"Bands have their anthems, you know, 'You Shook Me All Night Long', all that for AC/DC sure. For Those About To Rock is the call to arms, it's the definitive anthemic album. Back In Black probably had better songs, but the band started to have a sense of itself because a band stands or should stand for something, like when you have a country you have a flag for that country. But when a flag stands for something, it takes on a meaning of its own, and then people realise that the flag doesn't just represent the country, but it represents what the country stands for. The platform - in our case, platform boots. So, For Those About To Rock We Salute You is what AC/DC is all about. The graphics and that cannon and the title - and it's why they always end their set with it - it's anthemic. 'You Shook Me All Night Long' is probably the best song they've written in my estimation, but it's not an anthem. It's because the lyrics aren't on that same level. They aren't big and bold. 'For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)' means something, it's a connection. It's like nationhood. Put your fist up in the air and say, 'Yeah! This is what I believe in!' 'You Shook Me' doesn't have that, it's just a rockin' great song. When the band realises its own meaning, when a band can see itself clearly, that's when it connects. It happened to us on Destroyer. That album cover had no guitars on it, no drums, no guitars, no stage, nothing. That's when we understood that we were bigger than the music we played. But you don't see that until someone points that out to you. When you start to see your face in parades and on walls and on tattoos and all that. And when you see that there just aren't any guitars or drums in there. People are attracted to the personas. The personas are bigger than the guitars. Whereas, it's hard to have an image of AC/DC without a guitar. Without a guitar, you would say, 'Who's that?' The same goes for Metallica or almost anybody. They're musicians. We are iconic images. That's fine for me. That's bigger. That's part of pop culture."

"Along with Sufjan, I think Regina Spektor is the other genius of this generation. I could have picked a number of Regina's records. Soviet Kitsch is the crossover, when she became accessible to a larger audience. Her first two records are records that only if you are slightly bipolar and, like me, a fantasist in music, are going to love. Soviet Kitsch found the language that was going to meet that wider audience. The songs are crazy masterpieces. They straddle a line between pop – there are catchy choruses – and craziness. 'Us' is one of my favourite songs ever written and will be played at my funeral. I got into Regina because I had bumped into her producer [Gordon Raphael], who was also the producer for The Strokes, at a festival. He has just finished working with her and he raved about this crazy woman who would play piano while hitting a drumstick against a drum stool. I had to go and check her out after that. Soviet Kitsch is astonishing, as are the ones that follow. I saw her play at The Greek in LA and realised I was watching genius. I couldn't write a song for three months after seeing her show, as I was so in awe at what I had witnessed. I have never had that experience happen before. I went back and bought every single piece of her music and for three months listened to her day and night, trying to work out what the fuck she was doing. I still haven't worked it out. I think she is channelling – she is a witch and she is channelling and that is all there is to it. I fell in love with her and was lucky enough to meet her. I was even luckier to become friends with her and her husband, and it has been amazing to have her as a genuine friend. Her husband, Jack [Dishel], made this fabulous YouTube video [:DRYVRS] with Macaulay Culkin and it became a viral sensation. Jack is fantastically talented and a natural-born stand-up comedian. He will have you belly-laughing whenever you talk to him with his honesty and gawkiness. I haven't told many people that I have become friends with both of them, and I am a little shy about telling you that."