Craig David hasn't long been off stage with Bastille at London's Roundhouse, where he joined the recent chart-toppers to run through a few songs.

The Southampton-born star seems to have come full circle in his career, which started 16 years ago amid the UK Garage explosion.

"It was a nice moment," he admits, reflecting on the crowd's reaction to him walking on stage.

The best thing for David, though, was talking to Bastille's frontman, Dan Smith, before the show, and hearing how he used to perform songs from his debut album, Born To Do It, before Bastille took off.

During the past 18 months, that's a story that's been told more than a few times by different artists David has met on the road to one of pop's most remarkable comebacks.

Once upon a time, he was selling millions of records - 2000's Born To Do It sold almost eight million worldwide - while being nominated for Brit awards and Grammys.

Second album Slicker Than Your Average was slightly less successful, but still managed to shift 3.5m copies. Then the rot set in with The Story Goes... written in the aftermath of his record label shutting down, 2007's largely forgotten Trust Me, and the official sounding of the death knell, a collection of Motown covers, Signed Sealed Delivered, released in 2010.

By that point, David, 35, had moved to Miami, and all we really knew of him on this side of the Atlantic was what he posted on Instagram, where we saw shot after shot of David, shirtless in the gym or out running. His physique was impressive - intimidating, even - but his career appeared to have completely hit the skids.

The impact of TV series Bo' Selecta! was a contributing factor, no doubt, and while David brushes that off, it can't have been easy having a comedy sketch show named after a line from one of his songs, and the show itself featuring a Craig David caricature who carried a chicken tikka loving kestrel, wore a urostomy bag and had a fondness for saying his own name.

David's admitted in the past the depiction hurt his career, even if it didn't upset him personally, but he and comedian Leigh Francis, now better known for his current alter ego Keith Lemon, have since kissed and made up.

Even if David's move to Miami wasn't a direct result of Bo' Selecta!, his return to the UK 18 months ago definitely did restart his career.

He says he'd become a little too obsessed with statistics, sales figures and cynical moves that could further his career in the past, and coming back to the UK reminded him that he needed to focus on his music and the rest would take care of itself.

"People are saying it's a comeback, but I'm in the eye of the storm, so it's hard to say what it is at the moment. I know that the spotlight was off me for a time, and new artists came through. People moved on, they weren't waiting for me to come back. There was love there, and I thought that if I delivered, and I was authentic with it, then people would come back to me.

"I believe in songs, and I always thought I had another three minutes of a song in me that people would want to hear again. I don't think you ever lose that ability - look at the impact my songs have had on people in the past. You never lose that skill, but it's about being diligent and wanting it enough to find the songs.

"I knew I had to concentrate on that and not worry when the songs were coming. That carried me all the way through, so it has overwhelmed me now it's happening again."

He says when he first came back to the UK and began meeting young producers he wanted to work with, he was struck by how they referred to him in the past tense, how they used to love his music, or that they loved his early material.

"That made me want to go in the studio to show people what I've still got. There were moments when I'd be in the vocal booth and the producer would push the playback button so I could hear what I'd just done. I'd hear my voice and I'd think, 'Ooooh, you've still got it Craig, you've still got it.'"

The resulting album, Following My Intuition, is a return to form. There's enough shuffling two-step on there to appease David's returning fans, while the Disclosure-esque production on the likes of One More Time and 16, which actually features a throwback to Fill Me In, will surely bring in a new generation.

"Making this album really reminded me of when we were doing Born To Do It," he says. "Back then, I wasn't thinking about an album, I was just going to the studio, excited, and coming up with songs, then finding there was a common thread between the songs strong enough to make a whole album."

The collaborators are interesting, too; rapper Big Narstie is on there, as are Kaytranada and Sigala, two names recognisable now, but almost unknown when David first approached them. He says it was deliberate to go to up-and-coming artists, rather than seeking out the biggest current names.

"I honestly feel like it's the first time all over again," he says when asked if his rejuvenation makes it feel as if he's in a new phase of his career.

"It's like the first time, but I have 16 years of wisdom and experience under my belt, and I know to avoid all the things I did that I thought were the way forward but weren't.

"I have so much to express, and I have this platform again, signed to a major label, and there's a beautiful feeling that people want me to succeed, or want songs from me, so I want to do it.

"The one thing I said before I signed this new deal was that I had to enjoy myself again. Not that I wasn't enjoying myself first time around, but then I was 17 and it was happening at 100mph, so I didn't have time to take it all in.

"I don't want to rush things to hit deadlines, or do what other people want me to, because I've done that before and look where those albums ended up going. The label wanted more success, but it wasn't happening."

He's closing the year with a string of live dates, and will play arenas all over the country next spring - something he has done before, but wasn't entirely sure he would do again.

"My mum had a picture of me outside Wembley Arena saying I'd sold out three nights when Born To Do It came out. It's surreal that all these years later, I'm doing the O2, which is even bigger.

"But I won't get carried away. Playing two nights at the O2 does not take away from smaller shows or acoustic performances I might do somewhere to a smaller crowd, or a festival or anything else. I'm not going to allow myself to fall into the traps I did before."

:: Craig David's new album, Following My Intuition, is out on September 30. He plays shows in the UK in October, and has just announced an arena tour for next March and April 2017