"I will give Last Cab In California honorable mention, but I will stick with Deee-Lite, World Clique. Again, I am all about production. I just like listening to beats and cool sounds. They didn’t sound like anything at the time. I know everybody knows ‘Groove is in the Heart’ but that’s like the fifth best song on that album. They even had the look. They were funky, ‘70s, but hip-hop at the same time. One dude was Asian with goggles on and she had this soul voice and they had heavy piano. I always liked it. That’s just another album that’s upbeat. Maybe not the most masculine one, but whatever, man. I don’t care. I just picture ‘90s black chicks in biker shorts on the grind with Eric B. breaking down to those songs."

"Well that was a big influence for their take on Americana, and I just like the juxtaposition of their extreme Britishness and singing about Oklahoma. And it's funny, Ian Svenonius has this whole thing about how Americans only accepted black music once it was taught to us by our British overlords. The Beatles and The Stones lacked the context to realise that maybe it's inappropriate to take on this Southern accent. I feel like Ray Davies has a little more tact, like, "No, I'm not going to sing like that!" A lot of the time I will sing in a kind of an English accent - not total English, but definitely more English than country, because my context is growing up and listening to The Beatles and thinking I like the way John Lennon sings it. It's easier not to sing a hard "r", it always sounds country when you sing an "arr". I would never do a Jamaican accent. I'll leave that to Sting. Once again, see we forgive Sting, 'cause he doesn't have the context."

"I like it because it's a time for me in the '90s, listening to that record. And he took four years off between that and Voodoo, and then years between that and the latest record [Black Messiah], which I think is amazing by the way. I'm such a lover of '90s R&B, and what I think was cool with the neo-soul thing of Lauryn Hill, him and Angie Stone. To hear the intro of 'Brown Sugar' on like MTV or something, and oh my god, just seriously cool. All this great music from that period. He's been a real influence on me actually. That whole time, in fact, but I think I'd choose him as the example from then."

"This reminds me of childhood. It was a US release that took songs from their debut, Three Imaginary Boys, along with singles from the time. I could often hear it coming through the walls of my brother’s room. And that definitely had a big effect on how I remember that period. I don’t know what it was in particular that grabbed my attention; there was just something really enticing and compelling about it. We each had little hi-fi systems in our rooms and when he went out I’d just sort of nick or borrow it, take it into my room along with other stuff like The Smiths and Siouxsie & The Banshees."