"The British Invasion of the sixties fascinates me, as do the glitter rock and prog rock movements that followed. A Hard Day’s Night is my all-time favorite film, and the music made between 1964 and 1974 has remained my favorite. Most of that music is filled with power, liberation, and joy. But right in the middle of that ten-year period was this terrible event that seems to body-slam the “peace and love” vibe that preceded it. The Rolling Stones had recently lost founding member and icon Brian Jones and were moving on. Some genius decides to hire Hells Angels (with beer) for security at their concert at the Altamont Speedway, which results in the stabbing death of a concertgoer. It’s amazing that these events all come together in this eerie and compelling document. This film details the exact moment of “the end of an era.” Chilling."

"There is certainly a rasp to my voice [LAUGHS]. It's not quite as bad as Bonnie Tyler's but it is raspy. Rod Stewart wasn't a big influence on me as a singer though. I don't really sound like anybody. In the same way that Ozzy doesn't sound like anybody or Alice Cooper doesn't sound like anybody. You get these boyband singers now that are all very similar. Even in the old days, you could swap round some of the Motown singers and you wouldn't really know the difference. Singer wise, I loved Mark Bolan; Noddy Holder; David Bowie; Alex Harvey; Russell Mael; Steve Harley; Brian Ferry; Sammy Hagar; Phil Lynott. All that lot go into a bucket but I still don't sound like any of them [LAUGHS]. Mutt Lange was a huge influence on my singing: he can play anything, do anything. He was pushing and pushing. I remember the first time I ever met Lou Gram from Foreigner. He said: 'tell me, did Mutt make you feel like you couldn't sing either?' and this was fucking Lou Gram, right? He'd make you do it again and again. He would push and push until you'd be right on the edge of losing it. Sometimes that worked and sometimes you felt like your spirit was being destroyed. Physically, you're going into spaces in your head and your chest cavity that you've never been. But he would've done it with anybody: look what he did with Brian Johnson, he put him through the bloody ringer with Back In Black but look what he got out of it. And that's why I don't complain. Rod Stewart was the first album I ever bought with my pocket money. The version of 'I'm Losing You' is just genius but my 'in' to that record, as it were, was 'Maggie May' because it was all over the radio at the time. It was rock but it was pop rock: it's not been influential in terms of how we sound but I absolutely love it."

"For me, this is very much a hallmark of where I was able fit in musically in my career. When I started out I was in Montreal, but went to New York periodically and failed miserably with what I was trying to do. It was right at the time that Jeff Buckley was on the rise, and grunge, and that whole movement was incredibly heterosexual, incredibly nihilistic, incredibly guitar-based and very, very dark. I admired it, I'm not against that, but when I was dropped into that equation I was this gay piano-playing opera queen who wanted to be romantic and harken back to other more refined eras. What I was trying to do just didn't make any sense in New York. People would often try to categorise me and say I was cabaret or that I should be doing Broadway. It was very complicated and I never figured it out. Then I was signed to Dreamworks, by Lenny Waronker – whom I believe helped make Pet Sounds. I went to Los Angeles and suddenly realised that I was definitely more part of the Brian Wilson tradition. Whether it was him or Randy Newman or Van Dyke Parks or Harry Nilsson, there was a kind of spot that I could fit into. So I listened a lot to Pet Sounds. You can hear it somewhat on my new album, songs like the last track 'Alone Time', but all through my career there's been a real concentration on harmonies and interesting chord changes and a dreamlike quality. I was able to find my niche through that tradition, as opposed to the East Coast. I have a lot to thank Brian Wilson for, he allowed me to inhabit my world comfortably, as opposed to when I was in New York and I was a total anathema to what was happening there. I can't say that I listened to the album obsessively or that I'm obsessed with him and know all his work, but I definitely feel I am a Wilsonite."

"I got into them through this album. The rest of the guys had never heard of them. We went to Sheffield University to see them – I took the band; I said they had to see this great groove – and there were about 100 people in there. It was a very eventful night with punks and rock fans together, because I think UK Subs were supporting. I loved the style they had – the repetitive riffs and rolling bass, which was more bluesy than metal. They were very aggressive – Bon Scott had massive presence on stage and he could sing and wrote great lyrics. And the rest of the band loved them as well, and it really affected us – without AC/DC, we wouldn’t have written ‘Wheels Of Steel’. We toured America with them in 1980, when they were doing Back in Black, on Brian Johnson’s first tour. They were really friendly guys - they had a bar backstage so you could get a pint while they were playing"

"Neu! has to represent Cluster, Conny Plank, Kraftwerk, David Bowie, Brian Eno. It's an extraordinary piece of work. I was introduced to it when I first went to art college. There was a guy called Tony Fowler who was the polytechnic DJ and he was a little bit older that everybody else. I wheedled my way in and became the sorcerer's apprentice or whatever, thinking I could get my taste on there instead. He played me this and at the time I was very confused by it. I thought I was quite... I listened to Captain Beefheart and Pink Floyd and good stuff, but this was really challenging, the minimalism I guess. I can honestly say it didn't make me go, 'Aha! This is ze future!', but many years later, after I'd had it in the car stereo, I remember Klara saying, 'Papa, you've been playing 'Hallogallo' for two years, can we hear something else?' I was going: 'But it fits! It fits! It's perfect every time!'"

"Oh man, that's just a classic record. I listen to it now when I'm composing, because it's very atmospheric. I think that's Brian Eno's shine. I like the lead guitars on it and the way Bowie plays the guitar. A one-of-a-kind I think - it doesn't really sound like a Bowie album. I met him during a pre-break-up tour, and I asked him, "Do you play rhythm in 'Sound And Vision'?" because I love that rhythm. So I was on the side of the stage with his guitar tech and when he started playing the song, he lifted the guitar and looked at the guitar tech and me and went, "See!" The guitar tech turned up his guitar because he thought he needed to check if the guitars were in tune. But Bowie had this signal, he said, "Turn it up for Joey!" And I thought, "Shit, he is playing it!" That was very cool of him, such a nice guy."