"I was not really listening to what was going on in 1979. A lot of popular music wasn’t very good. There was a lot of punk hangover and a lot of it was a bit… whatever. At that point, Wire were stratospheric; it wasn’t really important to listen to what other people were doing. We didn’t have anything to do with Gang of Four. They were coming from a very different place. We studiously ignored Joy Division because they seemed a little too derivative of us. Maybe that seems like arrogance in hindsight but that’s how it felt at the time. Bert Jansch’s Avocet was very off compared to what was going on in music in the late ’70s. I knew about him when I was in school because he was in Pentangle. The whole thing with music fans in the late ’60s was all about: “Are you Jimi or Eric?” Then there was a group of us who were a bit cooler who said: “Are you Bert or John?” Which meant John Renbourn, the other guitarist in Pentangle. The kind of people who liked Jimi Hendrix would sit in their room playing solos and making a guitar face."

"Jesus Christ, that album is just stupidly good! I didn't know this, but a lot - Ginger Baker, Tony Williams, who played drums for Miles Davis, Steve Vai - it was a supergroup! It's a perfect record, it's like the perfect, cool record. The guitars on it, it just sounds like it's flying! It's like, ""Wooo, there goes Steve!"" There'd be divebombs - he had a Floyd Rose whammy bar - it just tanks - it goes down and then it goes up, up into the stratosphere, and then he'd go really down on it. Jesus Christ - talking about sonics! And it's surprising how many of the drum riffs that I like are by Tony Williams: the first song ['F.F.F.'] on it is just awesome; I would've thought that was Ginger Baker. I guess the producer employed two jazzy drummers! I was listening to this pre-Pixies. I listened to it a lot with my brother, my little brother who's excellent with the guitar. I still lived at home at the time and we would just flip out in my bedroom. He would actually show me [how to play something], because I would be so frustrated: "Goddamn it! What is this?!""

"This is my childhood in a nutshell. I grew up in a very instrumental house, full of musicians, and this was religious for us. Billy Cobham, Tony Williams, these were the pillars my dad raised us on. Total Eclipse, though… My dad had that album on vinyl, but me and my older brother we weren't allowed to touch the record player unless one of my parents were there. But my dad would go to work, and we would wait until he left and then we would put the record on. We would do all kinds of stupid stuff that kids do when they're playing vinyl; messing with the record, warping it, trying to scratch if it's hip hop, but we were really cautious not to literally put scratches in my dad's vinyl. We would listen to Billy Cobham, and my older brother was a drummer, so he was listening to this with a lot of intent. We were really young, and on that album the level of musicianship is absolutely amazing. It's one of those things that also inspired me to play my instrument the way I play."

"I love Interpol. They're my favourite modern band, I suppose. Are they considered contemporary? It was a decade ago but I think of them as a new band. Well, they're not part of the 90s anyway. 'NYC' manages to be simultaneously dirge-like and uplifting, and I don't know how he manages to balance those two things. I love the lyrics in it, 'I tried on seven faces before I knew which one to wear.' For me the art of great songwriting is when you're fascinated by the words but you don't know too much about what it's about. It's about giving but not too much. As a listener you should have to join the dots. It's a perfect record for where it came from too, it's got that feel that's very urban and alienated. I really like listening to it on the underground. The drone of the tube trains and the slightly sort of neurotic sense that you get when you're on the tube is perfect for Interpol. It's funny you should say they're like a New York Suede because when they came out people did make that comparison."

"This is my favourite tune ever. I can’t really describe what it is about it, it just gives me a feeling. It’s been my favourite tune for years and years and I guess that now, because I’ve loved it for so long, it’s a nostalgic feeling but I still find myself listening to it a lot. It’s still very, very current in my life - me and Laurie actually tried to learn it so that we could cover it recently, but it’s quite hard with two people! “I’d always heard it but I never really acknowledged it. We were playing a gig at The Black Heart in Camden, at this tiny little venue upstairs, and a DJ was playing it and I was ‘Oh fuck, I love this tune.’ I’d never realised how much I loved it, so I Shazamed it and I’ve just loved it ever since. “It’s so straight-up, ‘She drives me crazy’ is such a great, straight-up lyric. I love the video, I love the tune, the instrumentation is so cool and his voice is so cool. It’s just a good bit of pop and no other song has beaten it for me."