"Tales Of The Deep, a song by long-defunct London band The Tailors. Adam, the singer, is a friend who taught me all about country music, and indeed, songwriting. They're a big influence on me but aren't exactly a household name."

"I'm gonna go for a topical one... Obviously Stuart Adamson came out of The Skids. John Peel called him the Scottish Hendrix, and I loved The Skids. Absolutely loved them. Then he went on to form Big Country. And first of all I had to take a step back from it, but I just loved the way he put myths and folklore - Scottish folklore - into music, but he also linked it up with the modern day era. All those myths and belief systems were very prescient of modern day culture: how people use music to deal with loss, how people use music to deal with lostness in society, with poverty, with trying to strive to remain above the dignity level. And I thought that was quite a noble ambition for a musician, really. Lots of musicians have done that in different guises, but because Big Country was wrapped up in a certain Scottishness in the music, and what some people have called the Celtic mist in their music, they were utterly pilloried in the press. I love the music press and I love music journalism, but sometimes the music press have to be called to account, and they should give the musical kudos and reparations to Big Country and Stuart Adamson, who's sadly not with us. I also used to think, why is it that Billy Bragg's allowed to have a folk edge to him? The Men They Couldn't Hang had a folk edge to them; The Pogues were allowed to have a folklore edge to them, and people find it acceptable with The Pogues because they could get drunk to it. But Big Country were mercilessly slammed for being Scottish, whining, bagpipes… I look back and think it's a music journalism crime, what happened to them, and what happened to Stuart Adamson. You look at the album and you've just got so many songs which just touch upon the post-Thatcher unemployment that was going on in Scotland at the time... And the English-based press just absolutely slammed him for it; they just thought he was a man dealing in myth and outdated folklore and I think it's disgusting. I remember, in the sleevenotes, he said he understood the power of music way before he understood its language, and that's what he was trying to do with Big Country. It was a noble, amazing achievement which was treated with… what would you call it? Just London-dominated disdain. I'd like to redress that just by picking it. A folk influence is very much allowed in English music today, whether it be fucking Frank Bloke or Mumford And Sons with their Cath Kidston version of it. It's allowed through the gate; it's allowed to sell millions; it's allowed to have a voice. So there is a symbolism there. It's enough to make you want to be independent, the way Big Country were treated by the music press!"

"The first album that I ever heard that made me realize that I wanted to make music was by a band called Joy Electric, and the album was called Melody. It’s like a really bizarre fairy tale synth pop from 1993 and they are out of Orange Country, California."

"An almost perfect album. Apart from one mistake – there's a joke song on it. I think jokes should never be on records, they just don't last. The record is such an incredibly serious record, it's one of the most grown-up records ever made in that the things she's talking about and thinking about are such serious and complicated emotional situations. It's one of the only records where I actually care about the lyrics. I really listen to the lyrics and think about what she's trying to say. I've always said that country music is grown-up and she came more out of country than out of pop. Whereas pop is always about the problems of adolescence really, hooking up with someone and whether she really likes you or not, when you get to country music it's about mortgages and divorce and things like that [laughs]. It seems to me to be about real-life, grown-up issues and so seems much more interesting to me lyrically."

"I am a huge Roxy Music fan! I was the president of the Roxy Music fanclub in Madison, Wisconsin, which only had about seven members. We used to have Roxy Music nights, once a month, we would play their albums, all the different members' solo albums, and the live bootlegs. I love all their albums but I think for me Country Life was kind of their most consistent and most focused one. You really start to hear some of the sophistication that Bryan Ferry would later bring to Roxy Music. The first couple of records had a lot of quirky artiness to them yet the songs were so well written and their arrangements are spot on. There are so many great songs on Country Life including the opener, 'The Thrill Of It All', which is just epic. I love 'Out Of The Blue' and 'Prairie Rose', and 'Casanova' – that’s like a dirty funk number. One of my inspirations as a drummer is Roxy Music. I love Paul Thomspon's drumming on all the records and I've always looked at him as an inspiration. At the time of release they covered the album with a brown wrapper as the artwork was deemed to be offensive - the cover has this beautiful slash trashy glam vibe to it and that kind of defines what I loved about Roxy Music."

"I was excited that I had the chance to sing something in [happythankyoumoreplease]. I did a lot when I was younger and I haven’t in such a long time, but I grew up doing musicals and musical theater. That was my real passion and I soon as I started doing films, when I was 14, I did less. I would love to do movie musicals or Broadway. [A music biopic] would be a dream of mine… that leads into my favorite movies. Coal Miner’s Daughter is my all-time favorite movie. A lot of that has to do with that’s just a dream sort of ideal role for me. I love country music. I love the idea of playing a country singer and the whole thing, I love it. And I love Sissy Spacek. So yeah, that’s one of my favorites."