"I just love the songs on this. I’m not into the whole religious aspect of the band but I’ve been a fan since I saw them on Top Of The Pops doing ‘Fire’. The reason that I picked this over Achtung Baby - which is one of my favourite U2 albums from my favourite period of U2 – is that it’s just a massive album for me. When I get time to have a quiet moment on my own, I could sit and play all the songs off this on an acoustic guitar for ages. They’re just great. You don’t like it? I don’t give a fuck! Everyone that I’ve ever known – EVER KNOWN – apart from my wife – hates them. Me and my wife love them. It wasn’t the reason we got married… But everyone else I have ever met from my earliest memory in Manchester to right now talking to you has gone, 'They are fucking shit. They are what’s wrong with music.' For me it’s about the songwriting. If I could write a song like ‘Running To Stand Still’ and ‘Nobody’s Home’ by Pink Floyd then I could die happy with never writing another song again."

"Beach House are one of the best bands around right now. Victoria Legrand's voice has all the character of someone great like Nico but her voice is actually vaster and more beautifully skilled. It's better than Nico – and I'm not knocking Nico. Alex Scally's guitar is a subtle, refined style that I'm going to compare to Joey Santiago and the Pixies or John Fahey. It's where someone takes a not necessarily very complex finger picking pattern but has such an interesting melodic approach that what they hold back becomes so powerful. It's minimal but there is so much information in it. The ideas on this record are so crystalized. They're both so smart and so talented yet laid back, that they let you feel like it's a laid back relaxed and chill concise statement but there's actually so much intellect and nuance in the performance that it's flawless. The opening song 'Zebra' is one of the best songs I've ever heard. It's on another level. I always wanted to hear Victoria sing 'A Whole New World' from my Aladdin film, I think she'd do it really well."

"This was a record I got in my youth; I was really, really young. My sister had previously turned me on to a lot of different music but this was the beginning of my own branching out. I was starting to get my own identity. I had gotten a few weird records of my own and one of them was KISS's Hotter Than Hell and this one came shortly afterwards. What a lot of people missed with Bowie was that he really knew how to jam on an acoustic. They were great pop rock songs but were mostly played on an acoustic. Of course he had a great lead guitar player in Mick Ronson and when you can mix that up with acoustic playing, then you've got something really cool. I have learned some of his songs and it may not be that the chord progressions are unusual, as some people say, but it's the exotic chord choices that make the music weird. Some of those chords always make me think of a dog when he turns his head sideways and looks at you as if to say, ""Are you going to eat that?"

"Royal Trux are a band I maybe got into four or five years ago. I think me liking them has a lot to do with just how good a guitar player Neil Hagerty is, but I like Royal Trux a lot more than any of the other bands he was in. It's just that feeling of when you're making music with the right person, a whole genre might evolve from it. They are completely unique and I think that he couldn't have done it without Jennifer Herrema - it could have only have ever been the two of them. That's what's so great about so many records I like... they often have a partnership of two people and their music couldn't have happened any other way. I feel The Horrors are like that a bit because we've seen so many bands come and go in the ten years since we've been a band. It feels like such a lottery whether a band stays together or not. But, on the other side of that, for us it feels like we could never actually break up. I guess that's an odd thing to say. That's about as optimistic as I get, probably."

"I remember seeing Kurt Cobain wearing a Daniel Johnston t-shirt when I was young and it looking so weird that I wanted to know what it was, but I only really got into him in 2007 when Gallows were playing in Austin, Texas, where they've got the big mural to him at SXSW. I saw the record in the store next door and fell in love with it. It was very pure; there was nothing to it, just great, genius songwriting that's full of emotion. Then I watched the documentary, The Devil And Daniel Johnston, and became a fan for life. The man is fairly tortured, but always undeniably himself. I just love musicians who are themselves, there's so much to be said for that. 'Outsider Music' is a tough term because it implies he's not welcome here, but those types of characters are beacons, they're the people that other musicians to go out and do what they to do. It's musicians like Daniel Johnston that inspire the Kurt Cobains of the world, who then inspire a generation of people to pick up a guitar. I think it's insider music."

"I spent the summer of 2002 in Los Angeles, interning for my uncle’s company. I rented a one-bedroom apartment with no furniture. Other than my inflatable mattress in the corner (which sprang a leak right away), it was just a big empty space. I had a suitcase, a guitar, and a laptop with me. I had no television and a superslow Internet connection, so watching DVDs on my laptop was my only source of entertainment. I happened to rent both of these films that summer, and they are still two of my favorites. The sloppiness and raw energy of The Harder They Come was so inspiring. Two-Lane Blacktop also had a great energy about it, but in a more deliberate, quiet way. Both films were convincing arguments for casting musicians as leads, regardless of their acting experience, which I have done several times and plan to continue doing. Most importantly, the films couldn’t be shaken. They crept into me and wouldn’t go away. My initial reaction to something is far less important to me than my feeling about it a month or a year later. These two are still with me."

"I spent the summer of 2002 in Los Angeles, interning for my uncle’s company. I rented a one-bedroom apartment with no furniture. Other than my inflatable mattress in the corner (which sprang a leak right away), it was just a big empty space. I had a suitcase, a guitar, and a laptop with me. I had no television and a superslow Internet connection, so watching DVDs on my laptop was my only source of entertainment. I happened to rent both of these films that summer, and they are still two of my favorites. The sloppiness and raw energy of The Harder They Come was so inspiring. Two-Lane Blacktop also had a great energy about it, but in a more deliberate, quiet way. Both films were convincing arguments for casting musicians as leads, regardless of their acting experience, which I have done several times and plan to continue doing. Most importantly, the films couldn’t be shaken. They crept into me and wouldn’t go away. My initial reaction to something is far less important to me than my feeling about it a month or a year later. These two are still with me."

"The other thing I should mention is that I had these two books called the Rough Guide to World Music, which are two giant volumes. I was obsessed with those for a long time. At the time, you had to go and buy a load of CDs, you couldn't just go on Spotify and check it out. It was a bit of an investment. A lot of those countries have got these dudes who, in the 50s, suddenly heard James Brown, or something, and went: shit, what we're doing sounds really old fashioned. We need horns, and Hammond organs, and guitars. It happened all over Africa. There's not an awful lot to say about this song apart from that it really blends a lot of worlds for me. It blends the guitar, with the world music thing, and with the saxophone as well and that's why I think I love that song so much. It's only that one song, I can't find anything else by that guy. Whenever you play that track it's always going to pick everyone up. It's got such an incredible energy."