"I’m a huge Nicole Holofcener fan. I love the details of what she explores in relationships between friends. I think money is still a fairly taboo subject, maybe the only one left, and so I thought it was such an incredible way to explore friendships and marriages and lives intertwined between families and people with different levels of money. I was just so enchanted by that movie when I saw it. And every time I’ve seen it since, I find myself relating to a different character and having a different feeling when I watch a marital argument or something. It always opens up something new. I see something different in it every time. I think she just is one of the great storytellers when it comes to just human stories and our relationships."

"The Sweet Smell of Success is, I think, one of the best — certainly one of the greatest New York films, for me — ever made. Alexander Mackendrick, great director. Unbelievable script. James Wong Howe, unbelievable camerawork. And Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster — to see those two going at it, and really, you know, the tragedy of corruption and how it infiltrates every aspect of peoples’ lives. There was something so deeply dark and cynical about it. But yeah, there’s this sort of tiny little germ of hope at the end of the film, as Susan walks off with the musician boyfriend that Hunsecker has tried to destroy, and you just feel like, you know, absolute power corrupts but not totally. Still, it has a vicious sting to it, that film. It really affected me."

"I remember seeing it at the time and thinking it was fantastically irritating. It was the post punk period and I didn't really like that woozy American liberal culture of the time. Then I re-watched it a few years later and really enjoyed it. It's so amoral and horrible and of course there's the kind of post Vietnam thing of all the people who are against the ROTC and the militaristic guys. The end scene where they totally fuck up the parade is just amazing. It's very entertaining and now it looks really great. That American liberalism looks like an endangered species these days. Something like Animal House or Smokey and the Bandit couldn't be made now – smoking joints and breaking the law – America's gone a lot more right wing since then."

"It’s one of the most perfectly produced albums ever. The songs are great. It’s definitely Lou Reed at his best. I listened to it thousands of times when I was growing up. It was the must have record when I was at college. Everybody that got into punk had it in their collection at some point. It was a celebration of New York City – a writer writing about their hometown. It was quite a dangerous record. Visually he looked OK, but the music was far more subtle than all the glam stuff that was really in your face, like T-Rex and early Bowie. I was also a big Andy Warhol fan. I’d listened to the Velvets a lot, but it was quite a jump from that to the quality of this record."

"This is another song that we started listening to early on in the studio, we wanted to create a universe similar to 'Hanky Panky Know How'. It's a beautiful song, it's another one where the production is like Death of a Ladies' Man. The chorus is so strange, what does that mean, you know? But somehow he still finds a way to make it beautiful and for whatever reason, that influenced us. “There's also something about the way he delivers it. When he sings it, you feel something - ‘Oh, that's so good! but what's he saying?’ And then you look it up, ‘Hanky Panky Know How’ and you have no idea what it means! Sometimes it’s just about the way things sound and feel. You can say anything as long as it feels good."

"Eurythmics were another band that I was introduced to through MTV. I think that's how I got into synth-pop music. Annie Lennox has an amazing voice but also the instruments that they use, the way it was produced was so cool and different and tough. As a kid I loved 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)' because it was the big hit, but later in my life when I went back to the record I listened to 'Love Is A Stranger' as if I'd never heard it before. It's just so amazing that I couldn't believe I didn't remember it from when I was younger. Among the DFA family it's a universally loved song. We all try to emulate it, some aspect of it, in some way in different things that we do."

"This could possibly be my favourite ever album. I first heard it through Adrian's dad, who's a massive music…I was going to say "freak", but let's say "fan" [laughs]. He's one of those people whose passion for music is relentless. This reminds me of the early days of the band being together, and we all fell in love with it together. And what I love most about it is that every time I go back to it, it's like I haven't finished with it. It's so layered in its music and its storytelling – there's so much going on. I feel like I'm going on a different adventure every time I listen to it. It's like this ever-changing kaleidoscope of colours to get lost in. That's a perfect record to me.
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"Number one is The Godfather. The Godfather, for me, is because it represented family. Even though this family was on the opposite side of the law, and they were criminals at the end of the day, they were family, struggling, an immigrant family in America trying to find their ground. One of the most compelling scenes to me in The Godfather — it happens in Godfather II, actually — is when Vito Corleone is young, and he comes home to his wife, and all he has is an apple. He rubs it, polishes it, and puts it on the table, and they appreciated it. You know, that is very powerful to me. Those films resonated with me throughout the rest of my life because of the family values they instilled."