"Rick Rubin embraced Johnny Cash when he was floundering without a label. Rick thought this was unthinkable. He started soliciting writers beyond the country community and they did two great, odd, dark records. I wound up writing a song called 'I Witnessed A Crime' without knowing that Rick was going in this more contemporary vein. I later discovered it was too mid-’50s; too perfect for old-school Johnny Cash. So it didn't reach release until it was bootlegged out of the studio and found its way to YouTube. 

Rick called me up – I live just walking distance from house-to-house: ""Can you come over?"" I said, ""Well, you still got that old Fender guitar down there? If you let me play it I'll come on down."" He had this stunning Fender Esquire from 1954. I walked down and the door opened up, he ushered me into the living room and sitting on the sofa was Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. I was dumbfounded. So we sat down this close and he said, ""I like that song."" June started welling up and said, ""Ooh, you played the solo just like Luther Perkins."" I said, “Well, I'd like you to help me get through it.” We wound up singing it across the table. Little did I know that Rick had hidden microphones, capturing the whole thing."

"I think the production on this - who did she work with? But she used things like forks and - oh yes, it was Matthew Herbert! - and so when I first heard it I thought it was a bit mental, but it's really not mental once I had lived with it for a bit. A lot of it's really poppy and the last song is a ballad that's just heartbreaking. Talk about the radio not playing things, how could they not play this? Her style of singing really influenced mine on a track I did called 'Jealousy', and I'm basically trying to sing like her. When I listened back to the demo, I'd done a pretty good impression of Róisín Murphy! It's just her delivery, and she's really brave and I think that record was exactly the record I needed to hear. It wasn't necessarily what the record company wanted, and that's why I love it. It came out, and I don't know where it charted, but I would hear bits of it on TV over the next three years. And then five years after it came out, So You Think You Can Dance did a massive thing to it. And it warms my heart that music that is genuinely great does get to have a life beyond the chart and starts getting into the ether."

"I think when we were kids it was all about Sgt. Pepper’s. There were a few albums that my dad had that we played a lot and that was one of them; we didn’t get far beyond that. And then when I eventually started listening to the old, old stuff, I didn’t like it so much. I realise that the innovations that they made composition-wise coloured all of pop music and a lot of rock as well – it coloured all of music really! But I wasn’t into it, not into listening to it. But then I decided to educate myself on The White Album, and I used it for everything: walking, working out etc. And I love it. I actually saw some footage of Paul McCartney doing ‘Helter Skelter’ recently and thought he really nailed it – I think he still does that song really well. I just love The White Album and I prefer it to all the other Beatles stuff. I can’t explain it though. I don’t even especially like any of the songs, it’s just that as a listening experience you can find yourself immersed in it while running on a treadmill as much as you can laying in your bed. It’s really versatile. I love all the Beatles’ stuff and it’s all eclectic, but I think this album is even more so."