"It's one of the earlier records for me, I started listening to it when I was 19 or 20. I think it made me realise that I wanted to get better at music, it pushed me to want to learn more than three chords. Pet Sounds is so pristine, while Smiley Smile sounds unfinished. I guess it is unfinished, and I know Brian Wilson was never happy with the way it turned out, but whatever grievances there are, I love it. It's a huge influence on me, it was definitely like my music school. Figuring out those harmonies and those chords really pushed my ears and helped me understand music theory in a deeper way. I mean I like it it has that unfinished edge and a more playful sound to it than Pet Sounds. I love Pet Sounds but it's so polished that it doesn't have the charm to it that Smiley Smile has. You can hear that charm lyrically, songs about vegetables and Woody Woodpecker. That song 'She's Going Bald' is amazing! It's funny and also sublime, all at once. 'Windchimes' is one of the most beautiful moments in music, and lyrically he's just writing about some windchimes hanging on his porch; somehow he makes it sound like the most sentimental and beautiful thing. I remember being bowled over."

"I never really listened to Blur much or many of the other Damon Albarn projects, but I was on tour and kept running into Dangermouse. He was on tour and we were playing a lot of the same festivals. He may even have given me a copy of this record. I remember being in Adelaide in this lonely hotel, drinking a bottle of red wine alone at sunset and listening to this record and being completely mesmerised by it. I love the whole thing. I love Dangermouse’s glitchy, hip-hop Beatles production ideas. It’s just a really great recipe: the whole thing. I spoke to him about making that record but I almost don’t want to know what it involved because it’s so magical to me. I’m totally into Paul Simonon’s bass playing. Even though it’s not a reggae record, courtesy of him it has some of that kind of soul. And Tony Allen’s drumming is wonderful. It almost sounds like military drums. It’s very angular. It doesn’t swing. It sounds like ‘Let’s attack, let’s attack.' At the heart of this record, you have really simple rock & roll performances, but the production brings a lot more detail to it. I’ve worked pretty briefly with Dangermouse on something in the past. I enjoy his personality a lot and I’d sure as hell like to work on a record with him one day."

"I remember hearing a PJ Harvey song, it might have been ‘Down by The Water’, and thinking ‘this is wicked, I’m gonna buy some of her music!’ At that age I had pocket money, about five pounds, so I went to this music shop in Exeter, found the PJ Harvey section, and all they had was this cheap cassette of 4-Track Demos. I was learning the drums around that time, and listening to the drums in a way I’d never done before, getting obsessive about it. I bought this PJ Harvey record, I put it on and thought ‘OK, the drums are gonna come in soon!’, but of course they never come in, it’s all demos. It was insanely disappointing! But I’d payed the money for this record, so I listened to it, and it became this educational thing for me of understanding that this was part of writing a song. Comparing the demos to the finished tracks, it was an interesting thing to hear and I think the most important thing I’d take from it is investing in something that deprives you of the one thing you were really excited about. It’s a good lesson, but completely unplanned, an interesting exercise to realise that the thing I feel is the most important thing, is not."