"The first Damned record is a classic. These were some of our influences and bands that never really got a wider appeal and should have. Rat Scabies was on that record and was like a rebirth of Keith Moon, Brian James’ guitar playing was second to none, suddenly punk rock had our own Eddie Van Halen - sort of [laughs]. Just a shredder. Then there was Captain Sensible and Dave Vanian... everyone was a unique character, not just personally but as a player. I don’t think anybody could have beaten the Damned at that point in their carer. It was short-lived but maybe it was too ferocious to last with that line-up. After we did that record I was playing a gig in ‘94 with Steve Jones, we were playing the Viper Room every Monday night as the Neurotic Outsiders and Rat Scabies came to one of the gigs. Steve introduced us and Rat said, ""thanks for covering that song, I got the biggest publishing cheque I ever got"". But I didn’t know what to say, I was terrified of The Damned man, these are my heroes. I mean it was Rat Scabies, what the hell do you say to Rat Scabies?"

"We have to put a Stones record in there too for good measure. The times I drove down to LA in ‘84 I probably listened to that song 75 times - probably a lot more actually - on my little ghetto blaster in my car. It was kind of the soundtrack to my life that year, again it was another record that got me through a big sea change in my life. There are lots of good Rolling Stones records but that one was given to me at the right time in my life. Playing with them was a big thing of course and we were really built up way beyond what we wanted to be. I was just happy to be opening for The Rolling Stones in any way at all, but someone in the LA Times wrote it up and had a picture of us like we were going to be the next Rolling Stones. It was ‘88 or ’89, we were young guys and how do you handle that? Imagine that pressure, if you’re 24 years old you just want it to go away. And I was thinking, ""I hope none of the guys from the Stones see this article saying we’re going to be the next Rolling Stones…""

"I love Alfred Hitchcock, but that was the first one that I saw. I saw it in humanities class in high school. We broke it down and had to write all these articles about it, and it stayed with me for a lot of reasons? in exploring all of the imagery that Alfred Hitchcock uses, and just the tone of the film. I always was a Jimmy Stewart fan — my fiancé is kind of very Jimmy Stewart. [laughs] He’s like the every man. I really loved him. And then of course the Hitchcock blonde; a lot of it had to do with the females in the films, so it’s no surprise that I became an actress. I was obsessed with Kim Novak; I would pull my hair back and try to tweeze my eyebrows so I could be a Hitchcock blonde. I loved it. And that was the first time I’d ever explored film intellectually, in that class, because before then I was, you know, I just went to the movies — things would move me and I wasn’t sure why. To get to sit down with my teacher and break a film down intellectually was a discovery for me. It’s still one of my favorites. It speaks to me very strongly."

"The first times I tried to listen to this, I couldn’t do it. I thought “This is horrible. They’re out of tune, the guys can’t play, the way that he’s singing …” I just thought, “What is this?” Then I started seeing it around more and more and then I finally met Don and there was something very peculiar and interesting about him so I thought, “I have to give this record a chance.” We deprive ourselves the opportunity of appreciating something that is artistic, by making certain claims and being dogmatic or snobbish about it. So I listened to it a bunch and really started to get it. What I really appreciate is when somebody works completely outside the box with confidence and that record is all about that. These guys didn’t care what was going on and that made me think “Why does music always have to be in tune?” and “Why does music have to be rhythmic?” It doesn’t, we’re just conditioned to think that way and you will rarely hear somebody create something that’s brutally unique. The ways these guys do wildly different things with abandon resulting in a willy–nilly brand of controlled chaos, made me think it was all very interesting. It’s like liberation."

"The album this song is on – A Girl Called Dusty – was in that pile of records that my friend's dad gave to me and that was the first I'd ever heard of her. I love the key change: it sounds really sad but really hopeful at the same time, it gives me a lot of feelings. I used to listen to this album obsessively. I'd sit and listen and while I was listening I'd type out the lyrics and listen again and try to dissect everything in the music and work out how it sounded like that. How it sounded so good – where each tambourine hit was in every bar, where the key change comes in and why that feels so good and whether the key change goes up or goes down. I got really analytical and lame about it. I just really wanted to understand why it was so good! It’s just as incredible as “Walk On By” and those other Burt Bacharach songs – they're all so emotional! I don't think I have listened to the Gene Putney version, or maybe it's something I've heard and not really noticed, I don't know. If it was on the radio I’ve probably heard it. It’s the Dusty version that I have in my heart."

"Like lots of people my age, Radiohead were a big band before Kid A. The Bends were where I really got into them, and then OK Computer really blew me away. But then Kid A came out and it was nothing like their other stuff. They took away all their guitars. They were the kings of guitars and they took them all away, and they replaced it with really out of tune, quiet synths and little drum machines and it made me and all my friends really surprised. We didn't know what this meant because we were so used to guitars being important, and then Radiohead came along and said you don't need any of that stuff, screw it. That really changed my attitude. Radiohead showed a generation that you don't need to be afraid of change. I just think it was such a brave decision, considering where they were in their career, what they had come from and what they had become well known for. They threw it all out the window and that inspired a huge amount of people I think, and it inspires us every time with think of it, or whenever we talk about turning our attention to a new album, we always have it in the back of our minds that we could ""pull a Kid A"", we could pull a U-turn, and that comes down to the fact that they were willing to do that, it was inspiring. Obviously loads of musical stuff came out of Kid A. The way Thom Yorke sings is pretty indelibly put into me, and a lot of the way the band play, and everything Jonny Greenwood does, influences us. It's what Kid A's attitude was really. It's really slapdash in the way it's recorded, it's really awkwardly mixed. It sounds like they've done it themselves out of old pieces of machinery that shouldn't work anymore. Gone are all the shiny, beautiful guitar tones and high production. Even his voice is beautiful and yet it's been corrupted and you can't really hear what he's saying, and he's singing falsetto. All the stuff that we kind of relied on them for all got chucked in the bin and that's just fucking awesome!"