"As a bass player and singer I liked Jack Bruce’s style. And then there was Clapton. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was singing what song, but this really influential on a generation of musicians, as was Jimi Hendrix – but I discovered Cream slightly before Hendrix. I liked both sides of Cream – the jamming and the songs – and Paul and l used to play music like that with jamming and long solos. I lost interest in Clapton after Cream, because I liked him best when he was playing through 1000 watts. I do like songs like ‘Layla’, because I’m a songwriter, but I didn’t follow him when he returned specifically to playing the blues. For that I preferred Gary Moore."

"Sirk is actually a new filmmaker for me. I’ve been waiting to see one of his movies again in a theater—I sometimes do that when I feel like a filmmaker is going to be really important for me. I saw Imitation of Life for the first time two years ago, and it really blew my mind. Then I saw a print of All That Heaven Allows last year in Berlin. I’m very curious how Sirk’s films played when he was alive and what was talked about when they premiered, because they seem so revolutionary to me in many ways–the social issues, especially. And obviously the colors in his movies are huge. I don’t know enough about Sirk, but I want to."

"This movie is the best example of the theme “if you love someone, sometimes you have to let them go.” This guy [Rick], he has fallen in love with this woman, and he can’t get over her. She comes back, and she’s married to this freedom fighter, someone that the Nazis are hunting. If he doesn’t give her these two plane tickets, he gets the girl, because the Nazis will find this guy. If he gives her the tickets, her husband is saved and he’ll never see her again. Boy, what a choice. Love often confronts us with some choices that are the toughest things of all. They include compromise and at times, sacrifice. And to me, Casablanca did that phenomenally well."