"I was already into the game and I already knew Cube when this came out. I already knew Public Enemy too because I worked with them with my first band, The 7A3 and they produced one song on our album. At this time, I was hip to the game and when Ice Cube released this record I was just like 'This is fucking dope.' I knew a little of what to expect [from hearing mixtapes] but he was taking the best from two different coasts and just putting them both together; you knew this shit was going to be special – there's no way it could not be. With his time in NWA coming out of the West Coast, it was the first time you heard a great rapper coming out of that area: not a good one, but a great one with power. Now you had a West Coast MC with a New York based production unit, a New York sound which was something revolutionary in the game and I felt that the power that he brought was incredible. Ice Cube brought what was going on in certain parts of LA to the world. He left NWA, he did his first solo album with Public Enemy's producers. The storytelling, the self-centric lyricism of Ice Cube was phenomenal: that shit just took over. It was in many ways like a gangster Public Enemy and it changed the way people viewed and listened to this music, including me. Previously, you thought there were limits to how far you could go when you listened to this type of music but he just shattered every fucking limit that you thought there was: Ice Cube shattered your perception of music."

"This is between Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Hmm, I’m going to go with Mr. Deeds. Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur. It’s just an amazing film. It’s very funny. Longfellow Deeds is the main character, Gary Cooper plays him and he’s so appealing. I think it’s the definition of appeal. So Longfellow Deeds is this guy who lives in this tiny town, he’s makes a living writing greeting cards. Just a sweet guy. There’s a distant relative who’s this gigantic millionaire. Has a huge fortune. So this industrialist dies in New York City and they trace [him] down, he’s the only heir to this huge fortune. So they bring him to New York and now he runs this company. [But] this really ace reporter for the local paper wants to get the dirt on him, and [she’s played by] Jean Arthur. So she waits for him to come out and she acts like she’s starving, like she’s a homeless woman during the Depression. So he picks her up and feeds her some food and they start doing things together. And he absolutely falls in love with her. But, so, there’s all this dirt that’s coming out in the newspapers and they don’t know how it’s happening. But the scene…it starts very funny, but, again, it’s that heart, it’s balancing humor and heart that Frank Capra did so well, the scene in which he finds out the woman he’s fallen in love with is actually the one who’s doing all the dirt is one of the most emotional scenes in the film. And it’s so underplayed. So beautifully underplayed. He gets behind this column but you know he’s crying. And he can’t bear anyone to see him. It’s so incredibly moving and touching."

"I’ve known this song for about ten years from when I picked up the compilation album Disco Not Disco on tour, I found it on vinyl and I just liked the cover. This song’s from the end of the ‘70s, its New York, disco-punk and that’s my other thing, like ESG and those sort of bands, it’s the sort of song you’d hear in a weird dark New York club in the late ‘70s. “Like with a lot of these songs it’s got a groove, but it’s a slightly off the beaten track sort of groove, there’s a dirty bassline running along and a cool beat that makes it. There’s a vibe about it and it gets me going, you can put it on just before you go out, or like the Beefheart track I’ll put it on if I’m having a party. “I don’t really do dance music or funk but that doesn’t mean that stylistically I can’t attach myself to elements of them, it’s just a case of finding inspiration in anything, even if it’s not my school. There’s no reason why I can’t hear a song by Kendrick Lamar or Kanye West or whoever and hear an element of it and think ‘Fuck, that’s great’ and relate to it. It’s similar with this song, it’s like ‘Wow, that’s not what I expected’ but I’m hearing other things in it that I find inspiring from the point of view of being in a studio and creating a piece of music. It’s like ‘Copenhagen’ by Scott Walker and hearing an element of that or the percussive element of Kazino, there’s no reason why those two can’t marry together."