"I think that when this came out I put it in my car and didn’t take it off for six months. Honestly I think this record, at least for me, was one of the influences on us making that first Garbage record. I loved how they reinvented themselves; how they started flirting with electronics and fuzz and beeps and industrial noise yet made these amazing songs. They stirred it all up, threw it against the wall and spat it all out. They redefined themselves and it resulted in what I think is their finest work. At the time I think a lot of people couldn't quite get their head around it and then they went out and did that massive Zoo TV tour, which was quite a sensory experience. You could see that the band were almost making fun of themselves: there's almost a self-deprecation in there, telling us how they were approaching themselves. There's some gritty humour in the songs, I think. We (Garbage) were thrilled to be asked last year to a do a cover of 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses' as all of us absolute love that record. When we tried sounding like U2 it didn't work. We needed it to sound like Garbage so, much like U2, we had to sort of reinvent ourselves and take a different slant on it to give it something that we felt comfortable with, which ended up being a whole heap of fun to do! We stripped the verses down and we're all pretty pleased as to how it turned out as we were honoured to have been asked to have been involved. Bono sent us a note and it was lovely; I can't remember exactly what he said but it was something about the way Shirley sang the verses and the bridge making him feel like a peeping Tom. He obviously listened to the track and he got where we were going with it. It was an awesome note."

"We used to do loads of gigs in Western Europe during the punk days because nobody really wanted us in London. But we were getting invites to go to Belgium and West Germany and Berlin. We went on the Trans Europe Express to go to Berlin once and this was the perfect record to listen to doing that. The way they sing and the whole Man Machine idea – they totally pulled it off. They were so ahead of the game. And when you listen to very early Human League – 'Being Boiled' and all that – you can hear the influence it had on them. I was never really interested in that synth sound for the Ants. I was more into their graphics. I used to design handbills and A4s and there was a couple of robotic themes on that. Musically that was being catered for by the Human League, who I thought were great right at the start. It was the mystery that surrounded Kraftwerk that I was into. We were in Dusseldorf once and we went looking for the Kling Klang studio, but we couldn't find it. Apparently it was just an office anyway. I loved that phonetically pronounced European vocal. It was almost like he read it off of one of those machines that tell you how to pronounce things. But it always had a really human feel. I think people often overlook their sense of humour. When we were in Australia in '81, they were touring too. And we were stood outside our hotel and they were all there – I seem to remember they were wearing white coats and they were all going cycling together. There was a real personality behind them. Kraftwerk were trying to break away from that whole post-war vibe in Germany and Dusseldorf was quite a modern city. Visiting the places where the music came from has made the records even more precious to me because it reminds me of the time."

"There’s something very quirky about the two records Brian Eno made just after he left Roxy Music. They feel naturally 'him’, in a way, like he didn’t really think about it too much. He did it very quickly, in a sort of 'of-the-time’ kind of way, and those records really brought out his character more than any other music he’s done over the years, even including his ambient stuff – I think he thinks about all that ambient stuff too much, in a way. The earlier records feel like they were done with humour and fun. Obviously there’s a big cash incentive if you’re asked to produce Coldplay or U2, they’re difficult things to turn down if you’re any producer. But I think it’s been debilitating for him, he should just be more experimental. [But] I do hear a lot of good stories about his approach and the way he coaxes the best out of people as a producer. There was a bit of a connection between him and Depeche Mode – he did some remixes for 'I Feel You', which were called the Swamp mixes, and they’re typical Eno. They sound exactly like the kind of thing you’d expect him to do, and I loved them. And I thought they were great. There was a connection because Flood had worked with on the U2 records, and they’d hired a house and built a studio there, and all lived together to make a record. I said 'That’s a great idea, let’s do the same thing’. And it was a total disaster. We lived together and recorded together, and of course, it was one of the most uncreative recording sessions… actually, it wasn’t really – it was one of the most difficult recording sessions we’ve ever had. We were all living in this house and nothing was getting done, and yet, when I look back and see what we produced over a very long period of ten weeks, we recorded three of the best Mode tracks ever."