country lovers tom findlay and andy cato, the now acclaimed british duo otherwise known as groove armada are one of the most important dance bands to develop over recent years. tom is originally from cambridge, while andy cato is a yorkshireman who grew up playing in a colliery brass band!
unlikely super stars they maybe but what makes them so unique is that they're accomplished musicians who compose many of their dance tracks on proper instruments, often playing live with an orchestra, mixing chill out, guitar rock, jazz, breaks, house and everything.
responsible for such chart busters as if everybody looked the same and at the river (1999) as well as the ubiquitous i see you baby the guys have gritted their teeth during difficult industry times and always remained true to themselves. they've progressed from conceiving their goodbye country, hello nightclub lp at a countryside retreat, to producing their fourth lp lovebox in a pressure cooker of an urban/ business environment in london. they've faced changes, wrestled with commercialisation and still remain down to earth, hard working musicians!
lisa loco: 2003 has been rather successful for you both so far, with a brit and a grammy nomination, are you having fun or is it all hard work?
tom findlay: it's quite manic at the moment but i think when it gets like that you should look back to where you were five or six years ago to appreciate where you are currently. we're both looking forwards to a little break as it's been a busy year for us but there are lots of great things happening at present and they always outweigh the lows!
ll: how were the recent european, australian and now us tours?
tf: australia's amazing, it's real superstar land for us as it's our largest audience and so we play to huge crowds (six or seven thousand). plus australia's a beautiful place to be in february, better than the uk that's for sure! europe's still a growing scene but it's cool and we played gigs at four or five hundred capacity venues, which seemed weird after australia.
overall the tours have been sold out in most places including the us where we are right now. in the states dance music isn't quite as big as in the uk yet, but it's going really well for us here and everyone's into the new material. we've played to about two thousand people in about ten cities across the us/ canada, so we haven't done too badly. the scene is very fresh at the moment. we're also looking forward to headlining homelands in the uk this summer!
ll: groove armada's sound is incredibly diverse, do you regard this as a secret to global success?
tf: i think it has a lot to do with that but i wouldn't say it's a secret to our success. as a live dance band i think we're one of the best around at the minute and it's not all down to our diversity. whatever we do, we do it with a certain level of quality and people respect that!
ll: what about your production, briefly who does what in the studio?
tf: in the early days it was more like i brought in the samples and andy did a lot of the programming but now as it's developed we both get totally involved, we engineer ourselves you see we don't use anyone else! although it would be nice to sit with our feet up on the mixing desk in the studio.
ll: lovebox, your latest album, is the title rude and what does it represent to you?
tf: it could be [laughs] it could be anything you'd like it to be! actually it's named after a record box we had in the studio, which was full of heart shaped post-it notes. it's an album to try get down onto a record what ga's been doing over the last few years as a live band.
ll: what kind of experience is lovebox the monthly club night in london?
tf: the night's still going strong, we do one first friday of the month in london. the four or five nights we've done so far this year have all been sold out, so yeah that's all good.
ll: collaborations seem important to you, does it add spark to your dynamics?
tf: yeah of course it keeps things interesting and in the future we'd like to work in a more focused fashion with collaborations like doing a whole album with mc m.a.d (the voice of superstylin'). working with richie havens, nenah cherry and sunshine anderson was also amazing for us.
ll: i very much enjoyed your groovumentary on the website, are you genuine country lovers?
tf: at the time it was genuine but i guess it looks a bit like a spoof now, like a league of gentlemen. it is a bit weird, but I hope you enjoyed the football sequence as that took us about three days to film!
ll: could you try and define andy using three adjectives please?
tf: can I use adverbs as well? well then i would say very, very, tall! andy would probably define me as not, that, tall!
ll: why do you love house music?
tf: i love the diy ethic about it, that you can have just like two guys in a studio immediately knocking out records!
ll: any plans for more buoyant house productions?
tf: yes! very immediate, when we get back to the uk from America. we've established a new record label so we're doing some individual solo projects for that soon. we've not given up on house music yet!
ll: tell us of a secret hobby or interest?
tf: i've got an embarrassing secret. err, i like to go for long walks in the countryside! where you follow those little guides and stuff, so that's my dirty secret, oh and disco, i love disco music. football is our shared love though!
ll: any other gossip, scandal or inflated rumours to reveal? what's on your mind at the moment?
tf: i really want to sleep at the moment, that's on my mind! but regarding gossip err, i would actually like to put to bed the rumour that we played at zoe and norman cook's wedding because we didn't!
oh well. no more wedding gigs to come but check out groove armada's impressive website for more information http://www.groovearmada.com/
