"Amy Winehouse – her music’s amazing, and she was amazing. Such a great loss to the British music industry, and to the world, really. She’s so missed ­– what a gift her music was to us. Often I’ll listen to music ‘cause musically it’s something I love, but although she ticks every box for me, I just loved what Amy was saying lyrically and how she found such a free way to be herself through music. She really took that spirit of jazz and brought it forward to now. I love Back To Black, that was a phenomenal album, but her first album, Frank, had such an edge to it, and such a rawness, that I just fell in love with it. ""I remember when I was first coming to London to do showcases – I was about 16 – the people that managed me at that point were like, ‘you need to hear this girl! She’s signed to Polydor, she’s amazing, she sits and plays guitar and she’s got these really cool songs!’ They were just raving about this girl called Amy. It was so cool that we were in this similar world. ""I remember when I went to Polydor to see if they wanted to sign me, they gave me a couple of her CDs for free. I was so excited to be in London in the first place, and then to be at a record label, then to get a free CD! I was completely gassed, and the fact it was Amy Winehouse was so cool. ""Frank is such a beautiful album and it reminds me of that time. It reminds me of a real freedom, and of feeling so inspired by what she was saying and how she was saying. There seemed to be no rules – every track was a different genre. The one thing sustaining it – the backbone of the whole album – was her and her voice and her lyrical style. That, to me, is the definition of a true artist. No matter what you put out, your style and artistry belongs to you and you’re the one that carries it through. ""With this song, 'Take The Box', it’s so visual. I don’t even think there was a video for the song, but I feel like I’ve seen it! I feel I can see the whole scenario playing: breaking up with someone, and speaking about relationships in such an open, honest way. I think that’s so important for women. You want to sugar-coat things, you want a perfect reality, and sometimes that stops people telling the truth and getting out of relationships they shouldn’t be in. Amy always gave this very frank account of what it was. ""I loved the melody and the topline of this song. I’ve really been trying to take a step back and look at the process of songwriting instead of just delving straight into it. When you get that perfect trilogy of the topline melody, the chords your using, and the lyric making sense at the same time… she did that perfectly with this song: “Your neighbours were screaming / I don't have a key for downstairs”. It’s such a memorable melody, I think that’s the first thing that pulled me in."

"Some people would say that The Smiths never really recorded one great album and that they were more of a singles band and I kind of see what they mean. I do really like Meat Is Murder, which is a weirdly psychedelic record with really long tracks. They really did the legwork with that album. But I remember before The Queen Is Dead came out it was an event… they were about to release their first album as a big band. I remember hearing the first single, ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’, and they had moved on. And then I got it and… the cover was awful… just a piece of shit. But then I played it and it starts with that sample: 'Oh take me back to dear old Blighty…' And it was, 'Fucking hell…' Just astonishing. One of the best openings to an album ever. And that’s before you get to ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’. They could have had the photograph outside of Salford Lads Club as the front cover but then Morrissey is wearing a really daft jacket. It’s brown with black love hearts on it. Very strange. I remember seeing them on that tour when they came to the G-Mex. They came on stage to 'The Queen Is Dead' and Morrissey was carrying a placard that said, 'Two pale ales please'. He had a white blazer on and shades and, fuck me, he looked like Elvis."