As Groove Armada prepare to headline Lovebox, the festival they created, in Malahide tomorrow, Andy Cato tells Kevin Courtneyhow the dance veterans are keeping ahead of the posse

ROCK music is not the only place you'll find dinosaurs. Now that dance music has reached a certain age, some of its older, more established acts have to work harder if they want to stay ahead of the posse and avoid becoming relics on the decks. Andy Cato and Tom Findlay - aka Groove Armada - have been keeping the crowd on its feet for a decade now, and they realise they have to keep their sound fresh and their live shows entertaining, and to add new abilities to their already wide skill-set. In recent years, the duo from London have discovered a new, hidden talent - that of curating their own massive dance festival, Lovebox.

"It's tough, because when you're trying to run an independent festival, all the other people who are running festivals try and stop you," says Cato. "If they hear you've made an offer for this band or that band, then they'll just double it, and try and ruin it for you. Fortunately, the same people who are doing that also want Groove Armada to play at their festivals, so we can usually find a way through the middle and get a good line-up together. We have a bit of leverage there."

Lovebox has been going large in London for the past few years, and the Armada boys are bringing the beat to Malahide Castle in Dublin tomorrow, with a posse of top acts that includes Super Furry Animals, The Rapture, Toots & the Maytals, Just Jack, Sasha and Jape. In between beatmastering, deejaying, mixtaping and putting out their brand new album, Soundboy Rock, Tom and Andy also have to find time to sort out the toilet facilities at Lovebox. Why on earth would they willingly accept such an undertaking?

"Basically, we want to make it happen because there's no other, well, very very few independent music festivals around now, and it's very unhealthy to just have music festivals run by three or four people. And secondly, because we've been to festivals hundreds of times as punters, on the other side of the fence, I think we know what is required for a good day. And that's obviously a great line-up, but it's also about enough toilets, and madness and Glastonbury spirit, and not just a bunch of corporate-sponsored tents."

This may sound like empty rhetoric from a band whose track, I See You Baby, has been used to advertise cars, but Cato believes the true Glastonbury spirit has been lost in a mudpit of samey festivals featuring the same old dinosaurs. Cato wants Lovebox to be different, to have a vibe of its own. "Often the best and most memorable experiences you go home with are just charging about the place encountering lunatics, and that's what festivals are all about."

Of course, one of the advantages of running your own festival is that you get to pick the headliners - and no one can complain when you grant the coveted slot to yourselves. What's kept Groove Armada on course over the past 10 years, says Cato, is the well-crafted musical machine that is their live show. It's also ensured that GA stay in demand at big dance events - their summer festival calendar includes Creamfields, Japan's Fuji festival, and a "monster gig" by the shores of Loch Ness.

"We've always set a lot of store by the live thing, because there's not a lot of dance bands who actually play live. It's quite a difficult thing to do. I think we're definitely the best live dance band in the world right now. The musicians are the basis of it all - everyone on stage is a shit-hot player."

If every Groove Armada song sounded the same, though, audiences would probably have gotten tired of looking and listening a long time ago. Cato and Findlay have been careful never to get stuck in the same old grooves, and the new album continues their never-ending quest for new beats and sonic combinations. From the soundsystem-shaking Get Down (featuring London MC Stush) to the twilight shades of Lightsonic to the baggy See What You Get (featuring Alan Donohue from The Rakes), the Soundboy Rock album is as disparate as a compilation tape, while retaining what Cato calls "the Groove Armada thing".

"We've been lucky in that we've got quite a few big . There's My Friend, there's Superstylin', At the River, I See You Baby . . . everybody's got their own different ones, we've got a lot to work with. The big thing is that when we play live we totally rewrite all the tracks. Whilst the theme will be there and the hook will be there, the live version is totally different, so we never end up just trotting out the same old thing. It's always just a new take on an old theme."

While the album may sound at first like the work of a dozen different bands, its tracklisting, says Cato, is designed to create a coherent listening experience. We may be living in an age of downloading individual tracks, but Cato and Findlay, vinyl junkies both, still believe a record's tracklisting counts for something. "That's why we like doing compilations like All Back to Mine and Another Late Night - it's about getting a whole bunch of disparate songs and putting them together in a way that makes sense."

Cato and Findlay may still be young guns in rock'n'roll years, but in dance years they've reached the level of grizzled deckhands. Both have mellowed a little, but when they're on tour, claims Cato, "we make Motorhead look like a geography field trip".

For Cato, the thrill of getting on stage and playing live won't be going for a long time. "Imagine it: you're basically in the wings with five or six of your best mates. Lights go down, there's an enormous cheer, and basically what's ahead of you is people going mental, you playing music you love, and then a brilliant aftershow party. And that's very addictive."

Lovebox is at Malahide Castle tomorrow. Gates open at 1pm.