"I wanted to pick the Pistols or the first Clash record, because they did mean a lot to me, but I’ve had to go with Obsession by UFO, because they were such a huge influence. Def Leppard were on a boating holiday on the Norfolk Broads, and we happened to read a local paper which said that UFO were playing the Ipswich Gaumont, which was a taxi and a bus ride away from where we were parking the boat. We’d yet to play a gig when we saw UFO, and they opened up with three brand new songs, which was very brave: Hot And Ready, Cherry, and (I think) Only You Can Rock Me. And then they went on to do more familiar material, and we were just gobsmacked. The dynamic on stage between Pete Way’s lunacy and Phil Mogg’s attention-grabbing stance in the middle, and then the mad German on the right with his bucket boots and Flying V. It was insanely brilliant. Steve Clarke turned around to me and said, “Right. That’s it. I’m leaving if we don’t start playing shows.” Because all we’d done was rehearse for nine months to try and become relatively good at what we did. That show — and that album — were a massive influence on us, because we were listening to the album all the way through the boating holiday. UFO were and still remain a major influence on us for all sorts of reasons. They were very British, and they had a sense of humour So with the greatest of respect to Never Mind The Bollocks and the first Clash album, I’m going with that one."

"A little Whiplash anecdote is, of course, like everybody else, I had no idea who Damien Chazelle was. Jason Reitman was the one who sent me the script, in an email, for Whiplash. He sent me both the short and the feature script and just said, “Read this,” and obviously it’s from Jason so I’m gonna read it. It was again, obviously, probably one of the most brilliant scripts I had ever read and one of the best fits in terms of the character that I really immediately understood and felt like I could wrap my brain around and pull off. They said, “The writer-director would love to meet you,” and we set up a lunch, and Damien and I sat down and immediately basically agreed on everything, except he didn’t know that I had a musical background, so he was talking about how we’d have body doubles and we’d have somebody coaching me on how to wave my arms around like a conductor. And I said, “Hey, we don’t need that because actually, that’s one of the arrows I have in my quiver.” That was one of those moments where it felt like kismet, that Damien was like, “Oh, my God.” He said, “When Jason and Helen suggested you for this part, I immediately thought that’s a great idea, but I had no idea that you actually had those kinds of abilities.” And also, he didn’t write the script for me, but he wrote it with Miles Teller in mind from the beginning, and didn’t know that Miles had been playing drums since he was 15 years old."

"One of my favorite films of all time has got to be Mary Poppins. Well I was old enough to remember it when it came out, but I don’t think I saw it in the cinema, I think I saw it when it eventually came on television. In those days, you had to wait about six or seven years before a film got from the f–king cinemas to the television, and it being Disney, they never actually released their films. It was a very clever policy: They just re-released them every 10 years. I think it’s one of those movies. I was having a very depressing time recently working on a job. I was feeling particularly bad and I put the television on on a Sunday afternoon, and Dick Van Dyke was singing “Chim Chimney” — it just lifted my spirits. Everybody criticized his Cockney accent — and even at the time I probably joined in — and you can criticize his Cockney accent, but you cannot criticize his brilliant comic dancing. It’s f–king wonderful. Oh, it’s wonderful. And the quality of the work: The beauty of that film, the simplicity of it and the way it was made and directed; the charm. The way it appeals to people — it’s the old cliché, you know: Eight or 80. It’s a wonderful piece of work. And it’s magical. It’s one of those films, you know, that you can dip into. If you’re ever feeling low, stick it on and you’ll feel much better. If you haven’t got any illegal drugs, put that on and you’ll be alright. [Laughs]"

"There are very few bands that I have more than two or three records by, and with Eno in particular I think everything that Brian Eno does best is on this record. I've tried to listen to other Eno records but I still get more from this one than from any of the others. There's just something about it. It's got this wonderful ramshackle element to it, but at the same time it's really experimental, and everything he does best is there. I remember listening to The Unforgettable Fire and the bits I listened to most were the bits that were obviously Eno overdubs or reflected his attitude coming through. And on that same tip it's already on Here Come The Warm Jets. Plus it's got some brilliant musicians playing on it. There's that classic guitar solo by Robert Fripp on 'Baby's On Fire'. Everybody stops talking when those 32 bars happen, or however long it is. And it moves from mood to mood. Every song on it has an atmosphere. 'Cindy Tells Me' is kind of flippant. You can imagine him writing that on a Sunday morning with a hangover, waking up in a stranger's apartment that happens to have a piano. Maybe he was thinking that Roxy was commercially successful - I wonder if I can be as well. And at the time he wasn't, of course: it was just, oh god, here's a weirdo record from that bloke that used to be in Roxy Music. But I think there are a lot of great pop tunes on there as well as it opening the door for a lot of experimentation."