""I chose this one because it has 'War Pigs'. It's quintessentially Sabbath even now. They have to play those songs because they are the ones that say everything about that band. Tony [Iommi, guitarist] has said that they were in and out in a few hours when they were making those first records, and this was a pretty quick follow-up. He's a riff master. It's just riffs. It's the essence and the purity of Sabbath that I love, and on this record they really nail it. If somebody were to ask me about Sabbath, what they represent and what they've done, I'd tell them to just go and listen to this record because it encapsulates them so well. They were a Birmingham band too and I think it just shows that a lot of bands from that Midlands region were very prolific. There was a lot of activity going on in and around the Birmingham area. I've always said that the Beatles were responsible for breaking the wall around London down, because before them there was this idea that you had to be from London to be successful. But them being from Liverpool and then later bands like Sabbath from Birmingham sent a message that it wasn't the case and I think that's great. The way that the scene was in Birmingham at that time, we had a fabulous club called Mothers where everybody played. I saw everyone play there: Cream, Sabbath, Pink Floyd. It made Birmingham a real hotbed outside of London for that style of music. We were friends with Sabbath, and I've always considered them to be the inventors of the heavy metal sound. We knew each other and for them to suddenly have this massive impact with this record and be on the radio and in the NME was thrilling. It was before the internet so it took time to get the word out but that made it more exciting to watch for me. When they went to America we were in awe of them because everyone wanted to go to America. Of course we did a few years later, but that was only because of this heavy metal sound that they were responsible for."

"I was 10 years old and I didn’t listen to rock ‘n’ roll. I was at a friend’s house and we were playing Warhammer, because I’m cool, and his older brother had an Iron Maiden poster and I thought it was very cool. It grabbed me and I didn’t realise it was for a band. I mentioned it to my parents and about a week later my dad brought me a copy of Killers on cassette from the Our Price at Waterloo Station. I can still remember hearing the opening track. It was like a switch flipping in my head. It was immediately apparent that this was my thing. Rock ‘n’ roll arrived very suddenly and forcefully in my life. One of the things I love about Maiden still, is that they are resolutely impervious to fashion. They’re just Maiden, they have always been Maiden and they don’t give a f*** You can take a lot of my records away from me, but I’ve got a lot of collector’s edition boxsets of Maiden and I would fight for them harder than most things in my possession. One of the things I love about Maiden still is that they are resolutely impervious to fashion. They’re just Maiden, they have always been Maiden and they don’t give a fuck. There’s something punk about that. They weren’t cool in 1980, they weren’t cool in 1990, they weren’t cool in 2000 and they weren’t cool in 2010, but they still go about what they do selling out arenas all over the world."