"We used to do loads of gigs in Western Europe during the punk days because nobody really wanted us in London. But we were getting invites to go to Belgium and West Germany and Berlin. We went on the Trans Europe Express to go to Berlin once and this was the perfect record to listen to doing that. The way they sing and the whole Man Machine idea – they totally pulled it off. They were so ahead of the game. And when you listen to very early Human League – 'Being Boiled' and all that – you can hear the influence it had on them. I was never really interested in that synth sound for the Ants. I was more into their graphics. I used to design handbills and A4s and there was a couple of robotic themes on that. Musically that was being catered for by the Human League, who I thought were great right at the start. It was the mystery that surrounded Kraftwerk that I was into. We were in Dusseldorf once and we went looking for the Kling Klang studio, but we couldn't find it. Apparently it was just an office anyway. I loved that phonetically pronounced European vocal. It was almost like he read it off of one of those machines that tell you how to pronounce things. But it always had a really human feel. I think people often overlook their sense of humour. When we were in Australia in '81, they were touring too. And we were stood outside our hotel and they were all there – I seem to remember they were wearing white coats and they were all going cycling together. There was a real personality behind them. Kraftwerk were trying to break away from that whole post-war vibe in Germany and Dusseldorf was quite a modern city. Visiting the places where the music came from has made the records even more precious to me because it reminds me of the time."

"I was up in Toronto rehearsing for the Painkiller tour and I saw Dimebag [Darrell, guitarist] on a local TV show and he was wearing a British Steel shirt. They played some clips of their music and it just instantly struck a chord. I jumped into a taxi and went down to the studio where they were recording this show, met him and became good friends. That night they were playing at a club in Toronto, and when I saw them live I was just blown away. After that, Priest took Pantera on tour in Europe and they'd never even been out of America before, but every night they would just stun the crowd. I just knew from the moment that I saw them, they were going to be huge. It's just a really great memory. What they were doing at that particular time was revolutionary. Before Cowboys From Hell, they were finding their way. Like any band, they were just trying to find out who they were and find that spark to make something happen. When I heard 'Primal Concrete Sledge' for the first time, my reaction was to just say, "Oh my god, what is this? I've never heard anything like this before." I got to work with Dime on a song and it was a thrill and a treasure to have that opportunity. The label said that there was a movie coming out, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and asked me if I'd do a song. The one that I came up with was 'Light Comes Out The Black'. I didn't really know anyone locally who was available at the time. I picked up the phone and spoke to Dime about it and he told me to come down to Dallas because they were on a bit of a break. I flew down there the next day and played with him. It was done in more or less six hours and we ended up just sitting around trying to find something else to do with it."

"Gino Vannelli's albums were what made me feel it was possible to be a songwriter. When I was younger I used to do a lot of production work with my cousin Brian Warfield, we had our own studio. He went on later on to produce artists like Jhené Aiko and Miguel, but before that I feel like I was very much his very first hep artist, his homeboy at least, just making music together. We'd go buy records to sample and then we would work on music and go eat Yoshinoya. I remember my older brother came over, and he picked up Gino Vannelli's album on a fluke. I'd never seen it, I'd never paid attention to it, it was just sitting in the pile of records. My older brother put the first song on to find the sample and the way the record starts out grabbed my attention because of the style progressions that are happening immediately. When he left I put the record on and it washed over me and transformed me. There's songs that when you actually put them on you lose control of yourself almost, and you go into this thing where you start to sing, and all of a sudden you are a singer because this is something that you love so much. And when I would hear Gino Vannelli, I would pay attention to the lyrics, I'd pay attention to what he was singing about; some love loss or some mythology or something weird that a woman that has done to him. This is one of my favourite albums, Gist of the Gemini. Along with Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, he kind of shaped my songwriting and kind of let me know what it was to write songs. I was always told that you have to be honest in the music, but I was like 'well how do you do that?', and the people that taught me how to do that were Gino Vannelli, Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins, with a couple of other people too."