Homelands England 2000

Groove Armada Interview

Skye Hi was able to ask Tom Findlay and Andy Cato a few questions before they went on to play their DJ set.

So do you prefer gigging or festivals?

Tom: Personally, yeah festivals because a lot of the time you are not just preaching to the converted. They may have come because they think say Manic Street Preachers or Oasis are on the bill and they see us and may think I enjoyed that. And it's just the vibe of the festival thats so special and its right.
Andy: The festivals are nice and anarchic, its nice to come and capture some of that, you know, that early anarchy spirit again. Just being in a field is just fun.

So have you been festival goers yourselves, have you been out camping at festivals?

Tom: Definitely, we both sort of grew up with that whole kinda rave scene in the nineties, the kind of informative years before Thatcher stepped in and ruined it all, you know, we had some good times and so we were definitely kid ravers.

Whats your best festival event you can remember?

Tom: Oh I don't know, that time was so hazy.
Andy: Well mine wasn't really a festival it was a DIY party for New Years Eve outside Bath just in a farmers field in a tent so that kind of counts. Just one of those nights what more can you say.

Bet you can't remember what year that was!

They laugh
Tom: Probably, for us as a band, last year, was one that stood out. We played to 20,000 people on a sunny afternoon at Glastonbury and that can't be beaten. It was just really beautiful.

Are you going to be at Glastonbury this year?

Tom: Yeah on Friday night

And you're off to America, Canada and Mexico before that, have you been over there before?

Tom: Never as a band. We've gone over as DJs and done a sort of promotional whirl, but we've not done a live tour so it should be good.
Andy: Yeah. We've got a lot to do before we leave on Wednesday but once we get there it should be a laugh.

Do you ever get nervous?

Andy: Well you know before you DJ there's a lot of adrenaline - and before you play live - and if you didn't get nervous you'd be a bit weird and you wouldn't play very well either. But that's what makes playing live such a high, and so far its gone well. There's nothing like it in the world.
Tom: I think the nerves come like in this week, you know, when you're getting ready and stuff. Its been a really difficult week because things have got busy and we've squeezed the band rehearsals into too short a time. And we're standing there with literally just an hour to go before the drummer has to go home thinking ahhhhh, and those are the nerves. I think actually when you get there on the night you're not - you can't afford to be - you've just got to get on with it. The thing is if it all goes wrong you'll laugh about it in the morning so it doesn't matter. Theres been a few nights like that already.

Do you still go to the Lake District?

Andy: Well it's not always the lake district. This year we went to Wales for some quiet and its quite frustrating because we made some lovely grooves in Wales but we've been to America so much that we've basically got to write the album between European festivals this summer which is not ideal but we'll get there.

Do you ever get worried about being pigeon holed at all?

Andy: Well I think the 'Back to Vice' CD has done a bit to address that balance because there is a sort of house aspect to that, and anyone who comes to hear us tonight will see that when we are Djing it's about people dancing and having a laugh, we're not going to play mellow sun set tunes all the time. We spent a lot of weekends playing up & at 'em house sets. I think at the moment we're in the situation that when people ask for a Groove Armada remix they can either get a house tune or an ambient adventure.

So will you be in Ibiza this year?

Tom: Yeah. Well we're Djing in September and then we're doing this big Links festival which includes Leftfield, Basement Jaxx, Shaka Khan, and Grace Jones as well. So thats the 15th September in Ibiza. By then the band will have been together for almost three months so it should be a really lovely kinda final moment of the summer and I'm looking forward to that. And if we could do a cover of 'Pull up to the Bumper' with Grace Jones that would be very nice.

The two then set off for the MYH tent where they intended to warm some people up as the daylight faded with a DJ set that would develop depending on their mood at the time - click here for a review of that set.

Interview by Skye.