"Gone With the Wind, and The Wizard of Oz, were two movies that I grew up with and had a lasting effect on me. Scarlett O’Hara was a huge influence, unfortunately [laughs], and I had to break myself out of the habit of the sort of “fiddle-dee-dee” kind of thing. As I’ve gotten older and watched the movie, I love the cinematography; it was just such a groundbreaking movie. It’s interesting now to see, in looking back, how we approached race in Hollywood, and how it’s changed so much. It was just epic and romantic and sweeping at that time in my life — usually I pick the movies because of the time I watched them in my life and what they meant to me then. I saw Gone With the Wind when I was about 13, which is a dangerous time to show it to a young lady. [laughs] I was obsessed with it. It was so romantic: the gowns, the drama, the war? and I loved American history, as well; it was my favorite subject. I was a freak on Gone With the Wind."

"Another would be Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America. I know they finally did a new complete version; they restored it back to the original as close as they could. I think Scorsese was involved with that. I haven’t seen that. I think there’s another 12 minutes added; that’s what I’ve heard. Anyway, that’s been one of my favorite movies forever.I think it’s one of the most important movies I’ve ever seen, because I was like a young teenager when I saw it the first time, and I was so… I mean, I grew up in the countryside in a small village in Denmark, as far from the Lower East Side of New York as you can possibly get, and still I remember just identifying 100 percent with Noodles, the main character. I was feeling everything. I was going through his heartbreak. And I do remember at the time feeling like, “I want to do that. Imagine if I could be in something where someone else could have the experience I just had watching this movie.” So that was a very important film for me. I’ve seen it many times, and it’s just beautiful."

"Iggy reminds me a lot of me. And it's all in that name; it's all in the title of that album. It’s raw power, you know? I like the funk that David Bowie was able to get behind Iggy. Believe it or not, I first saw an image of Iggy Pop at church, and they were talking about secret messages and backward masking - and they had [a picture of] Iggy Pop looking crazy. I didn't get into it until later, but I think how I was introduced to it was 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'. And what I like about Iggy is it's just genuine raunch. And the album seems like it’s all done in one take. 'Let's do that one, leave it, just try something else'. With his energy on stage, it seems as if the studio was just destroyed after that album - or at least you'd like to believe that. I just read an interview with him in which he said he wrote a lot of it in Hyde Park sitting under a tree wearing pyjama's too, which gave it a cool twist as well. I just love 'Search And Destroy' and 'I Need Somebody' as well."

"I just love the songs on this. I’m not into the whole religious aspect of the band but I’ve been a fan since I saw them on Top Of The Pops doing ‘Fire’. The reason that I picked this over Achtung Baby - which is one of my favourite U2 albums from my favourite period of U2 – is that it’s just a massive album for me. When I get time to have a quiet moment on my own, I could sit and play all the songs off this on an acoustic guitar for ages. They’re just great. You don’t like it? I don’t give a fuck! Everyone that I’ve ever known – EVER KNOWN – apart from my wife – hates them. Me and my wife love them. It wasn’t the reason we got married… But everyone else I have ever met from my earliest memory in Manchester to right now talking to you has gone, 'They are fucking shit. They are what’s wrong with music.' For me it’s about the songwriting. If I could write a song like ‘Running To Stand Still’ and ‘Nobody’s Home’ by Pink Floyd then I could die happy with never writing another song again."

"If you were an American kid, then Aerosmith was a huge influence. They were probably what T Rex was to the English fans - whether you were a punk or a metaller, anything, Aerosmith was cool. I’m choosing Toys In The Attic just because it’s a great entry level album for someone checking out Aerosmith. They did this tour a few years ago where they just played stuff from the early records and, fuck, the songs were good. And I just saw them again with my wife, Mike from Pearl jam and his wife, and it was great; there were mistakes and they jammed and there was no... you know, maybe they went through a time where they were playing too many ballads, but there was none of that and even the mistakes made it seem more real. I mean how do you write songs like that? Mike and I went backstage to meet Joe Perry and we’re still those young American kids we used to be when we meet the band. I mean, what do you say to Joe Perry? Those guys are classic, every guy has their own thing."

"I remember seeing Kurt Cobain wearing a Daniel Johnston t-shirt when I was young and it looking so weird that I wanted to know what it was, but I only really got into him in 2007 when Gallows were playing in Austin, Texas, where they've got the big mural to him at SXSW. I saw the record in the store next door and fell in love with it. It was very pure; there was nothing to it, just great, genius songwriting that's full of emotion. Then I watched the documentary, The Devil And Daniel Johnston, and became a fan for life. The man is fairly tortured, but always undeniably himself. I just love musicians who are themselves, there's so much to be said for that. 'Outsider Music' is a tough term because it implies he's not welcome here, but those types of characters are beacons, they're the people that other musicians to go out and do what they to do. It's musicians like Daniel Johnston that inspire the Kurt Cobains of the world, who then inspire a generation of people to pick up a guitar. I think it's insider music."

"Having lost Robert Altman in 2006, it’s so moving to hear his commentary on this wild, dreamy movie. I saw this film in the theaters when it was released and always loved it. I don’t care what anyone says, Robert Altman has directed more interesting roles for women than just about any director alive or dead. On his commentary, Altman reveals how all Millie’s diary entries, the menus she makes up for her “dinner parties” (which she’s “famous for”), and even her eye makeup were created by actress Shelley Duvall herself. I could never get enough of Janice Rule, and seeing her in this movie, so beautiful and soulful, I get the same ache as when I see Warren Oates on-screen . . . knowing they’re gone and I will never get that chance to work with either one of them. So Janice Rule’s performance here is all the more precious to me. Sissy Spacek is able to go from completely naturalistic to totally surreal . . . and still hold her character—it’s amazing. She was very young and novice at the time, yet she completely pulls it off brilliantly."

"I was working on a film with another writer friend that didn’t happen. It was going to happen in Europe if it happened, and I had been scouting for it, and I saw this film when I was thinking about that movie, and that maybe kind of bled into First Cow. Suddenly First Cow did come together, and they were both in the same period, and they both were sort of films of peasants in their little hutches. [In Wooden Clogs], this is like a little community of workers who are working on the property of their landlord; the Chief Factor in First Cow isn’t really a property owner, but he’s more like the CEO of Firestone going to another continent and using all the resources; he’s holding this kind of power in the region. There were some thematic things, but again, it’s people in their little houses working all day – always sewing, fixing things, feeding the animals – and then around the candlelight at night telling stories and cooking in their fires and everything is very tactile. All the hay, the thatch roofs, the wooden floors, all those things – the chores, the chores, the chores."