"This is another record that I think Chris Bear might have found when we were twenty-one, twenty-two maybe, right before the band became Grizzly Bear. It’s a seven-minute, classic metal song with an almost Bowie-esque vocal delivery, it’s raging guitar music basically and I still love that kind of stuff. I had a deep metal phase as a kid, I loved Metallica and that kind of thing, but this is more in the Black Sabbath realm of heavy. “I’ve got a really strong memory of listening to this with Chris Bear and Chris Taylor. We had this phase between nineteen and twenty-two where we kept trying to be a band but it never really worked out. It didn’t happen until they’d started Grizzly Bear, I was the last guy to join, but when we were bonding over music around then it started to make sense we’d play together eventually. “We loved this song, it’s so classically heavy and cool and maybe it’s that, learning to appreciate music for what it is and not thinking about what it means, or if it’s moving you. It’s not cheesy or over the top, there’s a subtlety to it, it’s tasteful without trying or overthinking it. “We saw Danava play a few times in tiny clubs and they were incredible We saw lots of super-heavy music between 2004 and 2006 and being around New York was amazing for that, even Animal Collective were like that then, you’d see these crazy, heavy shows that were super-energetic and vibrant. “There’s not much documentation about this, but on our first couple of tours there was more of a heavier energy, musically it was much more improvised, frenetic and busy, closer to jazz. Our early live incarnation was somewhere between this and Elvin Jones, trying to channel this heavy energy. “It’s another one of those touchstones we talked about a lot when we were younger, not that it really made its way into our music very much, we never really made full on metal, but there’s occasional moments where that energy creeps in."

"The ones that define metal to me? It all goes back to Motorhead and No Sleep Till Hammersmith. That was the epitome of balls-out, letting-it-go rifforama. But when it comes to classic heavy metal, Judas Priest’s Sad Wings Of Destiny is definitely one of the all-time great opuses. Hearing Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing’s unison guitar playing and hearing Rob Halford let rip… who sings like that? Nobody. I was so entranced by that band and everything about them, that I went to a hat store and bought a Fedora because Glenn Tipton was wearing one on the back of Sad Wings… I have curly hair so hats don’t stay on so well. It didn’t last very long (laughs)"

"I read this alarmist right-wing book about cults in my school library, and at the time I was like, “Cults – this is amazing!” There was a section on satanic cults. They had a whole chapter about Venom and their Black Metal LP. It quoted the lyrics to “Sacrifice” about drinking a chalice of blood – and I remember thinking ‘this is so stupid and crazy’: I had to buy the album. It wasn’t as heavy and scary as I thought it would be."

"Motörhead on the other hand are very much included in that heavy metal thing. My tribute to Lemmy would be that he was genuine, through and through. He never posed behind any manner of falsehood. He was exactly what he stood for: a rock & roller through and through. 

I once heard it said that he caught one of his sons, he caught his youngster extolling the virtues of speed. And Lemmy said: ""Naw, don't get too much behind speed. What you want is weed!”"

"One of the most thrilling cinematic experiences I’ve had in a long while. Yes, Nic Cage is great. But it’s Andrea Riseborough’s unforgettable Mandy who holds this film together — her wisdom, her undeniable power, her freaky witch-wavelength — all of these qualities are potent in their presence and doubly so in their absence. For me, this is a film about all the hell that breaks loose when we continue to desecrate a woman. Plain and simple, it’s not pretty when we pull down The Goddess. Heavy metal feminism at its most unsparing."

"Don’t shoot! I know this picture is corny and sexist but nobody loves the whole “She-warrior in an iron bikini riding a snow leopard over her smited bloody fallen foes” more than me. You need to understand what a true cheese dealer I am. Heavy Metal is nothing if not living, breathing boogie van art. And what’s wrong with that? John Candy as Den of Earth?! Oh Canada! It came out when I was very young and I watched it a million times. It made me look at animation a whole other way and it had Black Sabbath in it! Dio AND Black Sabbath! So Rad!"