"That shit was trill as fuck. Kurt Cobain was the shit, nigga."

"I remember seeing Kurt Cobain wearing a Daniel Johnston t-shirt when I was young and it looking so weird that I wanted to know what it was, but I only really got into him in 2007 when Gallows were playing in Austin, Texas, where they've got the big mural to him at SXSW. I saw the record in the store next door and fell in love with it. It was very pure; there was nothing to it, just great, genius songwriting that's full of emotion. Then I watched the documentary, The Devil And Daniel Johnston, and became a fan for life. The man is fairly tortured, but always undeniably himself. I just love musicians who are themselves, there's so much to be said for that. 'Outsider Music' is a tough term because it implies he's not welcome here, but those types of characters are beacons, they're the people that other musicians to go out and do what they to do. It's musicians like Daniel Johnston that inspire the Kurt Cobains of the world, who then inspire a generation of people to pick up a guitar. I think it's insider music."

"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."

"Lots of metal bands had all got a little bit in a rut by the time this came out. People were quite bothered about how they looked. And NIrvana smashed it to pieces. They said music should be raw and powerful – great guitar riffs, good lyrics, great melodies. Nirvana were the ones. And Kurt Cobain was charismatic. A lot of musicians resented grunge, but I quite liked it – we needed it. Saxon never went grunge – we went more metal again in the 90s. We had really needed a rest, but we couldn’t have one, and we weren’t firing on all cylinders. It wasn’t ‘til the 90s that we got our shit together again. Nirvana resonates for me because of that. It took people by surprise, because it went so big so quickly. There’s a lot of menace and darkness in and it was heavier than what other people were doing at the time."

"I discovered Flipper when I was in Boston. I was in a record shop and I saw a sleeve on the wall - one of those more expensive ones that still wasn't very expensive. But there's something about the cover that made it seem along the lines of the DIY things I'm really into. So I bought it without hearing it and it was brilliant. It was like a kind of insane... well Public Image Ltd are already insane. But it was like an even more insane Public Image Ltd, with an amazing groove and totally demented vocals. I really got into them with that record and the first one - Album – Generic Flipper - is also brilliant. That's another example of a really bad sleeve actually... it's pretty awful. The fish logo, worn by Kurt Cobain or not, is pretty terrible. With Flipper it makes sense though. It's a bit like the Jesus Lizard, where they're trying deliberately to piss you off."

"Kurt Cobain talked about punk a lot even though everyone spoke about Nirvana being a grunge band, which I found quite confusing at the time. So I asked a friend of mine’s uncle about what punk was and I went out and got the first Clash record and the Sex Pistols. I was kind of into that, and then the '90s American skate punk thing arrived in my life. It’s a complex record, but it’s a really fun, poppy record at the same time Green Day and The Offspring were the gateway bands and I got heavily into NOFX, Pennywise and all that stuff, but the record that really sticks with me is Everything Sucks. It’s fast, it’s hard, it’s heavy but it’s also melodic as well. It’s a complex record, but it’s a really fun, poppy record at the same time. I listened to it yesterday. It’s a masterpiece of punk rock. It was my gateway into underground punk rock"

"It's just fucking mental! I saw it in the cinema at the time and I remember getting up to leave and then the hand coming out of the grave! So great. It goes back to what I was saying about a lot of teen films being about the different kid, who stands apart from their peers. That always resonated with me. I wasn't unpopular as a teenager, I was fine. I wasn't bullied or anything, but I did stand apart from my school mates, because I didn't want to go along with the peer culture in every single sense. I didn't like people telling me what to do, I was too independent. So films about outsiders are always tops in my book. And of course poor old Carrie is a text book example of evangelistic religiosity turning sour. It's the most amazing revenge film ever. I interviewed Kurt Cobain and he said 'I'm the guy that would be most likely to kill everyone at a high school dance' and I said, 'you mean like Carrie?' He really liked that."