"I liked Jerry Lee Lewis, because my dad turned me on to him, so I had this collection of all the Sun sessions that I would listen to a lot. I mainly just listened to 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'. I used to love that line, ""got the bull by the horns"", I used that line in 'He's Alright', my song from a long time ago. It's so bluesy and goofy and from a wild man. But then at a later period, I read that book The Dark Stuff by Nick Kent. Adam [Granduciel], my buddy, one of my best friends, from The War On Drugs, he sent it to me for my birthday, which was nice. He wasn't even around, but he sent it to me. Anyway, I couldn't put that down. He knew I would like that book. The best article [in there], is on Jerry Lee Lewis, who's just a notorious maniac and is obviously an incredible piano player. In that article, he talked about a book, a biography about him by Nick Tosches called Hellfire and this book is off the hook, it's unreal. So just around that time I found the vinyl of this one, the Sun Sessions, maybe it's volume one, again I burned it and cranked it in the 'phones and played it a lot when I was driving around LA. There's a song, 'Little Queenie', which is a cover, but he says: ""She's too cute to be a minute over 17"" and I morphed that line in 'Pretty Pimpin': ""a little too cute to be admitted under marbles lost"". Whatever that part of the song is, the first time I say: ""All I want is to just have fun, live my life like a son of a gun"", but it's like a morphed version of that Seeds song, 'Pushin' Too Hard', like [sings]: ""All I want is to just have fun, live my life like it just begun"", so it's sort of referencing those old guys, two different eras. Obviously, if I had to pick one, Jerry Lee Lewis slays The Seeds. But it's just like that down-home, real rock & roll. How do you explore his back catalogue? I think you just start with the early stuff. He had a crazy career, because he had all these hits young and then he married his super young cousin, but he was totally in love with her and she was, and then they went to Europe and during that time they found out it was his cousin and then he was banned everywhere, basically. Then he had a resurgence, he started doing country music and was bigger than ever, so he would always go up and down, but he was a maniac. He would just always be battling demons. He would go back to Jesus. He would go to church where they would speak in tongues, he would just live extreme lives. He would go back and forth, lose his mind, take a million pills, play shows and his hair was flying around, playing with his foot. I mean, he was a bad motherhumper, as you would say!"

"I think I gotta go with that old stand-by, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Love Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Love the — you know, it’s the two guys. It’s what me and my brother specialize in, the two guys. Well, in the Three Stooges‘ case it’s three. But the relationship between two guys like that, I don’t think it’s been done any better than with Butch and Sundance; particularly with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. The way they worked in so many different things, from comedy to romance to action and the way it’s so beautifully shot and, you know, a great story. And they didn’t pull the punches at the end. If you made that movie today, I’m sure that you’d do the test screenings and somebody would raise their hands and say, “We want them to get away at the end!” But they didn’t get away at the end. Today you’d have to re-shoot the ending where the guys go off on some secret beach somewhere and live happily forever — ’cause that’s the way audiences kind of demand it. But with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, of course, they met their demise at the end of the movie, and they had it coming ’cause that’s who they were. I just think it was a beautiful movie."

"In the past year or two I’ve really been getting into more electronic music, and finding there’s so many subgenres! I’ve found this niche of really melodic electronic music, like Jamie xx and Jon Hopkins, and I just found it so soulful – it gives you this energy at the same time. That’s really opened a world up for me, ‘cause I always assumed electronic music couldn’t be as musical! Hearing this new sound, and these new methods of being musical through newer instruments, I was like, ‘wow!’ You can really reach that point of emotion in such a different, more energetic way. ""I just love this song. It’s a masterpiece, and I love the video as well. Learning about production a lot on this last album, it’s such a skill to let each element shine through and complement one another. The main thing for me is that simple line that comes in – a synth or something – halfway through, and the way everything builds. It’s like a symphony, really. Ever piece has been so considering in the song, and has such an emotional impact. It changes one note, and you’re sucked into a deeper level of emotion of the song. It’s effortlessly epic! ""I’ve used 'Gosh' so many times to warm up before a show, to get in a very focussed sense before a performance or doing anything high-pressure. It’s definitely our tour song. It has so many emotional memories for everyone that was on tour – our cameraman had to go ‘cause his first son was about to be born, so we played that song for him when he left. It’s never got boring to me, and I think I’ve rinsed it for about two years now! It’s never lost its magic. It just gives me life every time I hear it."

"It was one of my cassettes but I think that this is my favourite Beatles record. When I was really young my older brother were really into them. There was a very small selection of records in the house so we just listened to those records over and over again. Two of them were The Wall and Dark Side Of The Moon, one of my brothers was big Pink Floyd fan. Another was Dire Straits, Brothers In Arms, and Don McLean's American Pie, and the White Album, which led me to other Beatles stuff. But I love Abbey Road because it's so clearly an album, in that there's clearly a first song and a last song and all the songs in the middle are in an order. You couldn't listen to Abbey Road on shuffle and I like that. I think we've lost a lot of that these days. Things end up just being these singles and no one really buys albums anymore. Albums just aren't constructed that way as much anymore; the whole, the complete package, a narrative, an arc. The first copy I got had somehow been fucked up in the manufacturing process or something because side B was on side A. I remember the first time I listened to it I was listening to it out of order and it sounded weird to me, it felt weird. Then when I realised that it was backwards I listened to it again in the correct order and I was like, "oh, I get it". I also feel like the songs on that record, save for 'Octopus's Garden', also have some darkness about them, which I really like."