"Again, a similar time in my life; I was listening to a few American psychedelic bands. There was a band called Long Ryders who did a track called ‘Looking for Lewis and Clark’ that I played, learned, used to sit and sing although I had no idea what the lyrics were. I was pretty much singing nonsense, although the song did get me into Tim Hardin! Anyway, they were one of a few bands [that were important to me], like Opal, Screaming Trees and Rain Parade, but Rain Parade was the one that changed me. This album was like an explosion in my mind. I don’t know what program it was, but I saw them perform ‘No Easy Way Down’ on TV, a filmed concert, and it was like, ‘Here is something I can fully get behind.’ It’s a slow, sludgy, drone rock anthem; the guitarist is doing the Kevin Shields tremolo thing with the guitar, but in 1985. It’s just incredible, and I have to say would have been pretty influential on the early Ride sound for sure."

"I think that it pretty much changed the game. You can say what you want about Waka or whatever. like, ‘Oh he can’t rap.’ He always is like, ‘I’m not a rapper anyway.’ The proof is when this dude drops his album, if 80 percent of It just makes me want to shoot machine guns. that genre of music changes to sound like him, you know you did something right. Everybody is trying to be hype and get Lex Luger beats and all that. Everybody is just all about that energy that I don’t think anyone matches as well as Waka. He just brings this almost punk-rock energy but it’s so hood and hip-hop. I just remember kind of taking a gamble getting the album and it’s just one of those times...I was sitting at Universal Studios about to ride some rides, but I just kicked it in the parking lot because as soon as I turned it on, I was like, ‘Whoa.’ It just makes me want to shoot machine guns. I love Waka, he’s the shit."