"When I was 15 and living in Conneticut, me and my friends started creeping into New York and going to nightclubs in '80, '81. You'd go into New York specifically with the intention of seeing punk rock bands, but a lot of the clubs at the time like Danceteria, Fall Out Shelter, they'd have a punk rock band playing but the DJ before would be playing dub reggae, and the DJ after would be playing early hip hop and electronic music. There was a radio station in New York called WNYU, and they had this three hour long show every afternoon called The New Afternoon Show where they just played new music. I remember them playing 'Der Mussolini' or 'Alles Ist Gut' and having that same reaction as I did to many of my favourite records at the time, which was 'I've never heard anything that sounds like this'. Another reason I loved D.A.F. was because at the time I was living in this very depressing, boring American suburb and I would listen to D.A.F. and imagine how cool it would be to be in Berlin, making weird electronic music with these German guys who only wore black and made songs that, I didn't know what the lyrics were saying, but they sounded cool. I just re-bought Alles Ist Gut, I have the vinyl and CD and just bought the iTunes version of it, and it still sounds amazing."

"This was a bit of a dodgy situation at the time but I didn’t know that. Tom had asked me to work with him and it was a solo record and that was all I knew. It wasn’t with the group. He used Mike [Campbell, Heartbreakers lead guitarist] for guitar and it was Mike’s studio that we recorded in, in his garage in LA. Tom just stopped me in the street one day in Beverley Hills somewhere and he said, ""I’ve just been listening to George Harrison’s new album. I love it. I’m having a barbecue. Do you wanna come?"" I couldn’t go so he said, ""do you fancy writing some songs together and see what we come up with?"" and I said, ""yeah, I’d love to!"" So I went round his house the next day and after we wrote one, we then wrote, believe it or not, ‘Freefalling’ which was such a big hit for him. So it worked out great and we carried on doing them in Mike’s garage, which was an amazingly sparse studio. It was a garage full of motorbikes and oil cans and bedsteads and things like that - it was pretty amazing! Where him and George looking for that panoramic ELO sound? Well, it wasn’t always that panoramic a sound. I was gradually quietening that sound down that ELO had done and there were less strings. In ELO, it used to be a case of, ""oooh! String day tomorrow!"" and then by about the tenth album it became [adopts dismayed voice] ""oh, fucking hell! It’s string day tomorrow."" I’d had enough of them. I grew tired of the strings. But that’s not why they asked me. It was more the punch I was doing later on and they just liked the sound that I made, whatever it was. They liked something about it."

"Aretha is another phenomenon. The thing I love, now that we have YouTube, is watching the divas talk about one another. There seems to be this real respect for one another, and a real hierarchy! Every diva knew that Aretha was the queen, and she would give her blessing to the others. I love that there was this order! ""Aretha – she’s amazing – with her roots in gospel music. That was such a big influence to me. I loved listening to her gospel album, and you can really see where the freedom that you hear in her pop songs comes from. They’re riffing and she’s letting the Spirit take over her, and she’s so good at playing piano that it translates into the keys as well, similar to how it did with Nina. There are lots of different versions of “Amazing Grace” out there, but I really felt like the lyric had this new gravitas once I’d heard her sing it. ""Recently I went to see the movie Amazing Grace, about the recording of her gospel album. To actually see footage of her giving that performance was pretty mind-blowing. She’s just in the moment; sweating from the energy she’s giving the crowd, and the choir! It was a beautiful moment to watch, and Aretha will forever be a massive influence in everything that I do. ""My Dad is Zambian, and when I go and visit, my aunties and my Grandma and cousins often sing together. The harmonies and the ensemble gives me the same feeling as when I hear gospel music. If you’re ignoring or suppressing emotions, this music and these sounds will just pull everything up and give you this incredible cleansing. ""There’s something about gospel music. When I was younger and listening to the divas, I hadn’t really heard much gospel music. My Dad played me a Kirk Franklin album, and for me initially, it was just the crunch of the chords that the choir was singing and this mass of people singing so perfectly in such unusual harmonies, and then on top of that, these are people singing with belief they’re singing to God. ""When I step inside a church, I feel different. I think it’s just the energy and the intention that people are singing with and have come together in. Whatever faith you have, I think that makes a world of difference. Gospel music is just such a special, higher form of music for me, and it can really make me so emotional. It’s such a great thing that, regardless of your beliefs, we can still come together through music and vibrations of love."