"This is such a glorious and beautiful album. There are not many albums that make me want to cry but I think this is stunningly beautiful and raw and emotive and it contains some of the best and favourite Neil Young lyrics. You know: 'I need a crowd of people/ But I can't face them day to day' - I feel that. I'm interpreting that in a certain way but I'm with him on that. There are so many times that you listen to stuff that you really feel. It feels so real; more than real even. It's a beautiful album. 'Revolution Blues' has got everything; it's got a great sounding band working really well and nailing it and it's got an energy. Nothing's too internal either. I was talking to someone earlier about the lyrics to Matador and I know that there are some really personal lyrics on there but they still have to have a hook; they can't be too internal. I can't internalise too much or else I close myself off to whoever is listening. I don't want to push anyone away by being so morose or depressing. But Neil Young does it so well. Lyrically he's a great inspiration to me. They sometimes feel like throwaway lyrics or he has quite simple couplets that feel very day-to-day, but then equally he can be a lot more abstract and using metaphors as well. I've looked at that quite a lot in terms of creating that balance of metaphors and real day-to-day life. But why not have some anger in there? I hear that a lot in 'Revolution Blues' where he talks about 'killing stars in their cars' and that's great. It's angry; it's like the first line of 'To The Wire'. The first line of the song is, 'I want to cut myself' but the second line is: 'I want to cut myself down.' You know, it's where I want to cut myself free of all the pressures. I remember when I played it to people and they were like, 'Gaz! What was that?' and I was like, 'No, no, no, it's part of a couplet. The pay-off is line two.' You know, I'm not into self-harm or anything but I like the fact that some days I might feel like I'm really completely fucked and that I might hate myself and do some damage but I won't. I question it. And like I say, Neil Young does that really well."

"I love her words, I love her guitar playing and the tunings, and it’s just constant inspiration for me, especially in that very, very personal ‘writing about your own life as subject matter’ stuff. She’s the queen of it in a way. I’ve been talking a lot about that first record that some people call Song To A Seagull and the songs are beautiful on it, but it’s also got this great over-riding concept, there’s a side about the country and a side about the city. You could say Joni is this folk singer but at the beginning she had this whole conceptual side and her early records are very conceptual. Ladies of the Canyon I’ve just started listening to again recently. I feel like besides Blue it’s just one of those ones that’s so classic and overheard you just stop listening to it because you’ve heard it so many times. I listened to it again and realised it’s also this concept album about this place she lived at the time and it’s got all these great, heavy songs on it including ‘Circle Game’ and ‘Woodstock’ and its an amazing record. It defines this Topanga Canyon era as much as Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush does – it was one of those places in time like Athens, Georgia when REM was starting or Seattle when Mudhoney and Nirvana were coming up, it was a really special place with a really tight knit musical community and a lot of people sharing ideas and songs and lovers, whatever it was, and I think that record really defines it in such an amazing way. I’m kind of obsessed with this song on that record called ‘Conversation’ which is about a secret love affair. The way she tells her stories are so amazing, and on that record the guitar playing is exquisite and the way she uses these women’s’ choruses behind her sounds almost like it could be off a Meredith Monk record or something like that, so I’m always bouncing around her early records. Everybody always picks Blue as the classic and I fucking love that record so much, but I really love all of those early records, up through Court & Spark she could do no wrong. You could almost pick any one of them, and I felt like I’d been neglecting Ladies of the Canyon recently so it’s been on a lot in the last week or so. Every time I hear it I feel like it tells me new things about my life as well."