Tom Findlay would be kicking himself if his musical career was over before he'd played at The Big Day Out.
During more than 10 years together, Findlay and Groove Armada bandmate Andy Cato have dreamed of performing at the event, which Findlay compares to Britain's Glastonbury Festival.
"It's been a real lifetime ambition … I don't think I could have lived with it and got to the end of my career and not played Big Day Out.
"Sometimes when you tour, you play just dance events, and you're preaching to the converted a little bit. In my opinion, [Big Day Out] is more like a rock show and it'll be great for us to get up there and do what we do in front of a really varied, music-loving audience."
The British dance music duo, best known for their single I See You Baby, have just completed their new album, Black Light, due for release in New Zealand on February 1.
Featuring collaborations with Bryan Ferry, of Roxy Music fame, and Pop Idol winner Will Young, Findlay says Black Light is one of the band's best albums yet.
With Cato based in France and Findlay in England, making the record was a "slightly tortured" experience, Findlay says.
"It's kind of the most emotional experience I've gone through in terms of writing something.
"With this album, it's probably more travel than either of us has ever done because we felt the need to be in the same room with each other more than the last record. It was slightly tortured but good art comes out of tortured things."
Around half of the material Groove Armada plays at The Big Day Out will be from Black Light, meaning it will be the first time many audience members have heard the tracks (Findlay suggests New Zealand fans look up the new material online to familiarise themselves).
Despite the effort that went into the album, Groove Armada is less of a focus for the band's energies than it once was, Findlay says.
"It's still obviously the most important part of my professional life but it's not the be all and end all like it used to be, and that's probably a good thing because otherwise it can drive you mad.
"We've been together for a decade so lots of things have happened in those 10 years. We both got married -- obviously not to each other -- and we've had children and the band's grown up a bit and it's evolved massively."
Beyond touring the Black Light album, the future of Groove Armada is uncertain, Findlay says.
"I'm kind of coming to the point in my brain where the whole sort of concept of albums is becoming a bit passe so I'm not sure if we'll make another record."
But they will keep working on their live show, touring and playing "straight-up dance music" in clubs.
"Australia, New Zealand, the UK, parts of the States, we have quite a good following, we can do the kind of gig that means that we can take the show [that we want] on the road.
"There's places like Germany where we probably never sold many records where, if we were to go on the road, we'd probably be playing in little pubs and clubs and we just can't really do that."
Last month, the band tried a different way of touring the world - inside the virtual world of PlayStation 3.
A Groove Armada performance was recorded live and "performed" to PS3 users in the PlayStation Events Space, and Findlay believes this could be the future for bands to spread their music to a wide audience.
"For us, there's a lot of places it's hard for us to get to, we can't really afford to travel so I think to some extent something like this is … part of the way that bands are going to start to spread the word, really, in a world where we can't be flying here, there and everywhere all the time."
*Groove Armada play two Auckland shows this month: The Powerstation, Jan 14 The Big Day Out at Mount Smart Stadium, Jan 15.
