"When Wild Style came out, nobody knew about the New York City underground. This record and the film became how you found out about shit that was going on at that time because nobody was really documenting it. This movie became so big and it spread the message of hip hop in a way that hadn't really been done on that scale previously. When you look at the total global domination hip hop culture has now, you can see its roots in this film, in this soundtrack. It was mad fucking powerful. This film is written so intelligently and the story is so compelling. I like the 'Double Trouble' scene where there is acapella rapping and the scene with 'The Cold Crush Brothers'. The scene in the amphitheatre at night where they're killing it is another incredible moment. The music was just so dope throughout and it undoubtedly paved the way for things like Hamilton. I saw Hamilton this year and I'm looking around and looking at all these different people – all different ages, races and genders – and I was like here now you can see the real global domination that hip-hop and rap culture has – I saw it at the start with things like Wild Style and I see it now with Hamilton and its some mad fucking shit to see how far it has come. It's like we took over the world."

"It's a unique combination of what Zack de la Rocha is doing with his voice and what Tom Morello [guitarist] is doing. If you separate the two, you find yourself thinking: "Well, how could this possibly work?" But again they were game changers. They came along at a time in Los Angeles when there was nobody else doing that style. I don't think anyone has done anything like that successfully. They were a band that were immersed in different kinds of activism and that was something that definitely caught my attention. Who else was doing that? Who was doing that and selling millions of records? And, of course, by doing that they were able to cross over into different scenes and different generations of people that could listen to that type of music. Some of the stuff on here is still just as relevant today as it was when it was released. It's just the intensity of some of those messages for me as a singer. He performs with such conviction. You have got to believe what Zack is saying and he makes you understand what he's talking about. That's the heart of what Rage is all about. They're all behind exactly what he's saying. There's been a lot made in recent years of the idea that bands don't have anything to say anymore, or that they're ambivalent now, but I think everyone is saying something. Even Priest have made a comment in 'Crossfire', where we talk about religion and gun violence. I think a lot of the time these messages just slip under the radar for some people. Priest have never pushed back from making a comment on things that we see in the world or that affect us and think need to be commented on. So I think it's definitely out there. It's just that bands are now doing it a lot more subtly than Rage did."

"Nick Cave is one of these very rare male artists that has managed to hold my attention and interest over the course of four decades now. He is extraordinary and continues to push his artistry and has never cheapened himself or been a desperate gambler in Vegas. In regards to his musical career, he's always just done what he does, so beautifully, with no compromise to the musical climate. As a result, [he] has created his own genre, really, that he is king of. His career is just continuing to blossom and continuing to grow. It has this incredible reach now and is touching new generations. 

 He is one of the greatest artists, storytellers and musicians that I have ever met and have ever been around. I feel lucky to be here to enjoy his work and I'm so grateful that somebody like him is out there still. He is this incredible answer or rebuke to the current climate of just completely vacuous people-pleasing pop music. 

 He's a truly incredible wordsmith too and he is really blessed with the true greatness of a writer. He's not a pop lyricist by any stretch of the imagination: he's a great erudite communicator and you can feel that in his music, in his lyrics, in his books, in his scripts. He's bordering bona fide genius with his words – just so poetic and so very honest and authentic. 

 Each record is a logical sort of expansion from the previous record, but he's a great storyteller, and a great communicator, and a great connector too. I can't think of anyone else who has the kind of career he has, where he's never had a hit – not really, in the traditional sense of a hit – and yet enjoys this phenomenal career where he's now selling out fucking arenas around every corner of the world. I mean, it's mad. 

 He's so unique and just doesn't sound like anybody else. He's got this phenomenal band too in The Bad Seeds whose musicianship is just incredible. It's like going in to listen to an orchestra because it's so emotive and powerful: to see him live is truly extraordinary."

"I think I came across this record because it was produced by Dave Fridmann and I was interested in him at the time because of other stuff he’d done, particularly The Flaming Lips. I heard this record and asked other people about it and they were saying, 'Aren’t they kind of folksy?' And I was like, 'No! What? Have you not listened to them?' Because this album does have that quiet, acoustic thing at the heart of it, but Fridmann has produced it like In Utero or something. Almost all of the instruments are pushing at the top of the range and it gives this really weird feeling of a loud quiet band. This song ‘Cue The Strings’ has this kind of crappy, wind-up string sound, that sounds like it’s been recorded onto tape a hundred times with two voices singing over it. That’s all that’s in it. But you get this feeling as it goes on that it’s absolutely massive and it’s hard to describe why, but I think it’s something to do with that production, the way it’s just biting at the distortion level. It’s got this swelling feeling that’s like the sun rising and that matches the lyric; 'Here comes the cold sunshine.' You get the feeling of being on a planet that has no atmosphere and when the sun rises you’re going to get burned up. It feels like such a huge sound but it’s really only two voices and a keyboard. I think that’s a great example of the power of production."

"I heard a really early demo of theirs that someone sent me once and it mentioned me, a really early demo of theirs. I could never work out what position he was taking on me. He goes [adopts Jason Williamson drawl] ‘Baxter Dury!’ and quotes one of my songs, but then he just disses everybody. I said ‘who the fuck is this guy?! I don’t wanna be dissed!’ And then when someone told me he was a fan, I was like ‘thank fuck’, and I listened to the album that broke them. I was living in the country and I was jogging a lot, I remember thinking it was fucking brilliant. I wrote songs like ‘Miami’ and stuff off the back of listening to that album a lot. We became mates and it became a nice two-way appreciation thing. I used some of Jason’s energy, started being a bit less apologetic, so he was an inspiration. We send little caring texts to each other every now and then. He’s a lovely bloke, I really like him loads. He’s really sensitive. I love that they’re now becoming the darlings of that world. They deserve to be."

"I want to go into another movie that I gotta bring up. The Pianist with Adrien Brody, Roman Polanski, the whole thing. Now, I don’t endorse his moral behaviors, but I have to say man, that movie… What he did with that character put me there, and I had never been there. Literally, I’m in the theater, and dude, I’m crying, I’m like, “Yo, this is crazy!” I go by emotional moments; if I walk out of the theater and I’m actually changed, you know what I mean? You know, you see the world in a different way. That’s the power of movies, to me. Like, when you go in and you saw the world one way, but when you walk out, I’m like, “I saw the world in a whole different way.” And Adrien Brody’s performance really taught me what an actor should do and should be. He gave everything he had. It was an awesome performance, an awesome movie, and I would just encourage everybody to see that one. That’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I bought that sucker; I got it on Blu-Ray, you know? [laughs]"

"What a great singer, what a great record. I was living in West London in Notting Hill when I heard this. It felt like the time I was living in. I think it's an extraordinary production, the whole piece, and it doesn't matter whether you believe that it is politics, propaganda or poetry, the voice I think is just incredible. I take it as all three... it depends on de 'erb man. It'd be so addictive to play bass like that, so I've always avoided it. Roundabout '76, '77, it was like hearing Blue Beat in shebeens in Notting Hill. That was understanding something else, detuned basses, that was all about sonics. And then the act of actually playing something so melodic would seem even more perverse. It really informs electronic music. Physically it is really enjoyable to play bass - there's a similar element to playing sport, that sense of coordination and being involved in an activity with other people. There were times when, and particularly on our 'Drill' marathons, you really do get beyond pain and an outer body experience, which is of course indescribable, and that's exciting."

"I heard that when it first came out in 2010. I've got it on CD. He was a member of the Flipmode Squad so he'd done his time already I think. He probably felt like an old bastard as well - he's probably older than me! You've got the obvious misogyny in there and there was lots of that, but there was this real interest in the history of the pimp, which is a controversial subject, but it's almost like he's done his research on it and looked at it in a political sense. It's not just blatant misogyny as well, but then it is, it swipes over to that, and then it swipes over to gang on the corner, shooting, drugs. I get the impression that a lot of the time this is stuff he has observed. A lot of the time, these rappers like Conway the Machine and West Side Gunn, used to be dealers but had to step out of it to go professional. So they have this whole memory bank of experiences to draw from and then in that environment it's probably very close to you."