"If we now want to get into films that — I arrogantly didn’t ask you if you would know anything about them; I just assumed, and assumption is the mother of all f—ups. Me, I’m Asian. I was raised in Asia and, to be honest with you, my favorite films of all time are really [Akira] Kurosawa films. He was a friend of mine. Yojimbo, Akahige meaning “Red Beard,” [and] Shichinin no samurai meaning “Seven Samurai,” I would say those are probably my three favorite films of all time. Even though Shichinin no samurai is the more famous one, I would probably pick Red Beard and Yojimbo.Red Beard is one of the most important movies in my life because it’s… I don’t want to say a movie about me, but it’s a movie about someone I tried to emulate subconsciously — or accidentally I should say — in that I am a martial artist, I am a healer, and I am a warrior, and those are the three kind of components that really make up Toshirô [Mifune]’s kind of character, you know? So I particularly relate to that movie on a very deep level."

"This one just hits the spot with me. I don't know. I found the first album [Innerspeaker] too derivative of stuff I was familiar with. I loved it, don't get me wrong, and a true test of whether or not I love a record is if I bring it into the studio and try it on the guys, because they are unequivocal in their tastes. So if I take a record in and say listen to this, if one of them doesn't like it, it makes me like it a little less. So I've got to be really sure that a band is great and the guys will love it before I even chance taking it near them. I took the first album in and said, "This sounds like a lot of stuff like you love already." But it's punchy. It's from Australia, and it is amazing."