"Now I just said I don’t like slasher movies, but this is the exception to that rule — because it’s the exception to horror movies. The Rob Zombie remake of Halloween — that thing is f**king genius. It’s like he violates every rule of horror movie making and makes it work. Most horror movies are atmospheric, they’re really dark or they’re at night and they’re creepy; his is taking place in bright noon sunshine daylight, out in the yard. And the way he goes into the story of the Michael Myers character, you know, the reason why he’s making all these masks. That is a great movie. I guess I also like it because of the outside scenes. You know, when they show people walking down the sidewalk or something — it feels like Autumn. You see leaves skitter across the sidewalk as the wind blows ’em, and you feel Halloween when you’re watching ’em. I remember the first time I saw that was when we were in prison. They’ll show movies on holidays just to take the tension out of the air a little bit — and that was the movie we got to see on Christmas. On Christmas they showed us Halloween. And when it was over — it was Christmas night, about 9 o’clock — as soon as it went off I went into such a deep state of mourning, because it was like my favorite time of year was gone. From the Equinox to Christmas morning, that is like the richest, most velvety, delicious time of year. People always ask me, you know, they would say, “How would you describe heaven — in this perfect atmosphere where everything is exactly how you wanted it, how would it be?” And I say, “It would always be December.” So I realized that time of year was over, it was gone, and I was going to have to wait all the way around the will of the year to get back to Autumn and Halloween again. And seeing it in that movie, I just sat down and started crying when it was over, because I realized I was gonna have to make it through another long, hot, brutal summer, you know — prison guards torturing you, there’s nothing to look forward to. It was a horrible feeling. It feels like there’s a hole in you or something. But I can watch that movie now, and automatically feel that time of year again."

"The thing about that record is that it had an honesty that rock & roll had been missing. The 80s were a terrible time when guitars didn't sound like guitars and there were drum machines, but then all of a sudden here comes this group, Guns N' Roses who plug in their guitars and just didn't mess around with any fancy stuff. And the songs were undeniable! 'Welcome To The Jungle' is an undeniable song in the same way that 'Satisfaction' has that great riff with the lyrics on top of it. Great lyrics, great imagery, and as soon as you heard that high-pitched voice that harkened back to a Robert Plant-ish approach to singing, which hadn't been heard in quite a while… Well, it still works today. That's got to be coming up to 30 years old, but you put that on today if it was a brand new band, I would say, 'Who's that?' That intro is almost symphonic, and it just defined the band. You hear that song, and then the rest of the album follows through. 'Welcome To The Jungle' is head, hands and feet above the other material. Bands have a few songs that just stand up, you know? You think Thin Lizzy, you think 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. You think the Stones, you think 'Satisfaction'. You think Led Zeppelin, you think 'Stairway To Heaven'. There are just certain songs that, either because of the melody or lyric or the sound of the song, intrinsically say, ""This is what that is"". The only band who doesn't have that thing, just because they have so many god damn good songs, is The Beatles. I don't know if [us influencing them] is the case. We never paid attention to anything. There can be scenes or not and people can be influenced or not, but at the end of the day you are left to your own devices. When you think about it, The Beatles were influenced by Motown, The Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, etc. but then when you hear The Beatles, it's their own stuff. It's like cooks. Everybody uses salt, everybody uses vegetables, there is nothing unique, but how you mix up those elements makes it yours or not. If you can grab a style, I think it has to do with talent. Everybody cooks, but few people are cooks."

"I heard 'Novocaine For The Soul' on the radio and bought the album the very next day. And with their second record, I got it expecting more of the same. This was pre-internet, so there wasn't a lot of information about it, but it would appear that he lost his sister and mum, and so he wrote this record about being in hospital and watching people die. It was extremely sad, and for a teenager it was like, ""Holy shit! What is this?!"" Kids are always intrigued by sob stories of one kind or another - Nirvana being a perfect example - but this guy had clearly been through a lot. He writes very short and simple yet very affecting songs, not produced in a twee way, but very cold and using lots of samples. They didn't really sound like a band at all. Again, they were a three-piece, and a very simple band. He had a really cool voice and a story to tell, and that again really made me think about the fact that the band doesn't have to be that thing which I always thought they were: that you played your drums and you play your bass, when actually it can be anything you want. That really influenced the way I write music. I used a lot more technology after I got into that album. I started to integrate my live sounds - my guitar for example - with my laptop, and I started using a lot more sampling, thinking I want to be a lot more like Eels. I think an element of his very black humour has crept into my music. You always get the sense that he is talking about something very grave, but he does so in a slightly distracting way. Take 'Susan's House': it's got this ridiculous, quite clearly silly motif, which sounds like Neighbours - he knows it does! He's talking about his problems at Susan's house as he's walking past all these awful things in the street, like a kid who has been shot and a pregnant teenager, but it's couched in this happy, jaunty, slightly sarcastic world, and that is precisely where I'm at in my own music. Like the song 'Get To Heaven' is all about the same thing, walking past horrors but with a smile on your face, whistling a jaunty tune. I think a lot of influence came from Mr Everett, because of his outlook on life, where you can be in a very dark position but music doesn't have to abide by those rules, it can subvert it."

"Sgt Pepper’s was my childhood Beatles record. Again, it’s moving, but in quite an abstract way, just describing what she’s leaving behind. You don’t ever hear where she’s gone or why, but you get these little hints: she’s leaving home after living alone and yet her Mum and Dad are there. It’s all done with McCartney’s jovial style but it’s got this sadness in it, which I think he’s really good at - he’s done it lots of times, with ‘Eleanor Rigby’ being the absolute epitome of it. “But that whole album made an impact on me as a kid. It’s a kind of dark, sickly-feeling album to me. It’s not very comfortable, it’s trippy and weird. You don’t really know where you are with it, it’s colourful, but in a ghoulish way. It’s a scary record for a child, because it’s just so weird. And ‘She’s Leaving Home’ holds you a bit closer than the other songs I think, even though it’s about someone leaving home. I also like the musical elements - the melody and the structure of it. “The Beatles have been an ongoing influence in my life and I think if you like them as a child you’re always going to like them. But the great thing about The Beatles is the breadth and the evolution of their records, if you’re not feeling ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ anymore, you can dip in at different points and find different sides to them. ""There’s so many things they touched on. ‘Helter Skelter’ is basically the whole of The Who’s output in one song; the post-rock elements of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, that’s a fucking genre now! And they just did it for a laugh and never did it again. There’s so many little flashes like that and more than anything it just makes me feel like it would have been so amazing to have been around in a time when nothing’s been done. “The other great thing about the Beatles was that they put stuff on those records specifically for children, tracks like ‘Octopus’s Garden’. I think that’s something that’s been completely lost now, because children are given adult themes in a friend way now, rather than saying, “Here’s something you might actually like, being a child. Don’t worry about the other stuff.” Although funnily enough, with Get To Heaven we got so many people telling us that their children really liked it. We were really pleased about that - maybe it’s the colourful nature of it. It’s definitely something I want to explore more."