"My old man got me into The Streets. I was quite young when they first came out and I remember him having them on in the car constantly. Original Pirate Material was a complete game-changer for me, I can recite that whole album word for word. ‘Blinded by the Lights’ was on the second album, A Grand Don't Come for Free, and I could probably recite that whole album as well, I think it’s one of the greatest concept albums ever written. “With ‘Blinded by the Lights’ I just love the tune, it really catches a theme and I can really relate to how he’s feeling in it. It’s that feeling of being pilled-up in a club, of losing control and not really knowing what’s going on, it’s a big tune. “I really like the storytelling element of it and that was an inspiration to me. Storytelling in a song is a complete art and I definitely don’t feel like I’ve managed to do it as good as this does, I don’t know if anyone ever will."

"One of my favourite contemporary new music pieces to come out in the past couple of years. She's been composing music for 20 years. This album came out last year so I've been sitting with it, going back to it this year as well. But what strikes me is how patient the music is; it develops very slowly. The ideas are really exciting. So when she marinates on a single idea for a while, it doesn't feel boring. The idea is so strong, you just want to hear it fold over on itself over and over again. And the marriage between the acoustic and the electronic in that piece is really seamless – the recording is so good too. She studied with Kaija Saariaho – another huge Finnish composer. I hear her maybe taking some elements of her way of working, although simplifying it, maybe drawing it out more. That might oversimplify what is going on here, because Ratkje does a vast amount of different kinds of music. But it was yet another element – you can hear that lineage within her work."

"It all started with us on the bus with a few guitars just singing the melody to what became 'The Jean Genie', but it was just naïve and silly. Then, a week later, Bowie came and said: 'Alright, I've finished that one!' And it was of course nowhere near what we had been singing lyrically, but the feel was there. It was one of those nods to good time rock & roll from the early days, spanning from the blues days right into the future. Although it was a very simple song, the lyrics were almost like a rap before rap came out, just with a blues rock backing. He was rapping about the weird scenes we were hanging out in in New York at the time. It just seemed to sum up a whole few years of the 1970s for us. There was weirdness in there, things you couldn't understand, sex, drugs and rock & roll are all in that song. It was, again, David going ahead and churning out a hit. And that one was a first take – that's what's on the record."

"I love Wes Anderson, and I can only compare his movies to other movies he’s made, because you can’t really compare them to other directors’ films. Obviously, Wes lives in a world that’s like his childhood, and he draws from a delicate, nerdy kind of etiquette-obsessed fairy-tale world in many different ways. There’s an elegance about what he does and an absurdity that’s almost otherworldly. His sensibility lies somewhere between the late ’50s and the late ’60s, with modern elements in there, but really it feels like an old storybook. So Fantastic Mr. Fox, I’m sure, is something he was dreaming of and you can really feel that. The casting was awesome—I love George Clooney, and I thought he was perfect for it. The pacing of Wes’s dialogue is perfect for animation—snappy, zippy, cartoonish, cute, but with an adult wink. It was incredibly well shot and the music was incredible. I just had a really good time. It was a very, very enjoyable film for any human being."

"Their songs have these great back-and-forth male-female vocals and really introspective lyrics that I love. We toured with them in the UK with Bikini Kill so I met them and was like, "Jesus Christ, bands here are just so much better than in the US" and, "Oh my god, they're so fucking good!" They made me feel like they were a band that was happening in the now. They reminded me that even when you're not in your twenties or whatever, it still has to be about now and not about yesterday. You can write a song about yesterday but the reason you're doing it is so that you can get to now. Your work has to be about now and not about yesterday: "This is something I'm thinking about today." All the beautiful, humble moments on their album, the musicality of it is just amazing. I've seen them live like a thousand times and they've never disappointed me – Rachel [Evans] and Ben [Phillipson] singing together is just an absolute dream."