"Around this time I started heading out on tour and The Gaslight Anthem really started moving. It was just after The ’59 Sound came out. That was when I started learning about the music industry and how it all works, and how insincere it all is. People pick you up and spit you out. I was taking a drive one day and I heard The Promise by Bruce Springsteen come on the radio. But it wasn’t the album version; it was just him and a piano as it appears on an album called 18 Tracks.” This song opens with the lyrics: ‘Johnny works in a factory / Billy works downtown / Terry works in a rock and roll band / Looking for that million dollar sound.’ Then towards the end of the song he says: ‘The promise was broken, I was far away from home / Sleeping in the back seat of a borrowed car.’ I remember being on tour and sleeping in the back of a car that wasn’t mine, and I heard that line and I was like, ‘I don’t know about this whole thing. I don’t know if this is right. What do I do?’ As Springsteen sings: ‘The promise is broken, you go on living / It steals something from down in your soul.’ That’s when I realised that music wasn’t about the rock star dream. It’s about connecting with people, but that’s not enough for the industry. They see you as a product and they want you to make money, and I understand that, but it’s never enough for them. They’re never satiated and they’re never satisfied. It’s a beast with a belly that will never be filled. “I’d feel a sense of dissatisfaction after every tour and I’d come home and get in my van and just drive. I’d drive around habitually for one hour playing The Promise on repeat, just to clear my head. The song made me feel like I wasn’t alone, like someone understood me. It was a huge, huge song for my development, and it always put me back in a perspective that I wasn’t alone. And even though it’s a depressing song and there’s not a lot of advice in it, it makes sense to me. I still feel good when I listen to that song."

"Number three would be a Ken Loach film. I love Ken Loach very much because I love what he stands for politically. I love his bravery and I love the way that he really wanted to get these very socio-economic stories and real examinations of society in England and the unfairness of it. I think the way that he can manage to do that and make films that are entertaining as well, means that he’s such a master. He did a film in 1993 called Raining Stones. It’s one of my favorite Ken Loach films, and it’s one of my favorite films in general. It’s a heartbreaking story about an unemployed man who has to scrape together the money for his daughter’s first Communion dress, because in the society that they live in, that’s quite an important thing. You have to have a new dress for Communion. It’s about the dignity of trying to find the money and not letting her go to this event with a secondhand dress. It’s about how people who would seem to be on the fringes of society and treated with a lot of contempt by a lot of conventional media — it’s an examination of how they do have moral compasses. They are human beings, and they do abide by a set of rules, and they’re not scum. They just had a very unfortunate break. I think there’s something about that examination of that which is very deep psychological and socio-economic issues, but then in a very entertaining way. I think when you get a message combined with the entertainment value, I think that’s when you’re really on to something. Because if you have a story like that, which can be very depressing and very heartbreaking and very dour in other hands, if you can make that funny and actually make that interesting, you can put your message across all the more strongly. So I think that’s what I love about Ken Loach, the fact that he knows that in order to get people to listen to your message, you have to be able to entertain them. I think that’s a much harder thing to do than to just put a message across in a very prescribed way. He works hard to make things as entertaining as he possibly can, knowing that his message is gonna come across all the more effectively. I think he’s the king of the message."

"This is such a glorious and beautiful album. There are not many albums that make me want to cry but I think this is stunningly beautiful and raw and emotive and it contains some of the best and favourite Neil Young lyrics. You know: 'I need a crowd of people/ But I can't face them day to day' - I feel that. I'm interpreting that in a certain way but I'm with him on that. There are so many times that you listen to stuff that you really feel. It feels so real; more than real even. It's a beautiful album. 'Revolution Blues' has got everything; it's got a great sounding band working really well and nailing it and it's got an energy. Nothing's too internal either. I was talking to someone earlier about the lyrics to Matador and I know that there are some really personal lyrics on there but they still have to have a hook; they can't be too internal. I can't internalise too much or else I close myself off to whoever is listening. I don't want to push anyone away by being so morose or depressing. But Neil Young does it so well. Lyrically he's a great inspiration to me. They sometimes feel like throwaway lyrics or he has quite simple couplets that feel very day-to-day, but then equally he can be a lot more abstract and using metaphors as well. I've looked at that quite a lot in terms of creating that balance of metaphors and real day-to-day life. But why not have some anger in there? I hear that a lot in 'Revolution Blues' where he talks about 'killing stars in their cars' and that's great. It's angry; it's like the first line of 'To The Wire'. The first line of the song is, 'I want to cut myself' but the second line is: 'I want to cut myself down.' You know, it's where I want to cut myself free of all the pressures. I remember when I played it to people and they were like, 'Gaz! What was that?' and I was like, 'No, no, no, it's part of a couplet. The pay-off is line two.' You know, I'm not into self-harm or anything but I like the fact that some days I might feel like I'm really completely fucked and that I might hate myself and do some damage but I won't. I question it. And like I say, Neil Young does that really well."