Groove Armada | FunkyJ.com

Fresh from rocking the V-Festivals around Australia, Tom Findlay and Andy Cato of Groove Armada are stoked to be on the road once again. “It’s been a great tour, we’ve had some really magic gigs actually. The Sydney V-Festival gig was probably the best we’ve ever done,” beams Tom Findlay. “A couple of people left us and joined Faithless, which was a bit of a body blow, so we made some little changes. It’s all rather boring actually,” he laughingly says of the specifics, “but we started rearranging things and now it all makes sense and now feel we’re in the form of our lives.”

Groove Armada’s success has come at some cost; record companies screwed them over, and some friendships had been shaken up. After the release of ‘Groove Armada, the Best of’ album a few years ago, both Findlay and Cato thought to call it a day. “Bands normally retire once they have a best of,” he mentions. But Groove Armada didn’t call it a day, and are back with a new album ‘Soundboy Rock’, and they’ve pulled no punches. “Now that we’re back we’ve got a second chance and don’t really care about it as much, you know?” Findlay chuckles. “We’re not going to have sleepless nights about it, we’re just going to get out there and do what we really believe in.”

Their uncompromising first single is Get Down, a grime number that signals a fresh direction for the duo. “The singer is a woman named Stush who’s actually on the road with us now, and she’s great,” Findlay says. “She’s from Croydon in South London and she’s probably never left South London let alone the UK, and she’s having a ball out here – amazed and slightly shocked by it all I think,” he chuckles. “We wanted to give a dance number a grimey sound, and we wanted to give our down tempo numbers a bit of bliss, you know? It’s been about not making any compromises and really going for it.”

“Both Andy and I went off and did our separate things and neither were very successful,” Findlay laughs, “but we enjoyed doing them and it reminded both of us how hard we worked to get Groove Armada to the point we go it to, and it refreshed everything. And Andy moved to Spain, so we’re not in each other’s faces so much anymore.”

The tension between the two abated, and the guys found some common ground to work with. “I think the older you get the better you get at managing conflict, and as long as it doesn’t get poisonous I think a bit of tension can be a good thing. There is a bit of competitiveness that drives us on,” he admits frankly. “With me in London and Andy in Barcelona we were effectively writing the album separately, there was definitely a sense on one-upmanship and that’s not a bad thing. It pushes things on. But we are good friends, and we united for two months at the end of the album, united for a common cause. That’s what this album is; it’s got that edge, but at the end we come together to make it happen.”

A couple of things that sadly didn’t happen were a team up with the Stone Roses’ Ian Brown and the Pet Shop Boys Neil Tennant. “We were really keen to work with Ian Brown this time, he’s kind of a mate and a nice guy, but we didn’t quite make that happen which is a bit of a shame,” Findlay laments. “And I’d quite like to have Neil Tennant on a track, I think it would be quite funny,” he smirks, adding that both collaborations may still happen.

Groove Armada’s Soundboy Rock is out on May 5 through Sony records.

Groove Armada @ Thebarton Theatre 26/03/2003
It’s funny how the scene in Adelaide works. Drum ‘n’ Bass and Hard House are nearly all we get to hear. Every rave we have has two main rooms devoted to these two styles, and house, breaks and techno gets shoved together in the back room, if we’re lucky. Anything that’s near downtempo or triphop is left out all together, as if it wasn’t a part of the dance music scene at all. If this is the case, then how come an act like Groove Armada is so popular and can sell-out Thebby Theatre? Is it simply because Groove Armada are [i]that [/i]good that they transcend the normal notions of dance music, and provide entertainment for a larger cross section of the community? These are the questions that flooded my brain as I entered the gracious old Thebby Theatre.
DJ Jason Bye, from the UK, or so the hand written line-up signs said, was playing a nice mix of old and new triphop stuff, but I missed most of his set as I fought to get to and from the incredibly packed bar. It seems Adelaide likes to drink on a Wednesday night. Expertly guiding our selves to the front of the stage (I love having short, cute, female friends), we were in a prime position to see Groove Armada strut their stuff. Starting with my favourite “Chicago” from Vertigo, they proceeded to play a blend of their old stuff interspersed with their new stuff. Their new album appears to be a lot more ‘rockier’, and this is reflected in the way the guys jumped up and down on stage, rocking their axes like they were Oasis, on more than a few occasions.
I liked the way that their older tunes were remixed to suit the live performance. The guitar and bass were emphasised, and live drums and percussion replaced the digitally sampled drums on most tunes, displaying the fact that live electronic music has come of age quite quickly. I recall seeing similar acts in the past having a whole heap of trouble keeping up with synths and so on, but Groove Armada were very tight, very crisp, and performed incredibly well. The visuals behind the band were very eye catching and perfectly in synch, much like the band. They performed quite a few of their favourites, such as “At The River” and “My Friend”, but “I see you Baby” was played as a sample on the end of one of their new tunes. The finale of “Super Stylin” was much appreciated by the crowd, even getting a “live” rewind, as the MC took it back to the top.
It was a little disappointing that they only played an hour and a half. I would have liked to see them play a longer set, and a do a little more with their act. They were good, well polished, but perhaps a little too polished as they were much the same as I saw them at Vibes on A Summers Day a year ago. Although they included the newer songs off their latest album, they were pretty much the same as then, which for me was a little disapointing. Still, they are a class act, and the Adelaide crowd really seemed to enjoy it, and that’s what it’s all about. And perhaps the sell out crowd shows that Adelaide isn’t all about the dichotic relationship of dnb and hard house after all.

Gigs & Mixes from the 2020s. Writing from the 2000s.