"What can you say? He's Nick Cave. He belongs in this mysterious closet. I love that he's so impossible to categorise. I remember hearing his music for the first time when I was 15 or 16, and having no idea what to make of him. I almost still don't. He belongs in a genre unto himself. The one thing I love so much about Nick Cave is that he's a master craftsman. He considers himself a writer, and you can really hear it in his songs in a way that's highly unusual. The way he crafts a song is like no other. He makes no bones about the fact that he's putting a certain kind of poetry to a certain kind of music in a way that just isn't really done nowadays. And he's an incredible performer. There are artists and there are songs, but then there are albums as albums, that really stand up as an entire record. Let Love In, for me, works as an entire record from the moment it opens to the moment it closes. But it also was the time. If I loved a band and they had an album that came out in the late 80s, early 90s, it was probably just more influential, because it was hitting me at a time that was so important. I actually got to meet him last year in Australia. I'd covered 'Ship Song' on a record of Australian songs, so I got to get Nick Cave transmission. Now I just need to get Robert Smith transmission and I'll have the holy trinity."

"When you listen to a song a lot, it becomes more and more difficult for it to surprise you. But this song is perfectly structured in a way where it overtakes itself. It’s from Roxy Music’s self-titled album from 1972, and it starts out almost hokey, like it’s giving a nod to honky-tonk music. Then the guitar line comes in, and it’s like a fuck-you to the rest of the song. And then Bryan Ferry’s vocals completely change. It becomes so plaintive and emotional. It’s about this intrusion upon one’s own story, which I love. When the song inserts a new sonic quality upon itself, it jars me from whatever I’m doing. I spend so much time trying to remind myself to be present, and this song acts as an aural reminder to do that. I use it almost as a form of meditation. And it’s what I want from music to begin with: It renders me stupid and rudderless, and then it rebuilds an anchor out of notes and melody. It’s like a continual reminder to do that in my life. When I’m busy, listening to the same songs and artists over and over is a way of simplifying my life. I tend to wear the same clothing, everything becomes ritualized. Obviously there are so many new musicians that we can tune in to every day, but I also love finding a new appreciation for those who already exist. Because that’s what our world is: We build upon what’s already there. And I like unearthing as much as I like moving forward."

"I was very privileged to grow up when Biggie was coming from being an underground rapper to people knowing him as the B.I.G and the legend that he became. The same with Tupac; the East Coast West Coast rivalry, Bad Boy against Death Row - it was amazing to be around for that. “I loved what Puffy had done with Biggie, because he got him to start using these huge samples from Motown records and R&B artists. He became a little more poppy in that sense, but Biggie still retained his earthy, Brooklyn swagger. “I was playing “Mo Money Mo Problems” in the clubs, at a young age. I was probably about 16 at the time, sneaking my way into clubs and because Flash was 10 years older than me, I kinda styled it out. He was playing in a community nightclub in Southampton, where my dad was one of the board members. When I went down there, I'd kinda get squeezed to get in there, but the mic was basically free. ""One time I jumped up on the mic and started ad-libbing around what Flash was playing and I think he was 'Who's this kid with the audacity to do that?' He probably secondly thought 'Wow, that's Craig, and Craig's dad pays my wages! So I need to calm myself as to how I react to this!' And then thirdly, I think he thought I was talented. “He took me under his wing. I'd get to play that little set at the end of his set, and he'd let me emcee for him for the night. So that song brings back all those memories"

"I did an Apple iTunes show at the Roundhouse, and they asked me 'if you could have anybody in the world playing with you, who would it be?' And I said 'oh, Silver Apples'. I'd seen him play the Knitting Factory in New York, and I thought that if I asked him to play with me his response would be a resounding 'no', but he was really enthusiastic and happy to do it, he's just this cool guy with a nice hippy girlfriend. Everything about them, the fact that he invented his own equipment, and he did kind of single-handedly invent electronic dance music. You listen to 'Oscillations' and maybe someone would challenge me on this, but I think that's the moment when... before that, electronic dance music didn't exist. It's got the four on the floor kick, all the different synth textures, even the subject matter, singing about technology. That's techno in 1968. Silver Apples came out of that Lower Manhattan performance art scene, starting as them playing music for artists on LSD dancing in lofts. There's one song that they've done that I've always wanted to cover, the song 'I Have Known Love', and every couple of years I go back to it and try and cover it, but every version I've tried to do of it is terrible. At some point in my life I want to try and find someone to do it with because it's a really beautiful song... Maybe I should just accept the fact that the original is perfect and it doesn't need to be covered."