"I know everyone expected Bikini Kill. It was on my list, but I wanted to put Huggy Bear, because it was wacky. Nathan [Paine, Gossip guitarist] got me into them. It was pre-internet, pre-everything but I wanna say probably Nirvana helped too. They brought so many great things, like The Raincoats and Bikini Kill to the conversation. I think that was how we knew about them, but Nathan, he had all those 7”.. He would spend his lunch money on records and in fact when we moved to Olympia, when we went into Kill Rock Stars as we were going to be on their label, they told me a story that when Nathan moved there, and he came in, they all went 'You're Nathan'! Because he ordered so many records, they knew who he was. I thought that was so sweet. Also Bikini Kill was never on television, there was no The Word so to be able to see Huggy Bear in mainstream media, on television, that was so cool. See I didn't listen to L7, it wasn't melodic enough for me. Or Babes In Toyland either. It wasn't my 90s. It wasn't silly enough. One of my favourite things is this 90s resurgence because I get to wear all the clothes I wore as a kid. In Utero was gonna be on the list, but I took it off. And if I really wanna get down to the nitty gritty, I woulda put The Wipers, but let's be honest, I heard Nirvana first."

"I have seven older brothers and sisters so there was always a bunch of records around the house. One of my brothers had a record by The Sonics, a Seattle sixties garage rock band, and to a kid who was, like, eight years old, The Sonics really spoke. It was very trashy and you could almost imagine yourself playing those songs - there was a song called 'The Witch' that really spoke to a boy that age and captured his imagination. I was probably about 13 when I heard Raw Power and it reminded me of that, but had something else, it was a bit rattier. I played it over and over again. I haven’t ever been able to write a song as cool as any on Raw Power but I did take that basic ethos; keep it raw and keep it real. Those formative years and the records I listened to then have influenced me to this day. We covered [the song 'Raw Power'] later on ""The Spaghetti Incident?"" [Guns N’ Roses’ 1993 cover album] , and in that era of my life – wow, I guess I’m speaking about my life in eras now – I was probably... well I had a lot of input in that record. I’m not saying I had the most influence, but I probably had more than my share. The UK Subs and the Stooges, I was really happy about some of the selections we made and it was really fun to do something like a Damned song. So we’ll move onto...."

"So it's spring, early summer in 1977. I'm a teenager that's started school. I read a book about a punk. I know something's happening. I heard 'God Save The Queen'. I started buying records like The Stranglers' 'Peaches' and The Clash's first album. I remember looking at the cover of the latter at a record store at the bottom of my street called Soundtrack Records. I remember looking at the three guys on the cover with brutally shorn hair, tight drainpipes and wearing shirts with Paul Simonon having a Union Jack stitched on over the pocket. There was also a photo of the Notting Hill riots with the police fighting the Rasta youth. Earlier that year I watched a documentary with my father about the Notting Hill riots at the carnival. I found it really inspirational because I just love seeing the youth rise up and take on the cops. It was a pre-punk moment of seditious confrontation that I found totally inspiring. Just seeing people saying ""fuck you"" to the system is always inspiring to me. In terms of the Clash album itself, the song titles even sound great, such as 'I'm So Bored With The U.S.A.', 'White Riot', 'London's Burning' – I was like, ""Fuck!"" before I'd even heard the record! It totally blew my mind and I ended up buying the record. For a long time I'd stood outside the record store and looked at the sleeve! This album was basically everything I was waiting for. It was my rock & roll. Previous to that, I'd heard rock songs on commercial top-40 radio stations, such as Deep Purple, The Who and Rolling Stones, but it felt like a different generation's music. So with The Clash, I finally found my thing. The songwriting on the Clash album is amazing. 'Remote Control' lyrically was about big business and not liking the things you do. You got no money, you got no power, they think you're useless and that's exactly how you feel. I thought, ""Fucking hell"" when I heard it back. You still felt as a kid scared of going into the adult world when you left school. The song wasn't rock bravado or being macho but about being a young person going out into the world for the first time feeling powerless, which was empowering because when you relate to something, you feel stronger. 'Hate & War' was another song that took the hippie ideal of love and peace and turned it on its head by saying: ""There ain't no love and peace, this is the '70s, it's fucking hate and war here."" Punk rock was my portal and pathway to being a creative person. And the first Clash album was everything to set me on my way. Even now, I feel quite emotional talking about this. It's the most emotional record the Clash made because there's something really pure about it. I also think there's a humanism that the Clash have that the Pistols didn't, as the latter were just pure rage. For those reasons, this record is my life."

"I felt bad about including compilations or greatest hits but if I'm honest, there the ones I go to. And I could say that about Elton John – sometimes you just want to hear the really big hits. Certain albums do stick with you forever but I'm a bit more attuned to the big, big singles. Maybe it's the way I grew up but also it's the initiation I had into my own hits. Even though I'm the youngest of four and grew up around a lot of prog rock albums – in fact, I know Yes off by heart. When Rick Wakeman played Hampton Court Palace a few years ago, he said I'm gonna do the whole of The Six Wives of Henry VIII, I bought a dozen tickets immediately! Because I knew my brother, sisters, partners would all want to go. It was bonkers and amazing. I could have gone full prog rock to be honest [with this baker's dozen selection]! Sorry – what were we talking about? Ah yes, Al Green! My sister and brothers were my entry point for music. I would have listened to quite a bit of Bowie when I was a kid and remember being quite a bit frightened by him – I couldn't work this guy out. One minute he looks like an alien and he just looked a bit odd and also some of the songs were odd – I didn't know what he was on about at all. When someone changed his whole persona the whole time at the same time I'm beginning to look at girls at the same time and then wondering is Bowie a girl? What is he? He confused me! But I definitely got to know a lot of music simply because it was just on in the house. We had one record player – I wanted the Jungle Book album but that wasn't going to happen! There's a track on my album all about having two older brothers and an older sister and it's called 'The Good Old Days' and I mention things like Rick Wakeman and lots of other bands and I also remember my brother John not letting me touch his albums!. My sister took me to see [my first gig which was] Camel when I was ten years old. Weirder than that, I was on tour, thirteen or fourteen years later in Japan and myself and the road crew were in the lounge sharing our first gig experiences. So it goes around and around each person and I'm thinking and shuddering 'they're not gonna believe me, not gonna believe me' until I say it: ""Camel, Manchester Free Trade Hall."" Two of the crew immediately jump up: ""I did the sound at that gig"" says the first! ""I did the projection at that gig!"", says the second! It literally turned something on in me. They had this massive, huge screen behind their gigs – they had this album called Mirage and another one called Snow Goose and you had these images of the pyramids and what have you. As a kid I did not know what was going on, it was another universe. Although to be honest, those projections were probably a bit naïve compared to [what you can experience] today."

"""If I want to pick my favourite records then I have to pick something from Motown. When you have that kind of catalogue it can be hard pinpoint one act. In my case, it would have to be the Four Tops and therefore I have to pick a greatest hits album. I never had a problem considering the Four Tops as a band. As a little kid they were omnipresent if you were glued to the radio as I was. They were a constant fixture year-in, year-out. They would release incredible songs like 'It's The Same Old Song' or 'Reach Out I'll Be There'. On this album you get to line up all of these songs back-to-back as a complete body of work, or even like a single live performance. You can hear a darkness and, dare I say it, a rocking spirit that you won't get from The Supremes or from Smokey Robinson or even Stevie Wonder, mostly due to the presence of Levi Stubbs' voice. In addition, the music had to match his voice and his range of emotion that you wouldn't even get on a Marvin Gaye record. Not only were the songs powerful, but the arrangements and instrumentation and the performances meant that, as far as I am concerned, Four Tops rock like Led Zeppelin. What more do you need? It is a collection of incredible tunes. I bought this record when it came out and all my mates thought I was either really, really old-fashioned or a freak. I knew I wasn't old-fashioned but what was the alternative? The Boomtown fucking Rats?"""