According to legend, a recently-returned Glastonbury camper once ran into a marine in his local, and they started talking about their summer experiences. The trooper revealed he'd been parachuted behind enemy lines and had crawled through miles of rancid trench before being captured, tied to a car battery, and drenched with water by a cold-hearted torturer. "Pah," replied the camper. "At least you got to wash."
It's a peculiar quirk of the Glastonbury Festival that, while veterans of the bog may eventually tell you about what bands they actually saw, they're much more likely to let you know at length how wet, cold and generally primeval they were during their week in a field. It's like a form of mass penance, only with more Arctic Monkeys.
As a result, my conversation with Groove Armada's Andy Cato inevitably turns to the topic of mud pretty quickly. "For me, Glastonbury was wet, just like it was for everybody
else. I was camping as normal, and I had to track down a friend and sleep in the back of his van for the last night."
One hopes that the accommodation at other festivals is less grimy,
because otherwise at least one member of the band is going to develop a hunch this summer. Or trenchfoot.
The dance duo's washing will barely have dried before they jet off on a festival tour which will see them appear at the Radar Live Festival in Istanbul, the Stara Festival in Croatia, Japan's Fuji Rock Festival, and dates in Portugal, Austria, Dublin, Athens and Holland. And that's just a rough summary.
So what are the pair most looking forward to this summer?
"The festival in Japan is meant to be pretty special,” said Cato. “It's set at the top of Mount Fuji, and all the musicians I've spoken to say it's absolutely amazing. We're headlining that one, so hopefully it'll be good."
Groove Armada will be showing off new material from this year's Soundboy Rock, effectively their first original album since Lovebox in 2002. And the pair, who are best known for bouncy tracks such as their 2000 international hit “I See You Baby”, reckon there a few more hits lurking on their new offering.
"We think it's the best one we've done. It was going to be a
double album originally, but we cut it down so it's all good stuff on
there,” Cato explained.
"Everyone I spoke to just tells me they've got the album and they love it. That's the only thing that matters to me. I stopped reading our press a while back. If you believe the good things that are written about you, you'll believe the bad as well."
One track that's been getting a lot of attention is next single “Song 4 Mutya” (Out of Control), which will be released on July 23.
NME, for one, cooed that the song is "the best thing committed to wax by any current or former Sugababe since Overload".
And Andy seemed to have enjoyed the experience as well. He said: "She's cool. She's a no nonsense girl, and she's a great singer."
Having snared a Sugababe, the duo are attempting to really turn some heads by elbowing their way onto Kylie's imminent new album. "We're working on some tunes with her at the moment, along with a lot of other people. There are going to be a lot of people's tunes to choose from.”
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“If we get selected, that's great. If we don't, we don't. It's been a lot of fun to do. She's an excellent singer, there's no entourage and no messing around.”
"We're doing lots of different things with her at the moment, but the one that's turning out best is pretty out there. It's a quite rocky and hard to define. It's definitely not what you'd consider to be an obvious party tune."
If such a tune does emerge, companies are likely to be clamouring to include it on adverts for everything from cars to cookies. Groove Armada have been a particular favourite of commercial-makers in recent years, providing the soundtrack to sought-after items such as the Mercedes Benz and the Renault Megane. Their music can also be found in movies such as Collateral and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and even the video game Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc.
But, Andy said, "One we did turn down was a recruiting video for the US Navy. Bizarrely, I think they wanted to use "My Friend". But that got the big thumbs down."
They may have slammed the door on the US Navy, but Andy and Tom couldn't say no when Pete Tong came calling. The duo will be taking the reins of his Friday evening show on Radio One for the second time this week, kicking off the evening for British dance fans from 7pm.
"We did that a couple of months ago and loved it. We've been
listening to the show for about 15 years. And when I actually got to be the person that said "Welcome to the weekend", it was quite a big moment. It's all high adrenaline fun."
And the excitement doesn't stop there for the Cambridge boys. On July 22, they will skip excitedly over to Victoria Park in London to headline the second day of the Lovebox Festival, which they established back in 2002.
When I foolishly asked Andy who he'd recommend at the two-day event, he responded by strafing me with a quick-fire list of names which included Sly and the Family Stone, the B52s, Hot Chip, The Rapture, Digitalism, Felix Da Housecat and Paul Arnold. An embarrassment of riches then?
He said: "It's pretty A-list. There's a huge Brazilian music line-up in
one of the tents, and folks from the Green Fields will be bringing a
little of their Glastonbury madness down here."
"At most festivals, the best advice you can give is to take some loo
roll, or you'll certainly be disappointed. But that's not something
you'll have to worry about at Lovebox. After long and boring calculation, we think we've even got enough women's toilets, and we're pretty proud of that."
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