"The thing about that record is that it had an honesty that rock & roll had been missing. The 80s were a terrible time when guitars didn't sound like guitars and there were drum machines, but then all of a sudden here comes this group, Guns N' Roses who plug in their guitars and just didn't mess around with any fancy stuff. And the songs were undeniable! 'Welcome To The Jungle' is an undeniable song in the same way that 'Satisfaction' has that great riff with the lyrics on top of it. Great lyrics, great imagery, and as soon as you heard that high-pitched voice that harkened back to a Robert Plant-ish approach to singing, which hadn't been heard in quite a while… Well, it still works today. That's got to be coming up to 30 years old, but you put that on today if it was a brand new band, I would say, 'Who's that?' That intro is almost symphonic, and it just defined the band. You hear that song, and then the rest of the album follows through. 'Welcome To The Jungle' is head, hands and feet above the other material. Bands have a few songs that just stand up, you know? You think Thin Lizzy, you think 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. You think the Stones, you think 'Satisfaction'. You think Led Zeppelin, you think 'Stairway To Heaven'. There are just certain songs that, either because of the melody or lyric or the sound of the song, intrinsically say, ""This is what that is"". The only band who doesn't have that thing, just because they have so many god damn good songs, is The Beatles. I don't know if [us influencing them] is the case. We never paid attention to anything. There can be scenes or not and people can be influenced or not, but at the end of the day you are left to your own devices. When you think about it, The Beatles were influenced by Motown, The Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, etc. but then when you hear The Beatles, it's their own stuff. It's like cooks. Everybody uses salt, everybody uses vegetables, there is nothing unique, but how you mix up those elements makes it yours or not. If you can grab a style, I think it has to do with talent. Everybody cooks, but few people are cooks."

"It’s difficult to pick a Woody Allen film. In terms of my favorite person who’s been in a film it would be Woody Allen, so therefore it feels that I’ve got to pick a Woody Allen film. I think he’s the best performer that’s ever been in films, in a way; certainly sound-era films. Just his voice is the best voice that has ever been recorded, I think. Even if he had just been a writer of comic prose, he would have been one of the best writers of comic prose. His best films have so much life to them, and they’re funny. I know he often has a low self-estimation of them publicly, but Crimes and Misdemeanors, in terms of his feeling that he hasn’t made a film as good as Rashōmon or Bicycle Thieves — I think it’s definitely a film that could be held up with those films, really. It’s just very brutal, but funny as well. Just everything: the music, that professor and how kind of depressing it is, but how many great lines it has. And such a good cast: everyone’s really suited to his style. Not every actor is suited to being in a Woody Allen film. Seems like Owen Wilson is really suited to it [in Midnight in Paris], from what I’ve seen, in the same way that John Cusack was so good in Bullets Over Broadway. For me it’s just infinitely rewatchable."

"like to think of this as Lennon and Elvis, you know what I mean? Lennon wouldn’t have been there without Elvis and I wouldn’t be here without The Stone Roses. Ian Brown as a frontman had the look and he was cool as fuck. He was my Elvis. The first time I saw them, that was it! I thought, “I want that!” I’d heard our kid play ‘Sally Cinnamon’ round the house and I went to see them just before the album came out and it was like, “This is it, man! This is the next fucking step!” It was like growing up a bit and you’re thinking, “This is the band that’s going to guide me to chicks and being a cool young man.” You know what I mean? This was the album that was going to carry me through. They were my guiding star."

"I’m sort of torn on my last film between Badlands and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. I’m on the fence — I love both of those films. Badlands, for me, is a very important film because I feel like a lot of the time it’s the kind of film I would love to make, if I could just make one. It’s so small, but really perfect. I think another great example of a film, which is like a second film, that people don’t think about, is Days of Heaven, which is again another flawless film. His use of voice over is the best out of any filmmaker. Linda Manz, her voiceover, nothing can beat it, you know. I always think that if there’s a voiceover in a film, it’s gotta be like that, where it?s not telling you what’s happening, it’s talking about completely different things. It’s incredible."

"I’m sort of torn on my last film between Badlands and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. I’m on the fence — I love both of those films. Badlands, for me, is a very important film because I feel like a lot of the time it’s the kind of film I would love to make, if I could just make one. It’s so small, but really perfect. I think another great example of a film, which is like a second film, that people don’t think about, is Days of Heaven, which is again another flawless film. His use of voice over is the best out of any filmmaker. Linda Manz, her voiceover, nothing can beat it, you know. I always think that if there’s a voiceover in a film, it’s gotta be like that, where it?s not telling you what’s happening, it’s talking about completely different things. It’s incredible."