekon: “No. I certainly wasn’t. I’ve got no business nouse whatsoever. Possibly William was, but he kept it to himself. He’s a bit older than me, a little more experienced than me and quite a lot more talented, so possibly he thought about it. I knew that when we were doing Bassomatic that we potentially had a good combination between us, but I didn’t think much more than that. Fascinating Rhythm went to number five though, which was pretty amazing.”

Skrufff: Did you go on Top Of The Pops?

Mekon: “I didn’t. Probably at the moment it started getting anywhere near success, I probably A) become uninterested in it, and he, B) would have been quite keen to have elbowed me out of the way. He is quite ruthless business wise. Those kind of people are the ones that become rich in my experience.”

Skrufff: What puts you off mainstream success?

Mekon: “I think it becomes a lot of work, doesn’t it? As far as I can make out, once you’re successful like that you have to start working really hard and I’m pretty lazy. Cheerfully lazy. I’m not bitter in any way about other people becoming successful, because I think you are either that kind of person or you are not. You are either driven or you are not. The ones that really want to be successful, it’s like a genetic thing, as far as I can make out, because I have known quite a few people that have had nothing then gone on to make a lot of money. You can see it in them. Lee McQueen (fashion designer Alexander McQueen) for one. As much as he’s like a really talented guy, he’s also a really good business man and really driven.”

Skrufff: Did you know him when he was just starting out?

Mekon: “Yeah, I knew him when he had absolutely fuck all and he was living in a basement in Hoxton.”

Skrufff: You knew he was going to be a success then?

Mekon: “I knew. I could spot he was really talented. I know more now than I did then about fashion, and then I knew absolutely nothing, but even then I could tell. I did all his early shows for absolutely nothing, just because I like doing things that I think are good.”

Skrufff: You are still doing his shows, aren’t you? What do you make of today’s Kate Moss/Pete Doherty fashion culture?

Mekon: “I don’t really know. I guess it was always coming. Andy Warhol was right, wasn’t he? He was predicting it all that time ago. It’s difficult to say, it’s like the chicken and the egg. Do those people crave it or do we create it? Who is to blame? Everyone is to blame. It’s both sides, isn’t it?”

Skrufff: How do you view your own level of fame?

Mekon: “I have no level of fame and I don’t aspire to any, honestly I don’t, not at all. I want just enough to make a living. It’s a double edged sword – you have to be famous enough for people to book you into clubs, then it becomes a whole other thing where you are craving. If I could do it without doing any press at all I’d be quite happy, but you have to do it, really.”

Skrufff: Does it get easier with experience?

Mekon: “Yes it does, actually.”

Skrufff: “Looking back, have you made any major errors where you have thought: That was what I was doing wrong, now I’m doing this?

Mekon: “The whole music business is a learning process. You get fucked to begin with, then you work out ‘I’m getting fucked here’. I think it seems to happen to everyone.”

Skrufff: What would be the main pitfalls for people starting out?

Mekon: “I don’t know, because now it’s such a different business to when I started. It’s so much harder now. It’s a totally different game now. I would be the last person to take advice from. I’d be the person to take advice from if you didn’t want to have a number one record. You know what the KLF did – I should do the opposite of that – how not to have a number one record.”

Skrufff: Are you still in touch with your former collaborator (and notorious gangster) Mad Frankie Fraser?

Mekon: “I haven’t seen him for ages actually. Occasionally I used to bump into him because he used to live in Islington, which is not far away from me, but he’s moved so I don’t see him so much now.”

Skrufff: Was he an easy guy to work with?

Mekon: “He was. He was funny, I had a right laugh with him. He’s kind of a natural performer in a way, it’s that old performance thing, isn’t it?”

Skrufff: Are you Islington born and bred?

Mekon: “No, I was born in Brighton. I’ve been in Hackney for 25 years so I feel I belong here now, but as soon as I get enough money I’m going to move to the country.”

Mekon’s new album ‘Something Came Up’ is out now on Wall of Sound/Shock.