Hi Tom, how are you? Good, thank you. I'm at the airport. Which airport? Toulouse-Blagnac - the one nearest to Andy's house. I've spent quite a lot of time here over the past few months. Is there anything you'd recommend to visitors to that airport? Well, it's not a bad airport. There's no frills, but it works. In fact, they've just opened a new bar, which is quite exciting. I might go and get a beer. Where are you at with the new album? Basically, we've done ten tracks. We've finished as much as we can for now, although there are still a couple of other tracks to do. One which a very famous male vocalist has done for us. We're really excited about that. And then there's one other thing, which we hope will be our big single, which we haven't quite nailed yet. But we do have a plan, so it's all good. It's pretty much there then? Pretty much. And it sounds great. But this week we've got to rehearse for Lovebox, so we've got to put a bit of a brake on things and get cracking on the live side. It's gonna be a really novel gig - with lots of songs which people have never heard before! But we have put together a very quick Jive Bunny-style medley of a few of our tracks, called 'Learn It for Lovebox', which should be available to hear on Lovebox.net now. So hopefully a few people will listen to that, then enthusiastically wave their hands in the air when we play those tunes at Lovebox. Plus, of course, we will sprinkle the set with a smattering of classics. How's Loevbox shaping up? It's looking really good. The Saturday's on the verge of selling out now - I mean that in terms of tickets, rather than a reflection on having Duran Duran headlining, which I'm really excited about! We've got them, N*E*R*D, Florence and the Machine and Friendly Fires on that day, so it's gonna be great. And the Sunday tickets are ticking along nicely too - I'm hoping the huge groundswell of excitement over our Learn it for Lovebox playlist will bring people out in their droves. And we've got Doves and Gary Numan that day too, which I'm really excited about. I'm hoping Numan's gonna bring his helicopter and possibly use it in the set. For any prospective ticket buyers reading this, is it worth splashing the cash for a VIP ticket? Absolutely, cos you get to hear me DJ, which alone is worth the extra. What else does a VIP get? Apart from the private audience with Tom Findlay? You get other illustrious DJs like Norman Jay MBE and Gilles Peterson, who's not an MBE. And you get a lovely viewing gallery. But, y'know, we're in London town so we need to be reflective of all things for all people. What happens when famous people want to come to your festival - do they have to pay? I don't know, to be honest. Last year I noticed Simon Webbe from Blue in the VIP area. I'm not sure whether he'd have had to pay. Although he did look very buff in a blue leather jacket. In a way, I wanted to go up and introduce myself. I'm not sure why. "This is my festival Simon, will you be my friend?" Exactly! When I ran through the possible opening gambits to the conversation in my head, I decided I'd better leave him to it. Do you know which celebs are coming this year? I don't, no. But with Duran Duran and Pharrell on Saturday, the celeb count could go through the roof. Although with the Doves, Groove Armada and Gary Numan on Sunday, it might go down a peg or two! Is there anyone you'd really like to come? Nicky Clarke. The hairdresser?! Yes. I think he's amazing. His hair is so much better when you see it up close. It really is amazing hair. It's luminescent. If he's reading this now, I will give him a leg up over the wall. Or we could get a stepladder and go in together.
{youtube}Wl_FcGx-QLQ{/youtube} Are you excited about Lovebox? Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it actually. You spend about 50 weeks of the year being really nervous and stressed, but we now know we've sold enough tickets and nobody's gonna starve. So we're at the point of, everything's good and now it'll only get better. We've got some great things on site this year - including proper bowling lanes. I'm really excited about seeing Florence and the Machine, and I'm super-excited about seeing Chew Lips. They're my band of the year. They've got such a brilliant name too. For any raver out there it makes a lot of sense. There's a great bit of footage of them http://www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms/2008/artists/chewlips/ on the BBC's website from the Electric Proms last year. That's where we came across them first. What happens next with the GA album? We've almost got a deal for it now, which is great. We're just dotting the i's and crossing the t's on that. And then we're hoping to get it out in October. We want to draw a line under the tinkering and get it out there! Then it'll be lots of rehearsals, getting on the road and having lots of fun really. So will there be a single in September? Exactly. It's looking like that will be a track called Warsaw. It's quite an abrasive number, but quite a good one to go out there with because this album is a bit of a change of tack. Then we'll go with the one we haven't finished yet. Then we'll probably go with the one we've done with Will Young, if he's up for that. Will Young?! Yes indeed. We've matched up with some pretty random people for this album. And you're happy with how the album's sounding? I am now, yeah. It's really exciting where we've got to. It kind of channels Roxy Music and Bruce Springsteen into a dance music record. It's definitely been worth all the heartache and anguish which we've been through in the last seven or eight months, much of which I've spent in Toulouse-Blagnac airport. How was your big DJ gig in America recently? It was very bizarre. It was in the Olympic stadium in Los Angeles, to about 85,000 people. It was called the Electric Daisy Carnival and it was full of 17-year-old LA ravers, who looked like relics of Global Gathering. I've never seen anything like it! But we really had a good time. The sheer scale of it was amazing. And quite mad to be in that very arena where Carl Lewis won all those golds. You should've arrived on a jet pack, like in the opening ceremony. We did discuss that actually. But, no, sadly we didn't. What have you got coming up in the next few weeks? Well, we're off to Ibiza Rocks to play our new set, in the week after Lovebox. Then we're gonna come back and finish these two last tracks and then have a bit of a holiday. I'll be enjoying Ibiza for a couple of weeks. Something of a busman's holiday going there, I suppose, but it's a lovely place to be. I really recommend it. My sister-in-law is going to get married there, which will be marvellous. Then right at the end of the two weeks I do a gig. Did you have your 90s night out with Andy in Dalston? No, he didn't come in the end. But I went and it was really good. It's called Work It. They were playing 90s hip hop, which brought back some good memories. Finally, how's it looking for Cambridge United? Well, that's not been a whole lot going on in the close season. It's been really quiet. We've lost Scott Rendell, who's gone back to Peterborough. That's OK, though. I think we're looking pretty strong. I think we could do a Burton Albion after we finished last season so strongly. You won a friendly 9-0 last week. Did we? Who against? Cherry Hinton. No way! I used to play for Cherry Hinton! How bizarre. I mainly played for the second team, but I was on the bench for the first team quite a few times. They all thought I was called Tony. I'm not sure why. But I quite enjoyed being Tony for a few months. I'm glad they got a spanking from United though, cos they never really gave me much of a run out.
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