"Eddie Kramer once came up to me and told me something. I don't know if he was pulling my chain or not. He said the picture on the back wasn't even from a KISS concert, it was from a Joan Baez concert or something like that. He also said that that record wasn't really live and that shattered my dreams. For me, as a lead guitar player when I was getting into KISS in high school, I would draw Gene [Simmons]'s face all the time. But when I thought about who I was, I was Ace [Frehley]. I was that guy. I loved those songs like 'Black Diamond', 'Strutter' and 'Parasite'."

"Rocket To Russia is a great record and that was kind of my entry point, my first experience with the Ramones - then I got to go back and discover the first two. Leave Home is great too. Fuck, you could just say the first Ramones record or any Ramones record but Rocket To Russia was my first introduction to Johnny Ramone’s guitar playing. We would read about the Ramones in Punk magazine and see these pictures of Johnny Ramone downstroking and I got to finally see them in like ‘79. That was a great year for me as I saw the Ramones and – and this will take us into the next record – The Clash."

"Now this is an important record. It’s the first American hardcore punk record with some production. It was mind-blowing at the time, like, wow – there’s fuckin’ real guitar blaring out of the right side and you could hear everything, especially Don Bolles on drums. Darby Crash’s lyrics were this different thing where you couldn’t hear one word he said but he made you read the lyrics. It was like really dark poetry that you couldn’t figure out – we were too young too figure all that shit out. As a record, when you first hear it, you can’t understand it at all. Then on the fourth listen it becomes one of the best you’ve ever heard."

"It was my manager, Ryan Martin, who also does Dais Records, who said, “You don’t know who Acid Mothers Temple are?!” I knew the name, but had never listened to them, so he immediately burned about 30 CDs! We loved it, and then he rang me to tell me they were playing live at The Knitting Factory the following week. He took me, and I was absolutely entranced. The guy at the front, with hair longer than mine that had gone grey, and he was swaying off the rhythm of the music, in perfect time to something in his head. It just blows you away. And then, what’s his name with the guitar, begins with an M…"

"Most people know Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson album, but what's interesting is that in the early '90s, he actually went into a dark, weird phase that French people don't really like. They consider his music from that time weak. But for me, it's the best. It's porn, it's queer, it's rap before that was a thing in France. It's just him mumbling obscene things on drum-and-guitar heavy production, really raw and tough. At the same time, it's poetic. The contrast is interesting: it's beautiful but dirty. On this album, Gainsbourg is hiding behind nothing. You get everything: the obsessions, the lust, the weaknesses, the scars. You see everything ugly and everything beautiful."

"Jesca Hoop is a friend of mine. And she said there's this girl in town, you've got to see her band: "They're amazing and I want to see if they are the real deal." So I say okay, and we went down to the movie lounge, and we were both absolutely knocked out. We hung around afterwards and then got the band signed. Listen to 'Low Low Low' and that will tell you exactly what I love about them. They are raw and they are real and she sings from her heart, and she has a big troubled heart. She plays guitar amazingly and she sings with real guts and they're just a fantastic band."