"He's known in the indie rock subculture as the other half of a band called The Folk Implosion that he was in with Lou Barlow from Sebadoh. They did most of the songs on the Kids soundtrack and their song 'Natural One' was a single in the 90s. John was also a member of the Palace Brothers which was Will Oldham's band from before he became Bonnie "Prince" Billy. So he has a little bit of history collaborating with other great people, but he also made a series of lo-fi home recorded records in the 90s. It is a strange, outsidery folk record. It's psychedelic and a little reminiscent of things like Syd Barrett and Skip Spence's Oar, but it also has this really interesting British folk, Incredible String Band type of 12 string guitar playing. The lyrics are very free associating, somewhat improvised, very intimate and very quiet. His records are so intimate that he broke down a wall between himself and the tape recorded that had never been broken down before. It makes you feel like you're in this tiny little space with him and his singing you this craziest record. I discovered this album at Kim's Underground, a record store in New York. I just bought one of his cassettes off a rack because it looked interesting to me. I'm really lucky I grabbed that tape because Leave Home was the most listen to record of my early teenage years. The style was so inspiring to me growing-up, that all I wanted to do was make John Davis-like songs. A lot of the early Moldy Peaches songs like 'Lucky No.9', 'Lazy Confessions' – all these things on the first album – are me trying to copy John Davis' stuff."

"I will give Last Cab In California honorable mention, but I will stick with Deee-Lite, World Clique. Again, I am all about production. I just like listening to beats and cool sounds. They didn’t sound like anything at the time. I know everybody knows ‘Groove is in the Heart’ but that’s like the fifth best song on that album. They even had the look. They were funky, ‘70s, but hip-hop at the same time. One dude was Asian with goggles on and she had this soul voice and they had heavy piano. I always liked it. That’s just another album that’s upbeat. Maybe not the most masculine one, but whatever, man. I don’t care. I just picture ‘90s black chicks in biker shorts on the grind with Eric B. breaking down to those songs."