"It was awesome. I heard 'Slow and Low' way before I had ever seen them - before they had images to them; before I knew they were white guys. It didn’t matter, because they had an in depth understanding and a true genuine love for hip-hop. It was apparent. I had a friend Mark, who had a Hyundai car. His system was so good in that car, and that's all he used to play. When I found out they were white, I loved it even more, because it turned me onto different types of music, like the Led Zeppelin sample on 'Rhyming & Stealin'."

"Probably one of the first bands that I learned how to play was Led Zeppelin. As I got more and more into them, Jimmy Page increasingly became a hero of my mine to the point that he's by far my biggest hero. If you listened to those records, and you were able to isolate all the guitar tracks, you'd probably say, "Wow, this track sounds awful. Wow, that track sounds awful too." Not the performance, but the tone of it. But he was such a master at what he did, they were able to blend those things and give it such a unique sound. Simple, simple things like the sound of a Fender Rhodes in 'Misty Mountain Hop' – the way that they worked all those things together. When you think Fender Rhodes, for me at least, you don't think heavy rock. You think Hall & Oates. But Led Zeppelin IV was one of those records that completely blew my paradigm apart regarding what rock music could be. And then from that point I went backwards in their catalogue. To this day Robert [Plant] and Jimmy are the consummate pair of frontman/guitar hero. My playing style is probably more similar to Jimmy's than anyone else's. I was influenced by people like Michael Schenker and Uli Jon Roth but Uli was always a bit too exotic. Jimmy is at the absolute top."

"Montrose was one of the really important American statements made at a time when the only rock that was credible was English. They had Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie, just anything that was credible was all English and, out of nowhere, this Montrose record comes out that just kills! The American bands were sloppy and fat and looked like the Grateful Dead, and it was just pathetic. But Montrose came from the same area, the San Francisco Bay Area and it was like a breath of fresh air. That first record, even Montrose couldn't equal it, it was just better than the other American bands of the time. If you ever listen to 'Kickstart My Heart' by Mötley Crüe, that intro was note-for-note, everything was taken from 'Bad Motor Scooter', that sounds like a motorcycle going by. Clearly, Montrose was trying to do, with Sammy Hagar's vocals, a sort of American Led Zeppelin thing. But the songs were undeniable! Song after song, again: consistency. Unfortunately, after that Sammy Hagar left the band and everything changed. Ronnie Montrose never went back, never found his mojo again. Eventually he committed suicide. But when we're putting on makeup and getting ready for shows because we're in the middle of a tour, it never fails. Every other day we put on the Montrose record."

"There are three reasons why I have to have this Led Zeppelin album included above all the others. They are Heartbreaker, Living, Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman) and Ramble On. They are The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost when it comes to the songs I want to listen to when the sun is out. They’re the holy grail of sunshine listening for me. “Whenever I am in the car and the sun is out, these are the three songs I want to have on. They are the soundtrack to great weather, wherever I am in the world. From LA to Lowestoft"

"Super influential record for the new wave of British heavy metal. Super influential record for Megadeth and Metallica. That was one of those records that everyone should listen to but not a lot of people know about. I think the beauty of it is the simplicity of the British riffing and the general approach to the music. I'm sad to have seen the band fall apart from its classic line-up although I don't know that they were necessarily prepared for greatness, if I can put it that way without being offensive. They were heralded to be the next Led Zeppelin and I get it. But I think internal problems started around when Canterbury came out in 1983."

"The classic Led Zeppelin record. Again I got into that much later, 1995 or something. A guy who used to work at our studio was really into them. 'Stairway To Heaven' I knew because we used to play that at our guitar club. They were almost a precursor to The Sex Pistols, except they were better musicians, it was just very heavy rock & roll. We never had a synth club at school. What happened was when Depeche started I was playing guitar, Fletcher was playing bass and we had a drum machine. Then all these electronic bands started like Gary Numan and OMD, and we thought, ""you know what, maybe we can enter into that world instead"". Our guitar playing wasn't up to scratch, probably."

"Led Zeppelin, goddamn! I don't think they made a bad record! There's that classic line from Cameron Crowe's movie Fast Times At Ridgemont High where they're cruising around, talking about how to get chicks. And the guy says: ""If you wanna score with a chick, turn out side two of volume four!"" I've used that a few times actually. It works [laughs]! Anyway if it didn't work, it was a nice soundtrack while it was going down. Jimmy Page is another guitar player that means a lot to me. Every member of that fucking band: John Paul Jones was an amazing writer, arranger and producer, as well as Jimmy. Plus John Bonham and Robert Plant... that's one of the greatest rock & roll bands of all times. It's just straight-up, fucking sexy, kick ass and shit, man! All the way from dirty low-down rock & roll to the biggest orchestral tracks like ‘Kashmir’. They travelled a lot of ground while keeping their roots intact, the blues. You know, certain bands really resonate in certain areas and that was one band that was always popular up there where I come from, the Northwest. You have at least ten fucking Zeppelin songs that you can jam with anybody at any time."