"This was also quite a challenging record for me. I bought the 7"" of 'Ceremony' when it came out, and I thought that's what Movement was going to sound like. A very pretty, emotional, bucolic record, and of course it has moments like that, but in a strange way it's almost darker than Closer. When I was 14 or 15-years-old I was full ensconced on the cult of Ian Curtis, so when I got Movement I listened to it and tried to decode it... how many songs were influenced by Ian Curtis, how many songs were written by Ian Curtis, were they trying to communicate with Ian from beyond the grave. It's certainly the darkest of all the New Order records, and after this they became much more melodic and happy. The first track on the record is quite uplifting, then everything else is quite dark. One of the things I've always loved about Bernard Sumner's voice is there's a naive, vulnerable quality to it. I was at an airport the other day and 'A Perfect Kiss' came on, I hadn't listened to it in about 25 years, and it's such a perfect song. His vocals are sing-songy, like a nursery rhyme, but they're so effective. Each of these records that we've talked about, one thing they have in common is that they're all primarily electronic. At the time I was completely surrounded by very traditional rock music, and it felt interesting and subversive to be listening to these records primarily made with electronic instruments. I think that affected me a lot. I was a guitar player at the time, and I was so bored and frustrated with playing the guitar because it didn't do that much. I couldn't figure out how to make a guitar not sound like a guitar, and then you hear all these electronic records with all these textures and atmospheres and sounds that I'd never heard before, and I found that quite exciting."

"Leslie West - formerly Leslie Weinstein - was a New York guitar player who played with The Vagrants and lots of other local bands that were coming up in the New York scene. The thing about that record is the producer was Felix Pappalardi, who produced Cream as well as The Youngbloods, and was also an accomplished bass player. So, originally it was just going to be a Leslie West solo record, there was no Mountain, the name of the record was Mountain, but it was by Leslie West. But he didn't have a bass player so Felix Pappalardi played the bass, but the material started coming together so fast. I mean, songs like 'Long Red', I listened to those growing up and, in fact, a few of my songs had their beginning on Mountain songs. Bow buh duh doo dah duuh dow, that began a song called 'Watchin' You' that I wrote, with a flat third; you can hear where it crosses over, that's from 'Never In My Life', a Mountain song. His guitar playing is just undeniable. And of course 'Mississippi Queen' is great, just three chords! When I picked up the guitar and started to play licks and stuff like that, I sound like Leslie West, because intrinsically he's not about speed, he's about melody. Blues-based melody, I'll grant you, but it still holds up to me. I still play it."

"I was at my son's house in Henley, we were having dinner. Mark likes to play me things that he knows I'll like. So he didn't say anything, he just put it on. We were having dinner, and I hear ‘Am I Wrong' and I said, 'Who the hell is that?' He said, 'Who?' I said, 'What you're playing there!' 'Oh, a guy called Keb' Mo'.' So I said, 'Turn it up!' It's tremendous. [sings ‘Am I Wrong'] You just think, Jesus! Something that I haven't heard before, that first initial thing, is always the most exciting to me. I've heard him do other things since, but that, ‘Am I Wrong'... great. When I've listened to him singing, there's a similarity in our vocal tone and syncopation. When I was playing it in my house, funnily enough, back in LA - I play guitar, nowhere near as good as he does, but a few chords - so I'm playing it downstairs and my wife was up in the bedroom, and I said 'did you hear that thing I was playing?' She said 'you got your guitar out, right? It was you?' I said 'it's not me'. She said 'I heard you get your guitar out and start singing', I said 'no, it's not, it's a guy called Keb' Mo''. And she thought that it was me, and I thought, 'wow, that's great, that she thinks I can play as well as him'."

"Jimi Hendrix is one of our local heroes in Seattle, and we only have a handful. He walked the same streets than we did. Interestingly enough, he had to come over here to break out. We were always proud to be from the same town that he came from. I remember in the very early days of this band, we would drive to the cemetery, go to his grave and crack a few beers or whatever. We knew that a lot of people did that too. So if we were low on weed, we could probably show up and always find at least a joint or two... Which we did more than a couple of times too [laughs]! People would leave guitar picks, half burnt roaches, sometimes full joints. And we would hang out with Jimi and smoke the pot that people left on his grave. He was a phenomenal guitar player. The band that he had, the trio on that record, it's legendary. Are You Experienced? is the first of his albums I was introduced to. And I still think it's the best. He was an innovator, he was extremely unique. He had a uniqueness that passed the test of time. And the only other guy, for me personally, to make that sort of a change, another guitar player of the same calibre that I kind of acknowledge as ""this guy is the fucking shit!"" is probably Eddie Van Halen, a couple of generations back."

"Then we became rockabillys and got really into the Stray Cats, This was about 1982. It was my brother and his mates who started brushing their hair up, and me and Sice joined in. It felt like years at the time, but it was probably for 12 to 18 months we became rockabillys. We had our hair piled up, baggy trousers and crepe shoes. I still love the Stray Cats. They had this cartoon image - their hair was much bigger. I had such a crush on Brian Setzer, he's a great singer. But the guitar playing is phenomenal. The B-side is called 'Drink That Bottle Down' - I think it's live in Newcastle - and you've got the double bass player Lee Rocker shouting these blues. It really is a racket, but the guitar playing is unbelievable. The variety and dexterity and fluidity - the ferocity of his guitar playing is wonderful. I was into them for a couple of albums, but by the third album we kind of gave up. My brother got deeper into it - he started getting into psychobilly and all that, The Sharks, Tall Boys, The Meteors, The Milkshakes - all that Klub Foot stuff. And there was a psychedelic wave - The Purple Things and The Vibes - and it all got really strange. I was out of it by then. I think 'Relax' came out and I was back in the modern world."