Kevin Bronson on March 21st, 2010

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By Richard Thomas

Groove Armada’s Tom Findlay and Andy Cato just can’t leave well enough alone. Whether it’s behind the decks or as part of their live outfit, the duo has been demolishing crowds with their mix of electric soul, reggae-infused house anthems and low-slung smoker’s delights. Five full-lengths worth of successful jams, plus a loyal following on both sides of the Atlantic, only to make a complete 180 with “Black Light.” Ladling more from new wave dance and glam rock, this album exemplifies Cato and Findlay’s depth as programmers and band leaders. With a new female vocalist at the helm, Groove Armada – which visits the Fonda Theatre tonight – are ready to retake their spot in electronic music’s upper echelon. Major Tom talks to ground control about the heartache and triumph that is “Black Light.”

What’s it like having the live show back in the US again?

Tom Findlay: It feels great. We did the first show last night, the Fillmore in San Francisco, which is an amazing venue. It’s dripping in history. Everything I love about music, it all started here; the funk, the disco and the soul, even some of the new wave stuff. It feels quite amazing to come over here as a Brit and do the business in the States.

When I interviewed Andy a few months ago, he explained that Black Light started off as two separate records; one being a bit more on the house music tip and the other being essentially the raw and more new wave stuff that ended up on the album. Do you think there’s a chance that some of those dance songs and sketches will see the light of day?

TF: I think they will. It just got to the point where we were overwhelmed by the idea of writing consecutive records that we couldn’t really deal with it. Dance music is so incredibly fast moving. Those ideas will rear their heads in some way, but not in the form they were a year ago. The intention to reconnect with the dance floor is still there, but we really believe this is the best live show we’ve put together in years. We want to write a bit more music on this tip. The funny thing was, when we were on major labels, it was very hard to do strange, conceptual things. “I want to do dance music over here, then and I want to do this raw live stuff over here.” They just want you to write pop music. We’re in a nice position now where we can kind of go off and do what we want without, being too self-indulgent.

How has the new material been received outside of your established audience? Have you been approached by any new creative collaborators or business opportunities?

TF: Yeah, that’s started to come. I think people had a certain impression about who we were. We were this pop-dance act, and I think that was fine. People either liked that or didn’t like that, but I think this album’s certainly forced people to reexamine their opinions about us. There’s a general vibe in the press that’s been really positive and the blogosphere has been good. It’s weird. It’s not totally tangible, but things are sort of changing, and the audience is shifting a little bit as well. You’ve still got the classic fans that want to come down and see “My Friend” and “Superstylin’,” but I think with tracks like “Paper Romance” in particular, there’s a different audience. It’s a lot of fun. There was a moment a couple of years ago when I think we both felt that we were sort of falling out of love with what we’d been doing, and we got a bit tired of it all. It couldn’t feel more different now.

Andy mentioned there was a lot of “heartache” that went into making Black Light. Given the way it was arduously produced, I can understand the technical heartache of getting it all done, but was there an element of emotional and personal heartache as well?

TF: I think so. I think a lot of things changed really quickly, and it took a lot to assimilate all that. Andy was in France and I was in the UK and we were doing a lot of traveling to make it work, plus leaving a major and not having that safety blanket around. You feel this weight of expectation all the time when you’re making records, but I think because it was just me and Andy, we were kind of isolated. There wasn’t a network of support around us, so it got quite stressful. You feel a heavy weight of responsibility to keep the whole thing going. I think at times we were in a position where we weren’t really comfortable, and there were days when we just couldn’t see our way out of it. I think this big pressure valve came off last July when we did our own Lovebox festival in London. It’d just been me and Andy in this room working on this music, not really sure whether what we were doing was right and how it was gonna be received. Then we had to go and play this show to 20,000 of our hardcore fans in London, but the gig was a great success. That was the moment where that stress just seemed to dissipate.

Did you ever get to the point where you felt like packing it in and just going the DJ route? You’ve had quite a bit of success there anyways, both separately and together.

TF: Yeah, it was definitely a temptation. You get into moments where you think, “We’ll just go off and make dance records and do DJ gigs and have an easy life,” but there’s something quite unique and remarkable about the way we do things live. I’m not one to massively blow my own trumpet, but I see a lot of live bands, and I don’t see people who do it as well as us very often. I think that, more than anything, is the thing that really makes us special. If you walk away from that, that’s a real shame.

The vocal contributions from Nick Littlemore and SaintSaviour really set the album on it’s own trajectory. What does each bring to the fold?

TF: Nick brought a certain kind of attitude to it all, and he really believed in some of the early (recordings). He’s a real maverick and a one-off, and quite odd in a lot of ways, but he’s got this raw energy that drips all over the record. I think he was going through a bit of a break-up, so much of the melancholy that was on the record was as much from him as it was from us. He was just in the right spot and the right head space as us. Becky [Jones, a.k.a. SaintSaviour] is amazing. She’s changed the whole perspective of the band. It’s allowed us to really strip back the production and do a show that’s kind of focused around her, and it’s much cooler for that. We’ve lost a lot of the visuals and the screens and it just feels more like a band. She’s an amazing performer, one of the best of her generation. When you’re on stage and she’s up there, the dynamics of the gig change. We always judged the success of a Groove Armada gig on having people jumping up and down, but now people come and stand and stare, and that’s fine because she’s such a visually arresting thing.

Now that the album’s come out, anything else we can look out for from the Groove Armada camp? Any mixes, compilations or collaborations?

TF: I really want to do a compilation of blue-eyed soul; just some Hall and Oates and Steely Dan. That’s the thing I’m slightly obsessed about, and I’ve got to find somebody who wants to do it with me. I’ve got an itch there I need to scratch. Something else, a bit odd, but we’ve got some acoustic versions of the Black Light stuff and it sounds quite good, so we might just do some daft acoustic bossa nova style takes on Black Light songs. I think we’ve also got three or four tracks from Black Light that didn’t get finished, so I think we’re gonna put them out in October. We’ll just keep ”˜em coming!

Groove Armada’s Essential Non-Groove Armada Selections

Weekend Players – Pursuit Of Happiness

featuring Andy Cato and Rachel Foster

Sugardaddy – It’s Good To Get High With The Wife

featuring Tom Findlay and Tim Hutton

The Beat Foundation

featuring Andy Cato, Dan Hewson and Mike Mukhopadhyah

Richard Thomas is a contributor to Buzz Bands LA. Read more of him at Mining the Landfill.