"Just for sh–s and giggles, I want to pick a recent one, but you just never know until years go by whether movies stand up. You love them at first, and you love them the first five times, but 10 years down the line, will you still not be able to switch the channel if this film comes on? I don’t know, but I’m going to pick one, my favorite film of last year. I’m going to say La La Land. I recently worked with Adam Siegel, who was one of the producers. I worked with him on a film called Hotel Artemis, and we have had this conversation, and he asked me what I loved about it. This was the first time I really pinpointed it. I didn’t go when it first came out, because I just didn’t have any interest — musical, just not my thing, I just don’t. So I didn’t really want to go see it. Then it was re-released after the Golden Globes, and I was like, “I’ve got to go see what the hype is all about.” I went and saw it, and I sat in the theater by myself, thinking, “This is the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.” What it was, was that it made me feel like Hollywood was romantic again. I don’t feel that when I go out there. What I feel like now is that it’s a town full of people who want to be on reality shows. It made me feel like old Hollywood. It just made me feel romantic, like this is what I love about films. There was just something very romantic about that film, and just I love it. Then the music is incredible. What I really, really love about it is it’s just completely unpredictable, because up until the very end of that film, I had no idea how it was going to end, and I love that. That is so hard to do nowadays, just to keep people guessing right up to the last two minutes of the film. Like, it’s almost impossible. They did it, and not only did it, but in a magical, exciting way. I just love that movie. And some of the shots, I mean, just technically, some of the shots were amazing. Like, I still don’t know how the hell they did that shot in the pool. When I saw it, I couldn’t believe it, and I just thought and thought and thought, and was trying to figure out how the hell they shot that."

"This era of the Velvet Underground is possibly, along with Ray Davies, my favourite kind of singing. It’s sort of weedy and again without testosterone and certainly without force, it was just very, very hip and not trying too hard. It’s interesting, because did a band ever sound as hip, not trying, but still delivering? “Velvet Underground were a real staple of my generation, in that a bunch of kids in the mid-70s’ discovered them retrospectively, probably in a way that I’d imagine kids now discover The Smiths. They sounded genuinely subversive without being obscure, they were real, proper songs and there was a great poetry in there. “Often when you talk about songs to people, most people assume you’re talking about the words - to a lot of people that’s what a song is. But because I got so obsessed so young with the mechanics of the music, the production and how things came together, often I wasn’t really too bothered if the words didn’t make much sense. I’ve had amazing experiences with songs that had words that absolutely didn’t make any sense, like ‘Jeepster’. “‘Foggy Notion’ is a really good example of a song that’s just really rocking - the guitar is really hyped up and swings like crazy - that makes you feel really good and absolutely doesn’t need any serious lyrical content. In fact, sometimes - and I suspect it’s the case with ‘Foggy Notion’ because I know it so well - if the lyrics were snagging your attention too much it would distract from what it’s supposed to do. You’ve got to remember it was for young people in the 60s’ to Frug to, doing these dance moves in cool striped-shirts and cool shades and ‘Foggy Notion’ is all about that and the sound of the voice. I think that’s a great thing and something people who think songs are entirely about meaning and words aren’t aware of. “It’s an interesting thing with The Velvet Underground, because if you imagine The Rolling Stones back then, who were supposedly the baddest of the bad boys and The Beatles who were supposed to be the hippest and most worldly, I wonder what they made of The Velvets at the time or if they’d heard them. I know Dylan was aware of them, but writing songs like ‘Heroin’ and ‘The Black Angel's Death Song’, I wonder if you were in The Beatles or The Stones you were just going ‘Oh no, we’re so X-Factor.’"

"He’s one of those people, once you get into it, it’s very hard to listen to anything else for a while. I used to hear the name, and people would recommend him but once I got into him it was like finding a treasure trove with all these amazing albums. Retriever’s probably my favourite, his lyrics are so conversational, they reflect everyday life, the difficulty of navigating it, so perfectly. We met a few years ago, he’s real hero of mine but I think he’s quite used to lots of people, way more successful and lauded than I will ever be, people like Macca, Chris Martin, Elvis Costello, coming up and praising him. He is a bit of an artists’ artist in a way. So I got the sense that he thought, “Oh great, another person in a band that likes me but why doesn’t the public-at-large like me!”. I just don’t understand it, myself. Maybe this is the problem, he’s got a straight, almost pub rock sound to what he does, maybe that puts people off, but it’s much more layered and intricate. That, for me, is often the mark of a great songwriter where you’re lulled into thinking the songs are simple or superficial but when you really listen to them, you realise it’s articulating something way more profound. in fact that reminds me, when I finally got into him, it’s because I went to Glastonbury five or six years ago as a punter. I’d had a really shit time, it was a bit of a complicated time in my life, I kept having to go to the American embassy to do all these blood tests and piss tests to try and get into America, because things had got out in the press that I’d had a few issues with alcohol and drugs and the American embassy had said, “You’re not coming in”. I remember feeling so fucking miserable and then I turned up at Glastonbury and I just walked into this tent and he played a song called 'All In Good Time', it’s all about how what you consider to be a big deal is insignificant when you look back at it with hindsight. I heard this song for the first time and it was so resonant and potent in that specific moment, it was like, “Wow, this is exactly where I’m at”. It was like he was telling me, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be alright!”."

"This one is down to my best friend, my dearest friend from when I was three years old – we met at nursery school and we grew up together. We grew through our teens and went through puberty together, starting to experiment with alcohol and cigarettes and boys. She had very lenient parents whereas my parents were really old-school and sort of conventional; she had a very unconventional family life. She and I used to be able to just do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, up in her attic bedroom. 

 Because I'd been caught smoking by my parents, I didn't have any pocket money but my best friend Sarah did. She was able to buy records that I couldn't get my hands on – she bought The Scream – I'm not entirely sure why she bought The Scream, but she played it in her bedroom and I can still remember her putting the needle on the vinyl and just that record beginning, starting: I was mesmerised. I just was like, 'What the fuck is this? And who is this? And what is it?' 

 We just became quickly obsessed. We finally saw them on Top Of The Pops and I just fell madly and obsessively in love with Siouxsie and the whole band for that matter: I just loved how they looked like nothing I'd ever laid eyes on before.
 
 Up until that point I'd only been exposed to very conforming women in music. I'd never seen someone who identified as a female but looked somewhat androgynous and referenced Native American Indian culture, which excited me for whatever reason. She had this incredible, strange style that seemed very confrontational and rebellious. She just excited me visually and musically. 

 I've been obsessed with her ever since and my love for her has never waned at all. She's another artist who's never, ever let me down. I still go back to those records over and over again because there's a certain power in Siouxsie's delivery that's very hard to find amongst most female-identifying artists. She still sounds unique, and she still sounds like she can wipe the floor with any of us.
 
 I was starting to experiment with what my version of what adulthood meant and I think I was 13 or 14; I became obsessed with 'Suburban Relapse' and 'Nicotine'. 'Suburban Relapse' had such a strong narrative: I just could see everything in detail through her lyrics. She was very erudite and I was just so mesmerised by her."