"Leslie West - formerly Leslie Weinstein - was a New York guitar player who played with The Vagrants and lots of other local bands that were coming up in the New York scene. The thing about that record is the producer was Felix Pappalardi, who produced Cream as well as The Youngbloods, and was also an accomplished bass player. So, originally it was just going to be a Leslie West solo record, there was no Mountain, the name of the record was Mountain, but it was by Leslie West. But he didn't have a bass player so Felix Pappalardi played the bass, but the material started coming together so fast. I mean, songs like 'Long Red', I listened to those growing up and, in fact, a few of my songs had their beginning on Mountain songs. Bow buh duh doo dah duuh dow, that began a song called 'Watchin' You' that I wrote, with a flat third; you can hear where it crosses over, that's from 'Never In My Life', a Mountain song. His guitar playing is just undeniable. And of course 'Mississippi Queen' is great, just three chords! When I picked up the guitar and started to play licks and stuff like that, I sound like Leslie West, because intrinsically he's not about speed, he's about melody. Blues-based melody, I'll grant you, but it still holds up to me. I still play it."

"The first film would be The Professional. I think in France it’s called Léon. Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman; it was one of the first films I saw with Jean Reno and man, it just had this cool vibe and assurance. It was about this assassin with a heart of gold trying to take care of young girl he doesn’t even know – and Gary Oldman is giving this insane performance [as the villain]. [It was] the first time I discovered Gary Oldman, and I was like, “Damn, he’s like a dope actor. I’d like to be on that level one day.” Plus, it was shot in New York, and I was raised in New York and in Jersey as a young boy, up until I was 10, so that’s an element of familiarity to it. I grew up fighting, and both my parents were Marines, so I’ve always been into this element of super-spying and assassins stuff; and there were so many just cool, chilled-out moments in there where Reno was just so cool, man. He was the man. I just loved what he brought to it. I loved the whole film, and again, I loved the way Gary Oldman played this role, because he was the villain, yes, but he wasn’t any typical villain; you believe that he thought what he was doing was absolutely right. That performance was great."

"Moving to New York from Ohio in 1976, it was an opportunity for me to just basically gorge myself on films that I had never had an opportunity to see before. There were so many theaters, so many repertory theaters showing films. You could see three films for a dollar, you could see prints of these movies, and I was watching a lot of films. In 1977, Saturday Night Fever came out, and it was the first time I remember seeing a film twice. Sitting there and watching it once and sitting there and watching it again. Another musical choice, but different than A Hard Day’s Night because it felt like it really captured what was going on — at least what I felt was going on in New York at that particular time. Travolta’s performance in that film is one of the top ten performances I think I’ve seen in film in my entire life: very real portrayal of a character, the relationships all feel very authentic and real, and it’s got an energy and an emotional intensity that really stuck with me. Sticks with me all these years later. I always wanted to see someone do a sequel to it — not the sequel that exists, not Staying Alive, but the sequel that felt like — it would be interesting if someone would go back to do a Creed sort of version of where those characters are now."