"I was just thinking last night, after I’d already sent you the list of songs, “Why didn’t I put that Lux Prima record in there?” It’s my favourite of the year so far. The first time I heard this song it knocked the wind out of me. Where did that melody come from? I’d never heard it, and yet it felt like it had existed for all eternity. By the time the track's over, it's already ingrained in you. Something else I love about this album is that it starts with a couple of songs that have you thinking that you know where the record’s going, and then it takes this hard right turn. I love that! Why don’t bands do that more often? You think of Ziggy Stardust as being this big rock record, but you forget that all of the big rock songs are saved for the back half. Side one is all soul and pop. I like that kind of sequencing, where the band is being deliberate, where they know they’re handling a piece of art. I think, with us having just put together Everything Hits at Once, I relate to that more than ever - that sense of wanting the album to gradually take the listener somewhere."

"This record was so, so important to me. My friend went to see Slipknot play an instore show at a Virgin Megastore and he came back with this tape with The Workhorse Movement on one side and Glassjaw on the other, essentially Roadrunner Records trying to pitch their next big acts. He gave me the tape saying 'This is fucking rubbish, you should just have it,' and I listened to Workhorse movement and thought it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. But then I listened to Glassjaw and it was so raw and pure, it had that same urgency that I thought Nirvana must have had in the day, no frills, no production to hide behind, it was stripped back so there was no cloak, just dagger. I listened to this album until my CD didn't work anymore. I loved the whole story behind Glassjaw too, how Ross Robinson went and saw them play 30 seconds of a song, told them to stop and then they had a fight with him. It's rock & roll perfection. At that stage I'd played in a couple of bands but I was just taking music in. You're open at that age to everything, and this just really poured in."

"Next one would be Contempt by Godard. The first time I ever saw it, on a VHS copy 25 years ago, I thought it was the worst movie I’d ever seen. Actually, every Godard film I’ve ever seen I’ve hated the first time. But it got re-released a number of years back and I was in New York and saw it at the Film Forum, and I felt like I was seeing Halley’s Comet, you know — I couldn’t believe how wrong I was; how much I’d despised this film the first time I saw it and how much my second viewing was completely the polar opposite reaction. I think the performances, from Bardot and Piccoli to Jack Palance, to, you know, Cotard’s photography and Delerue’s amazing repetitive score… to me it’s one of those Godard movies where it’s a perfect balance between heart and mind, you know? Oftentimes his films are extremely heavy, but this film was not only heavy — you could forever gaze into it on repeated viewings, as it appeals to your intelligence — but it also appealed to your soul. It was a huge, huge inspiration for Blue Valentine, especially the middle section of Contempt, where it feels like this 45-minute sequence where this couple is in their apartment."