"This was a life changing experience for me. I went to one year of college at a small college in Minnesota, and during that year I befriended an older student named Tim Streeter who I hung out with a lot. He played Tom Waits for me and handed me On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Since I’m from this small farming community, I wasn’t exposed to a lot of unusual art. I had seen The Seventh Seal when I was a kid on PBS. One night [Tim Streeter] said “There’s a movie playing at the student union and you should go.” It was Harold and Maude, and I was amazed by it. There’s no dialogue for the beginning of the film, and it begins with Harold killing himself. His mother berates him for it. Bud Cort’s performance is so great, that this is when I began to become a Hal Ashby fan. I could name his films as all of my Five Favorites if I wanted. Being There is certainly near the top. I chose this one because it was so formative for me. Ruth Gordon, when she tells Harold to go out and love and have experience and give him something to talk about in the locker room, it’s such a great thing, such a beautiful moment. When Ruth Gordon throws the ring or piece of jewelry that Harold’s given to her, and she said, “Now I’ll always know where it is,” I think it’s in that scene where the camera catches a concentration camp number on her wrist that’s never mentioned or talked about. It gives me chills because it’s so affecting and subtle."

"Along with Sufjan, I think Regina Spektor is the other genius of this generation. I could have picked a number of Regina's records. Soviet Kitsch is the crossover, when she became accessible to a larger audience. Her first two records are records that only if you are slightly bipolar and, like me, a fantasist in music, are going to love. Soviet Kitsch found the language that was going to meet that wider audience. The songs are crazy masterpieces. They straddle a line between pop – there are catchy choruses – and craziness. 'Us' is one of my favourite songs ever written and will be played at my funeral. I got into Regina because I had bumped into her producer [Gordon Raphael], who was also the producer for The Strokes, at a festival. He has just finished working with her and he raved about this crazy woman who would play piano while hitting a drumstick against a drum stool. I had to go and check her out after that. Soviet Kitsch is astonishing, as are the ones that follow. I saw her play at The Greek in LA and realised I was watching genius. I couldn't write a song for three months after seeing her show, as I was so in awe at what I had witnessed. I have never had that experience happen before. I went back and bought every single piece of her music and for three months listened to her day and night, trying to work out what the fuck she was doing. I still haven't worked it out. I think she is channelling – she is a witch and she is channelling and that is all there is to it. I fell in love with her and was lucky enough to meet her. I was even luckier to become friends with her and her husband, and it has been amazing to have her as a genuine friend. Her husband, Jack [Dishel], made this fabulous YouTube video [:DRYVRS] with Macaulay Culkin and it became a viral sensation. Jack is fantastically talented and a natural-born stand-up comedian. He will have you belly-laughing whenever you talk to him with his honesty and gawkiness. I haven't told many people that I have become friends with both of them, and I am a little shy about telling you that."