"The likes of which I had never heard before - white soul boy funk - it was a great album for a party soundtrack and hash joints. I just love the mad percussion and pseudo African backing vocals, though I don't have a clue what Mr. Byrne is singing about."

"I’m kind of a weirdo; I love prison movies and war movies, which leads me into Schindler’s List. I think it really captured a moment in time that we aren’t proud of as a human race, and I just think [Steven] Spielberg knocked it out of the park."

"The lives of two women—a poor grifter and a reclusive heiress—collide in explosive and unexpected ways. When I gave the book a “blurb,” I wrote: “Pretty Things is awesome. Simple as that. I loved every page. Janelle Brown is your new must-read author.” Still true."

"I remember being really disturbed by the eyeballs when I was a kid. Their faces looked like Kabuki masks: haunting and ugly. I love this sort of phantasmagoria, all the minutiae of detail and references. I’m a fan of Hieronymus Bosch, and this has a similar visual density."

"The darkest, most disturbing book that enthralled me as a teenager. Dostoyevsky brings the reader inside the mind of a seemly normal person who becomes tortured and ultimately ruined by a single act. Also, I was in love with the poor, tragic Raskolikov, and I think I still am."

"Yeah, not a lot of rom-coms. [laughs] Yeah, maybe a little bit. I do have to say, though, the next one I was going to say is The Princess Bride. That’s one of my favorite films of all time. It’s such a great movie. I still quote it."

"To find some stuff [for the reissue] I was opening the laptop that I made Nights Out on. When I finished that record the laptop was full so I closed it and put it away. When I was delving back in time I looked at my iTunes and I listened back to this album and suddenly realised that I know all of it really well! I think my girlfriend at the time was really into them, and she put them on and I thought ‘well I don’t like this at all’. I remember listening to his voice and thinking ‘I fucking hate this guy’s voice’, and then after not very long realising that I liked that he was owning his lisp and I started finding it exciting. I must have listened to that record way more than I realised because I know it all really well! When I was listening to it again after I opened up that old computer and for the first time I heard it as a record that definitely influenced a lot of more recent alt-rock bands. There’s a proper disco-y track in there, and it’s sprawling, there’s interludes… it’s a good record!"