"I was reading a David Byrne interview and he was talking about Jorge Ben and this album and he talked about this track, 'Hermes Trismegisto Escreveu', and he loved the groove of it. I think it was about the time he was working with Brian Eno on My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts and there's a track called 'Regiment', for which he admitted he took the groove from that Jorge Ben track. And I loved My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts so I then tracked down África Brasil, explored it and loved it. It's weird - I want to give it more credit than it being just a party album or a dinner party album or a tour bus aftershow album, because it is more than that, but that's how I've always listened to it. It's a real go-to record for any kind of little party that I might have but musically it's not in any kind of box. It makes me feel good and I think that combination of South American and African music makes you realise that there's more to it. It has a real gravitas and weight behind it. There's a real importance about this record. Have I explored these rhythms? It's a tricky one. Supergrass did a few times. Something like 'Kiss Of Life' explored a kind of Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club/Jorge Ben vibe but you have to be careful as well; music shouldn't have any boundaries, but you have to be aware of what school you're from. You know, I don't think I'd make a particularly good rap album but I fucking love listening to it. But it's totally different listening to it. I have this view that, just because it feels great and it's fun to play, it doesn't mean that anybody wants to hear you play that. There has to be a point when you have a look at what you're good at and how the music can speak in the right way. It's a real fine line between being yourself and satisfying your pleasures but being aware that not everybody will want to hear that. But I'll tell you what - while I wasn't necessarily going for those kinds of beats from Jorge Ben and records like that, it was more the sounds and the approach and the rhythmic ideas that I was playing around with in the studio and looping a lot of stuff. I was sampling stuff from around the studio and playing beats on weird objects and then looping it. 'Oscillate' on Matador came from this little loop box that I've got and a lot of that was inspired by the vibe of African percussion and sounds and you can hear the room and the air around it. I can't be proficient in that world but I can take different elements from it that I appreciate sonically."

"I just recently saw Slacker, actually, within maybe the last year and a half. It definitely marked a certain bracket of youth at that time—and more specifically, Austin. But I love the way he captured this lackadaisical, lethargic driftiness, and conversations and characters and life. I love that trick where people are just talking and walking down the street, and then suddenly someone walks out to get something from the mailbox or something and the camera just stays with them and it becomes their story for a moment. That structure totally fascinated me. Even when I was in Seattle in the ’90s, that idea of people just hanging out, and you don’t even know what you’re doing, you’re just spending time with people and talking philosophy, but it’s not really going anywhere. You’re just talking about things to talk about things, and I really identified with that. I’m surprised I didn’t see it back then. I’ve walked around Austin and done nothing and just had some random conversations with strangers and that spirit still exists there, to a certain extent. It’s not what people who are productive members of society would say is a good way to spend time, but I actually think nowadays that’s kind of a premium. I would like more of that in my life at this point, because just the overstimulation and how much information is pouring in constantly is ridiculous and also kind of false. There’s this sense of urgency and importance that we have with time. And a lot of it has to do with technology and the culture that builds around that. But I think a movie like Slacker is hard for people to watch these days. Their attention spans are much shorter, and Slacker is the antithesis. Many of the movies in the Criterion Collection are atmospheric, and sometimes people are like, “I don’t know what to do with this.” But to relax into it and use that as an example of another way of existing, I think, is important. So Slacker both reminded me of a time period and also kind of reminded me of the importance of that way of being."

"I've been a Cope fan since I was 15. He was a guy that nobody else was into, at least in my town - I'm from Temple, Texas. When you're that age and there's something you know about that you love obsessively and no one else is into it, it becomes a personal thing. I had all the records. It seemed like every time I would go down to Austin and went down to Sound Exchange there would always be a new Julian Cope record. Something older that I had never heard before or something new he was putting out that was not a main release but sort of a side release or he was releasing it itself. It sort of fed the obsession a bit. And then he was really into The 13 Floor Elevators and The 13 Floor Elevators were from Austin and then he put out a record called Droolian which had an Austin PO Box on the back and I didn't understand why that was. He wasn't here but somehow it had an Austin PO Box. I had a weird personal connections to those records. Out of all of his records, why pick Jehovahkill? I picked that one because that to me is the peak of his experimentation. It's also really great songwriting. It's a very, very kraut-influenced record. it's an expansive record. It was three sides. Not a full double album but it was three sides and on the fourth side you had an etching. He was always doing things like that. He was putting thought into it. He was the first artist I ever listened to that ran music in the run out grooves of the record. He wrote little inscriptions in the run out grooves of the record and there was all these hints and mysteries and all that stuff adds up to something. I'm not sure what right now but at the time I was just obsessed. I used to cover 'Upwards at 45 degrees' at solo shows, it's a great one. "

"When she did the video of 'Rehab', I thought 'Jesus, what is that?' - again, that initial thing... I thought, 'shit, she sounds tremendous, who is this kid?' And it looked great, and the arrangement was great and the whole package was great, and I had to get the album. So I got the CD and it just got better and better. You hear her getting into the ballad, 'Love Is A Losing Game' - that's like a standard, that comes from a jazz standard, something one of the old jazzers would have done, that's how good that is. She nails the shit out if it. The whole album is tremendous, and it's just a shame - making an album like that and then nothing. The band I take on the road with me is the same brass section that she used to use. So when she died, we were in France and I saw it on BBC news, and I came down to the bar that night and I said 'my God, how did that happen? She must have thought she was indestructible', and they said the opposite - she had loved living on the edge apparently, it was that thing of danger, that's what they felt. I wish I'd met her and had a chance to sing with her because she had a lot to offer, and she had a great spirit and what she sang was tremendous. I would have loved to duet. When you record something was somebody, it lasts forever, and if you haven't, it's a shame. It's a shame that it [drug addiction] happened to her so early. With Whitney Houston, she's left a wealth of material to listen to, but Amy Winehouse, I know she did an album before that, but Back To Black is tremendous, you just think 'shit!' Just waiting for the next, and now there is no next and it's a bloody shame. The drug thing, it never appealed to me. Sniffing cocaine, I know what it does. For singers, it's death - it gets on your vocal chords, it's bad news. Burns your bloody nose out. I've never taken any drugs. The only thing I took was at the beginning, purple hearts, because I was doing so many shows and I was getting tired. I think it was Viv Prince, who used to be a drummer with The Pretty Things, who said, 'try one of these, that'll keep you awake', but then I realised you couldn't go to sleep! So that was a short-lived thing. And I'll take a sleeping pill when I've got to go to sleep and I know I need to get up, but mild ones, nothing heavy, because I don't want anything to get in the way of what I do. And when I've gone a little too far drinking and I think 'oh shit, I've got to get up tomorrow', then you see it, and you think 'you fucking idiot! You stretched it too far last night'. So you do that enough times and you learn, but some people don't learn."