"I saw the film The Graduate when I was 15 and heard the track 'The Sound Of Silence' and I immediately went out and bought the songbook and learned every song. Hearing Simon & Garfunkel was the thing that made me decide I would really like to make music for a living. I could play the songs, and suddenly music seemed much less foreign to me. Before that it was watching people on Top Of The Pops doing their thing, and it was just another world to me, it didn't seem like something that could be homegrown or that I could possibly achieve. At the time I'd just started going to the school guitar club and learning basic chords, and this music came along and I thought, ""Ah, I can learn that"". I like the simplicity of the lyrics, and there's a naivety to the songwriting, and when they write about New York and that, now I live here and have been visiting for years, I can see where their inspirations came from. You can't deliberately be naive, you write simple songs I guess, and hopefully something that you do happens in the writing process. I'm really into melody, I couldn't listen to a jazz fusion record for instance, I'm the opposite end of the scale, that's all."

"I just feel like that’s a movie that I saw when I was a kid, and you watch it over and over and over again, and you’re like, “Oh, Steve Martin’s doing bits, but they fit a story.” And it’s beautifully shot and directed by Carl Reiner, which some people don’t realize, and I just can’t think of a movie that informed my comedic personality more than The Jerk. It’s also a dumb character… it breaks all these stupid rules that Hollywood has for the sake of humor, and for the sake of jokes, and it’s a feel-good movie. Oh, man. I watch it over and over and over again. It’s got bits of Woody Allen’s kind of mysticalism, but it’s not. It’s jokey but the jokes don’t have punchlines. It’s like a Steve Martin album live, and they did a good job with making it a story. In a lot of ways you have no Borat without The Jerk, you have no anything, Lebowski; all those characters are Jerk-inspired. I play dumb quite a bit; I’ll say that right now. I don’t know if you call it a crutch, or what, but I tend to lean dumb… I don’t think I would have been able to get away with that had it not been for that movie."

"Oh, this is brilliant! And the sound George Martin got on it! I love the opening drumbeat and the bleed with all the drums leaking onto the guitar mics and sometimes onto the vocals if they did the whole track live. The sound of it, to me, was real, raw excitement. They were a great group, they really were. From their days in Hamburg, they were so tight and on that record it really shows how brilliant they were. I think ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ was probably the greatest ever English rock’n’roll song. I would imagine that it’s a good as any old American rock’n’roll song, like the real thing. The real stuff. As good as a Chuck Berry tune or something. It was as solid as anything I’d ever heard or better. With the rock’n’roll records I’d started playing a bit by then – not bad, but a bit – and this song was nice and simple but don’t let that simplicity fool you. Some of the hardest stuff to do is the simple stuff, to make it effective and make it real and make it worthwhile. I thought it was unbelievable and I still do. Today, I still think, ""how the fuck did you do that""? It was like giving it back to the Americans: ""'ere y'are – we can do this as well!""

"I think when we were kids it was all about Sgt. Pepper’s. There were a few albums that my dad had that we played a lot and that was one of them; we didn’t get far beyond that. And then when I eventually started listening to the old, old stuff, I didn’t like it so much. I realise that the innovations that they made composition-wise coloured all of pop music and a lot of rock as well – it coloured all of music really! But I wasn’t into it, not into listening to it. But then I decided to educate myself on The White Album, and I used it for everything: walking, working out etc. And I love it. I actually saw some footage of Paul McCartney doing ‘Helter Skelter’ recently and thought he really nailed it – I think he still does that song really well. I just love The White Album and I prefer it to all the other Beatles stuff. I can’t explain it though. I don’t even especially like any of the songs, it’s just that as a listening experience you can find yourself immersed in it while running on a treadmill as much as you can laying in your bed. It’s really versatile. I love all the Beatles’ stuff and it’s all eclectic, but I think this album is even more so."

"It came out in 1980 and I have a sister with an intellectual disability. I think in 1980 — when I was 12 and I saw The Elephant Man for the first time — the film just struck a chord in me that nothing ever had before, and it does to this day when I watch it. Obviously the performances by Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt and John Gielgud, etc. are just so sensitive and touching that it’s heartbreaking for me. It really touches me in a way that I think has — not to suggest that my sister has the same condition that Joseph Merrick had — but the way in which that character feels ostracized and the way in which people are judgmental of him are all things that really hit home for me as a young boy trying to protect my sister out there in the world. Very much connected to my upbringing, but obviously quite a different story. But I just think Anthony Hopkins in that film, the way that David Lynch captured him, and obviously the way he performed that role of Freddy Treves just… There’s nothing better. Anthony Hopkins is someone who I think does sensitivity on screen better than anybody anyway, so his heartbreak and his compassion for that character was just unforgettable really."