"I remember hearing this when I was a little kid, I probably shouldn't have because it's lyrically so dirty. In the neighbourhood I grew up in every car would be driving by playing that record. Too Short is from Oakland California which is pretty close to where I grew up in the Bay Area. It was a local rap record in a way. I wanted to put a rap record in there because rap was such a huge influence on my youth. That is one that's probably less well known. It's very minimal, it must have been made on 808 and then there's the rapping. The way that he builds his vocals, he pretty much rapped the whole thing twice and then made it stereo, so it's got this kind of cool sound. I think he was one of the first people to do that. The lyrical content is really vulgar, but super fun to listen to. When I listen to rap today, well it's hard for me to say I'm a fan of rap music, the majority of it I don't like."

"That’s one of my favorites. That one is on my list, too. When I saw it, it just blew me away completely. I saw it when I was quite young, and I remember thinking, “My god, are these really actors? Could a movie be done this way?” It was something I’d never seen before, and it was so brutal and so real; just like watching a documentary. Those kinds of filmmakers and actors kind of opened up things in me that gave me hope and inspired me. I felt less lonely in a way, because I thought, “Okay, there’s people out there exploring things that I would like to do.” People who were not afraid of darkness; people who were not afraid of going into things that were not charming and easy and, you know, sweet and cute. That one made a very strong impression on me."

"This was the record that sold me on that band. When I lived in Sacramento California I lived right next door to this little club called the Press Club, and they were playing there. I was sitting on my porch and their van pulled up and I started talking to them. That was when they were touring that record, and it was my favourite record at that time. It's heavy, but it has a lot of groove to it - I don't know if there were too many groups who were doing that kind of riff rock, but it had all these discord sounds to it, and then two bass players, one of them using distortion the whole time and the other guy holding down the low end, the keyboard player playing vibes. It didn't sound like anything else at the time. They were from DC, where a lot of my favourite bands are from, like Fugazi, Minor Threat, these bands who started a lot of scenes in music. I never got too into political rock and roll, obviously great lyrics are great lyrics, but what grabs me is the cadence of the singer, how they choose to deliver the words. And that dude, he had this raspy voice, this distinct voice, to me it was more sex, he has this loungy kind of vibe. Lyrically he seemed to talk about partying, drugs, and girls."