"Déclassé doubles being kinda a Ripley thing, The American Friend has a trashy yet seductive sister called Ripley’s Game, which, if you haven’t seen it, has John Malkovich and a very GoldenEye vibe. I watch both on regular rotation. But it’s really so wild that The American Friend is the older film, because where Ripley’s Game is like a classic Hollywood cash-in, The American Friend is a radical reinterpretation of the material. It says all the loud parts quiet in a way that deepens the pathos and significance of the Ripley cycle. Rather than being a social-climbing dandy, Dennis Hopper’s Ripley is a mumbling cowboy hipster—it’s maybe his most likable role. And Bruno Ganz’s Jonathan, who can so easily just be a pathetic sucker, is instead an existential hero. But for all its understatement and the arty languid pacing, when the film needs to be—as in the train scene—it’s as taut and calculated as Hitchcock. Oh man, and that stuff about the Beatles and Hamburg is so damn smart. It’s crazy that a director whose work is all over the place could produce a film so totally organic and emotionally satisfying. Honestly it’s not fair."

"I was playing guitar when this came out and I tried to learn all the riffs. I loved that idea of transforming the blues into heavy rock – taking blues classics and giving them a twist. A lot of the music was traditional blues songs, but the Stones had done the same thing in taking them and twisting them. So many British bands took blues songs and made them famous –there are people who think ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ was written by the Beatles, and a lot of people didn’t know who BB King was until Zeppelin made him famous. When I was young my friend’s brother played guitar. He was really into blues, playing Chuck Berry, and he would play all these old recordings, so I knew all of them. All those licks I heard, I would then hear Clapton and all those guys play. I saw Zeppelin at Bath Festival [in 1970] from a long way off – the violin bow solo with the echo chamber went on for hours, but they were great. I’d never been to anything like a festival before, and that was the first real one, I was on awe."

"I was obsessed with this record from the first time I heard it. Everything about Joe Meek's story is fascinating. The way he worked, the way he lived. As a producer, he turned down the Beatles, saying "The Merseybeat sound is going nowhere." This record was made in 1960 and it's berserk. It captures a time when space exploration was an international agenda. 'Telstar' had captured the mood when the first satellites went up; this record went a lot further, imagining an entire planet beyond our solar system. It's an artist you know doing a record that's so far from what you thought they were capable of: "Really, this is the same person?" I just got obsessed with it. I only had a taped version of it which, to me, isn't like actually having the record. I was in Japan a few years later, before it was reissued, and I found a bootleg copy there at great expense. It's almost like an early hauntological recording; it's very crude but incredibly evocative. It's interesting to wonder what would have happened to Joe Meek had his story turned out differently…"

"This reminds me of recording at Sawmills Studios at Fowey in Cornwall. It was a really beautiful environment and, thanks to the estuary, you had to come over by boat, loading the gear on depending on whether the tide was in. Then once you arrived it was this cut-off, really beautiful house. It felt like a holiday camp. Those first days in the studio were so exciting, we almost couldn’t contain ourselves. We were desperate to get in and start setting stuff up. We’d done a lot of four-track demos in the living room of the cottages so we kind of knew what we were doing but it was a very free time. I remember Danny and I being in the main living area there and getting really hooked on Either/Or. I think it was his almost Beatles-like sensibility in terms of his melodies and song structure. The technical side of things always interests me and I saw him doing similar things: finding a way to play four chords in a slightly odd way. His stuff wouldn’t always land on the chord that you expect, which was cool and very inspiring."

"This was the first song where I really enjoyed some of the production stuff in it. I really love different cultures and I’m really into this kind of vibe. I really liked it when I was a kid, I heard it when I was a sixteen-year-old kid, not like four, I was a bit older. “I found all my music through CD’s, even though there were other platforms, I was just really slow. We didn’t have stuff at home like a TV or radio, so I discovered this through a CD because I really liked the cover and that’s why I bought it, an LP actually, so old-fashioned! It was the second LP I ever bought for myself. “The cover was really nice, and I just really liked it. And of course I knew about The Beatles, I knew that they were a big name, and I should listen to them and see if I like them or not. I just really realised that you can play along with things, and that’s when I became a producer.”"

"The ‘60s was such a powerful decade for music, but in the ‘70s it suddenly felt really old to me. If you’d have asked me about The Beach Boys and The Beatles at that point, I’d have called it a load of old tosh. I was looking for my thing and the new thing, and Bowie led me into The Velvet Underground, which led me into glam rock and the New York punk scene. I remember first seeing ‘Starman’ on Top Of The Pops and I’d never seen anyone who looked like David Bowie did - it was all sparkly and mad hair, but the song sounded amazing. The message of there being something out there for you really hit home with a lot of people who were my age, and it came at a time when everyone was searching for something that our generation could call music. Bowie had his moments as an artist, didn’t he? It’s a controversial thing to say, but I think Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory were the only great albums he did really. He had fantastic tracks from other albums - I love “Heroes” and I love “Ashes To Ashes”, they’re brilliant songs - but in terms of albums, it’s Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory that mean a lot to me.”"

"Now, some people give you shit for picking a best of over a studio album but The Who are totally one of those bands. I do not dig any of their albums. The only album that isn’t a hits collection that I can sit through from start to finish is Live At Leeds. On their studio albums there is always some half-arsed concept hung on a few good tunes. But, The Ultimate Collection is… fucking hell. If you’re of a certain age and you play guitar based music, they’re up there with the Beatles to me. You just have to look at the singles, ‘My Generation’, ‘The Kids Are Alright’ all the way through to ‘Pinball Wizard’ and even ‘You Better You Bet’ is fucking good. The thing about best-ofs is right from the time when I was a teenager right up until the point I actually earned some proper money, all I could afford was best-ofs. I’m not interested in David Bowie’s albums, do you know what I mean? Give me ChangesOneBowie and ChangesTwoBowie. When you can only afford to buy one album a fortnight or whatever it’s too much of a gamble to buy an actual album. Give me a best of. It’s the best… of… that person!"