"I heard it when I was 17 or 18 and it really changed my view of what music could be in that there’s so much beauty in Jeff Buckley’s voice. Also, the guitar on that record is the biggest guitar influence that I’ve ever had. Jeff Buckley uses his voice in this very free way and it can go wherever he wants it to: that’s something that I've intentionally and subconsciously very much taken on myself as a singer. His voice can be so subtle, quiet and soft and then it becomes this roaring kind of force and, again, that’s something that completely inspired me as a singer. He’s very much about that play between his voice and his guitar but they both feel like they’re partners and the essence of who he is—I feel inspired by that as a musician myself. I always try and have a play between the guitar and the voice, to make them speak the same language and tell the story of myself. I remember writing Jeff Buckley lyrics all over my bag I took to college. I like the way you would take on lyrics and feel that they were expressing a part of you, so you'd always feel proud to have them on your schoolbag as if you wrote them yourself. That’s a really cute thing about being a teenager and looking a very particular way. Teenagers react to music because they’re always looking for a way to identify themselves."

"In the ’90s and 2000s, HBO Docs and HBO Films were making some of the most incredible documentaries ever. Even while these weren’t being released in theaters, docs were having this crazy renaissance. I have no idea who was in charge or what was happening, but every month there would be some insane, amazing documentary coming out. This one is disturbing. They’re all disturbing, but in a way I find interesting. Maybe because that can make you feel better… I don’t know, but I am interested in this. I really like the backdrop, which is mid- to late-’90s small-town rave culture. This dad has an 18-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter who are in the rave scene. He’s a preacher, a normal guy, married, has two kids. One day, for whatever reason, he’s like, “Fuck the life I built, I am going to go to the rave with my kids.” He takes ecstasy and becomes their peer: a gnarly, insane raver. He leaves his wife, he gets an apartment with his son, he’s taking ecstasy every night. It’s also funny and obviously more fucked up because it’s real. What I love about documentaries is that Hollywood would take that movie and turn it into a broad comedy and it would be, “Dad parties with his kids!” But to me it’s a drama, it gets into the complexities of what drives someone to do this, how it feels for their kids and for their ex-wife, what experiences led him to break."

"And number five, I’m going to say Smokey and the Bandit. I’m back on the comedy. It’s between Smokey and the Bandit and OSS 117, which is a French movie — it’s sort of like their version of the Naked Gun movies, but their agent’s really good; he’s actually very good at many things. He just happens to be a complete moron. But he’s a lover, he knows many languages… Anyway, Smokey and the Bandit, Jackie Gleason’s performance and Sally Field’s; she was amazing. It’s also a good snapshot of America when being a truck driver was cool. [laughs] Being an 18-wheeler truck driver was like, “That’s a good job.” I mean, they were badasses, and you don’t really think of that now; they don’t have that same mystique. But Jackie Gleason as Buford T. Justice… He has his own f***ing entrance music; every time he shows up, they’ve got this tuba playing, he’s there on the scene, and he’s doing his schtick, doing the best stuff. He’s another character, like the Joe Gideon character in All That Jazz, who’s despicable. He’s a racist, he’s a terrible father, he’s a sh**y cop, and you just can’t wait for him to get back on the screen. He has a line in there, talking about Sally Field, who runs off, and she’s a dancer, and he says, “That’s what you get for poontangin’ around with a bunch of hippie show folk.” [laughs] That is the quality of stuff he’s doing in that movie; it’s just so brilliant."