"On the first Strokes tour we had a Libertines demo on the bus. I remember thinking 'Oh man there's already a British version of The Strokes? That's fast, this is only the first tour!' Not that they were, but that was the perception around them. What is so cool about The Libertines is in fact that they're in that tradition of great British bands that really draw on being British to make a very special version of rock. The Sex Pistols are in that tradition, The Clash, all these really cool English bands that make you want to be some sort of geezer and know what a "two bob cunt" is. So being label mates with The Libertines and becoming friend with them they indoctrinated me into this whole British universe: listening to Chas And Dave, that comedian Tony Hancock and all kinds of weird British shit. In a way they became this vital group that almost channeled Lord Byron or Percy Shelley. They were almost a subculture unto themselves. At a time when England is in such a flux, their music reminds everyone why people love what being British is. The way they re-appropriated Albion and Blake's vision of England, it was just really beautiful. Their version of British, for me as a New Yorker, immediately made me want to learn about London and go to all these places. Their first record was a calling for people to learn about the history of England, their music made you want to educate yourself, but it is also so fucking catchy. I covered their song 'What A Waster' while they were in New York. They were recording 'Don't Look Back Into The Sun' at a studio but they were making these endless demo tapes that eventually appeared as the 'Babyshambles Sessions'. My version of their song was recorded while they were doing those. For me they were a band that birthed a new romantic movement in England."

"I always say that T. Rex were my band when I was a kid. What I mean by that is so much of my identity was about being a T. Rex fan. A bit like choosing your colours as to which football team you would support, when I was nine or ten I found T. Rex. I was obsessed with Bolan. At that point, coincidentally, they were about to hit their stride as a commercial and artistic force. They had released Electric Warrior and they were on the precipice of being the most important band around. The Slider came out and it had 'Metal Guru' on it. It was a song that changed my life as I had never heard anything so beautiful and so strange, but yet so catchy. 'Telegram Sam' was also on that album and the whole thing was unusually spooky and had a weird atmosphere, considering it was a number one record and they were essentially a teenybop band. It's another one of those records that what you get on the cover is what you get inside. I was a teenybopper at the time. I was ten, eleven, buying lots of records and loving the pop music I heard on the radio. I consider myself very lucky that what was on the radio at the time and the music being made for very young children happened to have some substance to it. T. Rex was pure pop, but it was coming from someone who had had a go at being a hippy and being a mod. The album was very much of its time, and had a sexuality to it that I didn't understand at that age. There is an aspect of the sound that Tony Visconti must have had a large part in, and Flo [Mark Volman] and Eddie [Howard Kaylan] from The Turtles on backing vocals added this odd, druggy spook to the whole thing."