"Tom Waits really brings a lot of showbiz into his records. It’s in there in the actual songwriting. He knows how to strip things down and get to some skeletal place that’s really strong. He’s trying to be true to his Jazz and his Blues. That is to be admired. There’s a lot of the textures you don’t hear so much. All that vocabulary is really seductive. I think that he’s a good songwriter whatever record you talk about of his. It’s not because there’s some fucking guy playing a saw. It’s like the Bruce Springsteen thing. It’s stripped down, universal, folky bluesy stuff. He’s trying to say: “You guys think you can change things overnight. Forget the new thing. What about Django Reinhart? Son House?” It’s like the Grand Duchy thing. People get obsessed with our production like, “What’s the new story?” It’s admirable when people say: “What about 1949, man?!” At first, I heard a cool White Stripes record and thought: “Who do you think you are, Robert Johnson?” And I get jealous. Fucking A! man. It’s like primal Led Zeppelin or something. But at the end of the day, I always end up respecting Jack White. [Black does an impression of the 'Seven Nation Army' riff.] Jack White has some believability."

"The other record I got into listening to at my friend's house. A lot of the records on the list were discovered around a two to three year window, at a time when I was really turned on to music. I was actively hungry, and reaching out, digesting what bands people turned me on to. I think the first Black Sabbath album I heard was actually Vol. 4. I always discover things way late, after the fact. But that's fine, I guess I like the fact of being kinda late to the party. But when it got to me, it really stuck. It's another record that I find very close to perfect. There's a heaviness and a darkness to Sabbath which I often cite as a direct influence to our sound. You can trace the bloodline, and I think you could say that of a lot of Seattle bands. Sabbath are also a very visual band, but in a different way, a lot more visceral. I've read interviews where Ozzy was saying they were trying to make horror film soundtracks, and that makes sense to me. Cause the themes were always pretty dark and pretty bleak, and they pulled their punches thematically and lyrically. Tony Iommi is also one of my favourite guitarists and very influential to me."

"I’ve got three Pac albums on here, so we can consolidate two of them. Everyone knows I’m a super-duper Pac fan, but when Me Against The World dropped I was 10 years old. So even being 10 years old, I still knew the importance of this album. I knew how ill the shit he was saying was, and how emotional he sounded. I was ten years old, but I could connect to the dude. ""It’s like now, when I’m traveling on the road, a parent will bring their 11-year-old kid to me and say, ‘You’re his favorite rapper. He loves you.’ I’ll think, ‘Yo, he’s 11!’ I have to remember that when I was young, I got it too. I understood it. So it reminds me of that. It’s a classic. ‘Dear Mama’ is a fucking classic. The song ‘Me Against The World’ is a classic. ‘Temptations’ and ‘So Many Tears’ are my favorite songs on there.” ”As far as All Eyez On Me, that was the first double disc in hip-hop. The fact that he even had the fucking audacity to make a double disc. [Laughs.] And make both discs incredible and able to stand on their own two feet, that's crazy to me.”"

"I’ve got three Pac albums on here, so we can consolidate two of them. Everyone knows I’m a super-duper Pac fan, but when Me Against The World dropped I was 10 years old. So even being 10 years old, I still knew the importance of this album. I knew how ill the shit he was saying was, and how emotional he sounded. I was ten years old, but I could connect to the dude. ""It’s like now, when I’m traveling on the road, a parent will bring their 11-year-old kid to me and say, ‘You’re his favorite rapper. He loves you.’ I’ll think, ‘Yo, he’s 11!’ I have to remember that when I was young, I got it too. I understood it. So it reminds me of that. It’s a classic. ‘Dear Mama’ is a fucking classic. The song ‘Me Against The World’ is a classic. ‘Temptations’ and ‘So Many Tears’ are my favorite songs on there.” ”As far as All Eyez On Me, that was the first double disc in hip-hop. The fact that he even had the fucking audacity to make a double disc. [Laughs.] And make both discs incredible and able to stand on their own two feet, that's crazy to me.”"