"I recently realised that I was leaving the Thompson Twins out of my list of influences because I subconsciously felt they were embarrassing. But I listened to a lot of Thompson Twins. Into the Gap was my favourite when I was 12 or 13. When I go back and revisit those records, some of it sounds a little dated, but actually they hold up really well. I feel like the songwriting of the Thompson Twins is one of the overlooked treasures of the 80s. It's really, really good. There are songs that tend towards the cheesy side, like 'Doctor Doctor', but if you listen to the deep songs on those records, the songwriting is fantastic. The lyrics are really, really good. That's what was on repeat when I was just starting to write songs. The ages 12 through 17 were when I felt I was completely defined by music, completely engulfed by it. You rarely saw me without a set of headphones on because I was trying to block out the rest of the world. Which is funny now – the only time nowadays I put a set of headphones on is to listen to mixes. I don't ever, ever wear an iPod. I barely even listen to music, which is no joke. But back then I was soaking up music like a sponge."

"That was a big album for us. Just the title alone amused us. From a sonic perspective, this one sounded fantastic. We were drawn to it because of the simplicity and the way it’s put together. It transcended punk, because it was such an important album for a lot of musicians in the 70s that were still hippies. Them boys had our attitude, and we liked that attitude. We liked the Clash, too, but we didn’t really like any of the other punk bands. But this album, even if it didn’t have the surface, the title and all the hype, you’d still think it was a fucking great album. It could have been a Metallica album. We could have played that album. We had a little bit of the anti-establishment attitude in songs like ‘Strong Arm of the Law’, which didn’t get played on radio despite being a single, because it was anti-police. We looked like hippies but we had the attitude of punks. That period was a melting point of different musical styles, and as punk faded we were there to take its place, as was the new romantic movement, which was the other side of the coin – we’d be doing Top of the Pops with Motörhead and Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran."

"My second favorite film is probably even more intellectually challenging than Wong Kar-Wai; it’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I f***ing love that movie! I have two children; I’ve probably seen this movie, with each child, about 50 times each. And that’s no exaggeration. There’s nothing I don’t know about this movie. I once went to a meeting with an executive in Hollywood, and they asked me what I wanted to do. I said, ‘I’d love to do a remake of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang‘ — I was just making it up — ‘and I’d call it Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Boom,’ and he said that’s a great title! [Laughs] I was only kidding. But that’s a movie I really love. In the UK at Christmastime, the girls would get The Sound of Music and the boys would get Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was that kind of thing, where every Christmas you would see it. So when I had kids, of course I put it on for my son and then he became obsessed with it. It’s the kind of movie where you never really get to the end; it’s so long, and the kids can only really wait so long. But the beginning of the film is like 20 minutes long, before anything even happens. It’s just the story of the car. It’s fantastic!"

"I kind of think Fitzcarraldo. Cinephiles know it, but the new generation don’t really know that picture. It’s a flawed film but if you watch that and the companion making-of [Burden of Dreams]… there’s a great Criterion of it; it’s the one with Mick Jagger in it, when he started the film and had to pull out. What I love about this film is that it represents what I love about film making: The film is about a person who has an insane passion for art, to the extent that they drag a boat over a small isthmus to make money, but he’s making money to bring Caruso, the great Italian Opera singer, to build an opera house. But the backstory, with Klaus [Kinski], and the relationship between Klaus and [director] Werner [Herzog], is so fantastic a backstory. I mean, they try and kill each other. And I think the intense passion between actor and director is in the film. To me it’s kind of a package deal, this film. You have to involve yourself in the movie, but it’s really worth going beneath the film, up the jungle and into the psyche of the drama itself. Its companion film is one of my favorites of all-time, Apocalypse Now — and you can go on the same journey with that film."

"It’s just awesome. What is there not to love about this movie? Donna Reed was amazing! My brother wants to marry Donna Reed. I’m like, “Dude, she’s a little old for you now.” I love the way he (George Bailey) was a happy guy but then can get cantankerous sometimes. Jimmy Stewart was just fantastic in that. I love the magic feel of it and I love the whole idea at the end of this person who did so much for everybody else and really stood on his own and sacrificed so much, that when he finally gave up and needed (help), everyone was there for him and I just cry every single time. I cry every single time. My brother actually says that I am that character in real life. I AM George Bailey. He’s like, “That’s you. You are that guy,” and every time I get ticked off when finally the pressure gets to me — because I do take care of a lot of people — he just yells at me, “Why do we have to have so many kids,” which is of course a Jimmy Stewart line. I even did It’s a Wonderful Life on a thing called “Fake Radio” where we did the entire radio version, on radio. It was great! So, I love that movie!"

"This is the pinnacle of the 'magic four' line up. I discovered Alice Cooper when he did School's Out: I thought it was great. It was all the bits of glam that I liked. It was theatrical in a comical way. Cooper was an American band that seemed very British - there wasn't a great deal of difference between them and, say, Wizzard to me. I heard School's Out, went down town with my mum and brought two Alice Cooper albums - Love It To Death and Killer for about five shillings each. I got School's Out the next week and loved the theatrics. I really got into Cooper - 'Halo of Flies' etc. It was horror music, way ahead. I laugh when people try to tell me Marilyn Manson is scary: I think 'you weren't around in 71, mate'. Then of course, knowing the albums inside out a year later, out comes Billion Dollar Babies - it has this fantastic opening song 'Hello Hooray' which has this amazing guitar part at the start. And then 'Raped And Freezing' and 'Elected'. There was a really dark psychedelic edge to it. They felt like a band in charge of what they were doing. It was glamorous; it was exotic; it was dangerous. That was the kind of stuff that I liked."