"I was aware of who Black Flag were and I had heard people talking about them. I was in Exeter at a family funeral. I would have been about 14. I nipped out to a record store which was near to where the cathedral where the funeral was and I walked in as a nerdy little dickhead in my suit that I was wearing for the church service. The guy gave me a bit of a look and I asked him if he had anything by Black Flag and he pretty much fell off his chair. I loved that album to death. The beginning to Revenge is still the best start to any song written ever He sold me this album and I kind of knew I was looking for something that sounded like that at that point. It was becoming apparent to me that hardcore was the area of punk that I was particularly interested in. I loved that album to death. The beginning to Revenge is still the best start to any song written ever. I think about Black Flag a lot when I’m writing, in the sense of brevity is the soul of wit. Fix Me is my favourite Black Flag song and it's 42 seconds long. Every time I write a song that is longer than 42 seconds, which is all of my songs, there’s part of me that thinks I’m wasting my time or dawdling."

"Yeah, back to Raymond Pettibon again. This was one of my favourite images along with the Sonic Youth cover when I was 16. It's cool how he was doing all of the Black Flag artwork as well as Sonic Youth because I guess they have a similar feeling, similar aesthetic. He's also been doing the sleeves for another band called Cerebral Ballzy who supported The Horrors on tour last year. The other guys aren't really into hardcore. I always liked Minor Threat probably a touch more than Black Flag. That decision is probably swung by the fact that Minor Threat did that Wire ‘12 X U' cover which was great. I like Wire a lot."

"To me, there is a holy trinity of hardcore bands, and the first among these is, obviously, Black Flag. They pretty much invented the genre, and as much as it's become boringly de rigeur to be "into" Flag and have a tattoo and a t-shirt (guilty on both counts), and as much as Greg Ginn seems intent on fucking their legacy to death, this record is still pretty untouchable, not just as a groundbreaking musical statement, but also because of the raw fucking attitude in every cut."

"It was a left turn within the punk rock scene, it was weird and sort of violent and real. It was in your face and as real as any rock band had been and that record got me through some shit. We all have a record that got us through a break-up or that you listened to when you’re 18 and you think everything’s going to hell and not going to last, and that record got me through that. Actually the first gig I ever did was opening for Black Flag when I was 14, but it was when Ron Reyes was the singer, so I’d followed them closely for a long time – well three years and three years is a long time when you’re 18. But that was the record that fortified it."