"I think [the performances are] what it is for me with films. Like Raging Bull, for instance. It’s just beautiful. I love Robert De Niro and how he was just able to embody Jake LaMotta that way. That was inspiring to me. I remember thinking, “Oh wow, this guy is just like a chameleon.” He’s just able to take on the spirit of someone and become this person. I was really fascinated by that. The fact that he went on to gain all this weight for LaMotta in the later years, and his relationship with his brother; it’s so powerful. I had a younger brother. I just really related to that. And their relationship, how they just love each other so much, but do such awful things to each other sometimes. And the whole story itself, the life of a fighter. What makes a fighter and what makes a fighter kick? I’m also a huge boxing fan. I box. That was something that I considered doing as a profession at one point, until I got punched really f—ing hard [laughing]. It’s just an awful f—ing feeling, and it sucked. And I was like, “I’m not going to do this for a living; there’s no way [laughing].” And with that, my whole attitude changed about that really quick. But I have so much respect for what those guys do, the fact that these guys — I mean, they literally fight for a living, and they train so hard. I’ve been in the gym and I see what these guys do. It’s also a poverty thing, too, in a lot of ways. I don’t think a lot of really wealthy people jump in the gym and decide they want to be a boxer. It’s usually these guys; “I’m gonna make something for me. I’m gonna make something for my family. I’m gonna do it by training six, seven, eight hours a day and getting in the ring with one other man. And f—ing laying it all on the f—ing line.” I have a great respect for that. It’s one of those movies you can feel. It’s visceral that way. And the dialogue just seems to come almost effortlessly. So much like life; it really is like you are watching this piece of life. I really love films like that. "

"I remember when we first got it I could only see the darkness of it. I couldn't get underneath it where all the light is. I was impermeable to it somehow. And one day, you wonder what happens, why did I not get this? One day the door opened and I received all of its beauty. I could not believe that I had not been able to hear it before. In terms of being a composer, for me Milton Nascimento is on the top shelf. There is such a power in the chord changes. He's got to be the king of those, in my world at least. What I like about music is that it's transformative and it's transporting, and I think he's my favourite transporter of all. You go on such journeys with his songs, and this is difficult to do. He obviously has a gift and also works very hard at it. He's very dedicated to his art. But I've rarely been so transported as when listening to this album, and I don't ask much more of music sometimes than just to be transported. I was not really aware of the lyrical content that much. The sleeve tells you a lot, for sure, about people struggling or just being resigned to certain conditions. I've been to Brazil a couple of times and you see quite a lot of poverty, but a lot of poorer people do own a big TV to watch the football on, and I didn't feel like 'oh my god this is about to explode', like I did in America in certain quarters. In some poor quarters of North America there is such tension, but I didn't feel the same tension in Brazil. It's more mellow even among the poorer classes. I know that it's very divided, with a lot of walls and high security buildings for the richer middle classes, but I felt that the poorer people weren't on the verge of rioting: somehow there was more acceptance. I don't know; obviously there are very complex societal issues, but this album captures a sense of joy and beauty and it's amazing to put that into music. We all have joy: it's inbuilt, and music can help us find that joy, that joi d'vivre."