"I discovered this band by reading an article about them in the NME of all places! Sometimes they would review things that were interesting. I bought that record, and then bought all the other records. The thing I loved about Accelerator though, was that it was just so loud, but also full of these pop hooks. It reminded me a bit of There's A Riot Goin' On, being played by a rock band or something! They have big choruses and loads going on in the music and these people trying to making an original-sounding pop record. It's also about pop music as well, and television personalities and film stars. It's a strange record that's interested in the process of making records. They said that they'd made an album that was a tribute to the 60s called Thank You and then one for the 70s called Sweet 16, and then this was their tribute to the 80s. It doesn't really sound like that, but they wanted it to maybe act like a tribute to the excesses of the 80s, and it came out as this like weird, heavily compressed, raw, funk record. I liked it so much that I then got to see them live on that Accelerator tour in Brighton, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. It was really interesting watching their dynamic."

"I really like songs that are storytelling in a way and The Kinks are great at that. “Waterloo Sunset” in particular sparked a lot of images in my mind about how you write songs and the way that melodies flow. “I think the best songs make you feel a certain way, and it’s a bit more than just the lyric really. The lyrics for “Waterloo Sunset” are brilliant but the song makes you feel like there’s a longing for a lost moment. I love the idea of two people meeting in a crowd, but with the whole atmosphere of the song, as soon as I hear it, I slip back into it and it just overwhelms me. ""There’s also a beautiful lost story within the song, the tale of a city and a river. I read that Ray Davies originally called it “Liverpool Sunset”, from when he was on tour in Liverpool and then later he changed it. “I was pretty obsessed with music from when I was quite young, and I still listen to music an awful lot. I don’t listen to these songs much anymore, but when I hear them, I love them. I think on my musical journey and absorbing that stuff, The Beatles and The Kinks were very much the beginning of it. I’m definitely sticking in an era here!"

"Montrose was one of the really important American statements made at a time when the only rock that was credible was English. They had Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie, just anything that was credible was all English and, out of nowhere, this Montrose record comes out that just kills! The American bands were sloppy and fat and looked like the Grateful Dead, and it was just pathetic. But Montrose came from the same area, the San Francisco Bay Area and it was like a breath of fresh air. That first record, even Montrose couldn't equal it, it was just better than the other American bands of the time. If you ever listen to 'Kickstart My Heart' by Mötley Crüe, that intro was note-for-note, everything was taken from 'Bad Motor Scooter', that sounds like a motorcycle going by. Clearly, Montrose was trying to do, with Sammy Hagar's vocals, a sort of American Led Zeppelin thing. But the songs were undeniable! Song after song, again: consistency. Unfortunately, after that Sammy Hagar left the band and everything changed. Ronnie Montrose never went back, never found his mojo again. Eventually he committed suicide. But when we're putting on makeup and getting ready for shows because we're in the middle of a tour, it never fails. Every other day we put on the Montrose record."