"Well, that was another one I burned on my way. At first, I was into the earlier John Coltrane, and then when he went into more free jazz, at first I didn't like it as much because I was so into his early tone and the swing and the melody of this more classic jazz, but the next one's more like that. Jesse [Trbovich, bandmate in the Violators] turned me on to it. We got stuck on the way home from an LA show or somewhere, we got dumped off in Phoenix, Arizona, and we had to stay for the night. We knew a really good record store there, Revolver Records, there was just a ton of jazz. I was wanting to stock up so I got Interstellar Space as a recommendation. When I first listened, I was like, [shrugs] yeah, 'cause he's just freaking out, just him and a drummer, Rashied Ali, then I burned it anyway. Usually what happens is that it sounds so good 'cause it's burned from those original vinyls and then you crank it in your headphones and it just sounds unreal, so that's what happened with that one on the way to Joshua Tree. My mind was blown and it's just so open and such raw emotion and so psychedelic without any of the pretensions that 'psychedelic' eventually became - he's just the real thing. It's just wide open and sprawling. 'Lost My Head' for sure has that jazz influence... obviously it's a white man's, with limited skill. The convenience of the key of C, for instance - you play all those sevenths with the same formation all over the place, so that's why the piano's beautiful, but that's got the McCoy Tyner or whatever thing in it."

"I really like the Elton John thing. Axl was really into that kind of shit, and it really comes out in that tune. He gets a bit, 'Oh woah is me,' but you can't really fault the tune. It's got some great lines in it, he's got a great voice, and he's got a real ear for melody. it's not just punk rock and metal - he really can sing! He also made you feel like it must be quite shit to be a massive rock star, that it's not all it's cracked up to be, which I thought was good. He was one of the first people to say, 'look, I'm struggling with this.' Before Axl, people had been like, 'Hey! Everything's glitzy, everything is alright!"", and he wasn't like that. Then obviously Kurt Cobain took it to a whole new level."

"I could be obscure about my last record, but that's not very honest. I'm not that cool. This is poetry again. I think I just like the sounds on Graceland. I enjoy music on different levels all the time. I think, because I play music, or because I'm a singer, I enjoy singers, or because I write songs, I like songwriters. Or because I get to be a part of production I like the production but some things I just connect to on a sonic level. But it's all the same really, it all comes and does the same thing and makes you the artist that you are. And honestly, I also chose this because of 'Graceland' the song, because it talks about Graceland, and it came along at a time when I really needed to hear that song. Just the song itself. I feel really, especially in the past two years, really connected to that album. I'm borderline obsessed with it. You know it's my dream to remake that fucking video for 'You Can Call Me Al' and I've had the worst time finding someone to do it with me. I want it to be Gwendoline Christie from Game Of Thrones. How amazing would that be?"

"#2 is Showgirls. Again, a movie I’ve seen at least a dozen times, and I know that everybody gets it now, but I was a true believer right from the beginning. It is, really, the accidentally funniest movie I’ve ever seen. It never gets any less funny. There’s just something about watching Elizabeth Berkeley in that role, when she’s like flopping in the water like a fish, or when she’s in that club, and Cristal Connors pays her $500 to give Zack a lapdance, and she’s all flapping around on his lap. It’s so cringeworthy, but it’s so funny at the same time. And I’m normally not really a fan of cringey humor — shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm — I can’t even watch those shows because I end up running behind the couch, I’m cringing so bad. The thing about Showgirls, and how earnest everybody was, and how over-the-top it was — I just love that movie. I practically have it memorized."

"The Producers is one of my favorite movies, and I don’t mean the musical. I mean the original one that Mel Brooks directed, with Zero Mostel. I saw it when it first came out. I saw it in the movie theaters, back in the ’60s. I just think as a comedy, and also being in the business as I am, and coming from theater, it just had that much more impact for me. That’s a movie I like very much."