"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 didn’t know George at that time. I got to know George because of Dave Edmonds. I did a song with Dave Edmonds in Holland because I was doing an album over there – an ELO album – and he rang me up and said, ""do you fancy writing a song for me and I’ll come over while you’re there and I can sing it?"" So he came over and we recorded this track together and he played this big six-string bass. We recorded it, finished it and a few weeks later we’re having dinner, finished dinner, went our separate ways and he shouts down the street, ""by the way, I forgot to tell you: George Harrison asked me to ask you if you’d like to work on his new album with him!"" I said, ""what do you mean, 'by the way'?"" [laughs] As if that shouldn’t be the first thing you’d say over dinner! But that’s what happened. I got invited to George’s and I went there, we got on great and we went to Australia to the Grand Prix together to see if we were going to be pals. And we were. We were great pals and we got on great and we worked together for about 13 years or so. I love Cloud Nine because it was my first outside production that I’d done; it was a big album. And producing a Beatle wasn’t lost on me. It was like, “fucking hell! This is good, this, innit?” You know, it was great because I’d just had a year off and playing in my own studio in England and learning to be an engineer, believe it or not. I’d never really mastered engineering; I’d always been a producer and always had to tell the engineer what I wanted because I couldn’t do it myself. I taught myself how to do it myself and I was much more in tune with all the knobs. You know, I knew exactly which little tweak I needed to do because I’d been there doing it in my own studio for about a year."