"That's what I'd listen to on Bikini Kill tours. I'd put on my Walkman with my Fear Of A Black Planet cassette and I would go running and listen to it. I felt like they were making this really accessible music full of political ideas that were often very personal and sometimes very broad and I was like, "I want to make music like this, that you want to listen to because it sounds so great, but when you dig into the lyrics they're also smart and sometimes funny and very tongue in cheek." That's what I wanted to make so I'd just listen to it all the time. When I was running it was such good music to listen to because the beats are so awesome. It was a massive influence to Le Tigre. Not that we did hip-hop but I wanted to do songs that sounded good. Public Enemy made me okay with having higher production values. You can still be extremely political and radical and say what you want but do it in a way that just sounds great. First you notice how great it sounds and then, as you keep listening to it, you go, "Wait, what's this about? They mention this book, they mention Marcus Garvey, I want to go find out about that!"

"""Let’s go to Pinocchio, Disney’s Pinocchio. That was a truly, utterly magical movie. The world was so beautifully detailed and so fantastical, and yet believable at every point. I love that movie. It’s really stuck with me, because it was at a level of craftsmanship that was so unbelievably high, and it’s maintained that position in my head for all the years. Great songs, great everything. Great characters. I don’t know what else one can say about it. It’s just a great story. I think the first film I saw was probably Snow White. That’s the advantage of being old. You get these films when you’re at the right age. But those two in particular really, really stuck with me because I just hadn’t seen anything so beautifully crafted. The great thing, it made me a big fan. It took me years to discover that Cliff Edwards was the voice of Jiminy Cricket. I always loved “When You Wish Upon a Star,” and he was singing that. Now I’m a great fan of Cliff Edwards. His music is brilliant, but most people have forgotten him. I just think he was known as a singer, and he played the ukulele. He just ended up with a wonderful voice. I think his voice was also used in one of the other Disney films, which I can’t remember. But it was his singing that is just right. I think that’s Pinocchio. I saw Pinocchio maybe 20 years ago again, and what amazed me about it is how, as a child, I remembered this vast universe, huge world. In fact, it’s tiny. You go from Geppetto’s workshop and the little village to the bad boys’ island just like that. Bing. It’s so tight the way that they do it. The next thing, you’re in Monstro’s belly. It’s a great one to watch just to see how succinct you can be and still create a universe. It’s a lesson I’ve never learned, the succinct part."""

"I was 12 when it came out. I remember it very well. It was a Saturday morning, and I went round to a friend's house and he'd been out shopping that morning and he'd bought the album. And we played the album, and it was something like you'd never heard before. We were in the middle of what I might describe as somewhat traditional rock music – you know, The Stones and Led Zeppelin were at their peaks. This thing came along and it didn't sound like anything else. The production values, the production's quite dry, and also you've got this visual of Bowie with the spiky hair, it just was something so different. You felt that music itself just got changed, and that rock music per se moved into some other place. The best way I can describe it is that rock music became modern. It became a new thing. I have no doubt in my mind that David Bowie is the greatest solo artist that Britain's ever produced. I can't think of a better solo artist. The other thing I would say is I thoroughly underestimated the brilliance, and the input made by Mick Ronson, in the period he was with the band. I had no idea Mick Ronson did all the orchestration, and did all the arrangements. So when you're listening to a track like 'Life On Mars' off Hunky Dory and, this album, 'Moonage Daydream', when you take into consideration that he did the string arrangements, that really puts him in a different sphere as well. And without Mick Ronson I don't think it would have sounded as original as it did. It made me so sad seeing this documentary about him [Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story on Sky Arts], somehow the Bowie machine swept Mick Ronson under the carpet, which is incredibly unfair. It was heartbreaking, to be honest. I felt really sorry for the guy that he'd been so underestimated while he was alive. At least now we can celebrate his brilliance."