"I have a weird relationship with David Bowie. There's a part of me that didn't want to include him out of bloody-mindedness, not out of any disrespect to him but because I get sick of talking about David Bowie, what with all those comparisons we drew. People said that Suede were like a mixture of The Smiths and Bowie, when actually there are all these other comparisons that could have been made. But I can't get away from the fact that he is a huge influence on what I do, and you can't get away from the fact that he simply is one of the greatest artists of all time and he made some of the greatest music of the 1970s, and six or seven unbelievably good records. Low is just one of them, I could have chosen Hunky Dory, Space Oddity, Scary Monsters, Young Americans. But I've chosen Low because I love the mystery of it, even though it's not his best song album - there's no 'Quicksand' or anything like that. You can tell that he's shifting, and looking for something else. My favourite track on it is 'Warszawa', with its amazing Wagnerian stirring in the music. Suede's 'Europe Is Our Playground' had a sense that it was a version of that. I love the way Low doesn't explain itself, and that it's a really odd record. I love the chronology of it, the fact that three of my favourite records ever were all made around the same time: Low, Never Mind The Bollocks and Music For Airports."

"This next one is controversial. It's Spiderland by Slint. It actually pipped out Isn't Anything by My Bloody Valentine. They did that because one of the reasons that I really love Isn't Anything is the sound of the guitars (and it's a wonderful record, don't get me wrong) but there's another record coming up that took that place. I think Spiderland was quite a transformative record when I first heard it. It was Dominic played it to me. When we started the band we made mixtapes for each other of music that we liked, which was good actually because apart from one or two, I'd never heard of any of the bands that Dominic liked. He put 'Washer' on that tape and it totally blew my mind… I actually even remember what part of the motorway I was on driving back from Dominic's house to my house when it kicked in back loud. I do have a good memory for motorways. It's got a unique atmosphere to it, it does make sense but it doesn't make sense. It's got a really eerie atmosphere, a really strange album. I love it lots. It didn't really annoy me [that Mogwai were compared to Slint] because a lot of it was through ignorance. We don't actually sound like Slint at all. A couple of songs had little sections that maybe did, ‘Christmas Steps' has a little bit in it that's Slint-ish, but I think a lot of the people that said that just didn't like us and just said that. A lot of those people probably adore Rid Of Me by PJ Harvey, which does sound like Slint! That's a great record too, but musically sounds a lot more similar to Slint than anything we did. But no, that doesn't bother me. Lance Bangs has made a film about Slint, and from what I saw of the bit they showed at ATP, I think it's going to be the best film about a rock band ever made. Unbelievable. I think people are going to be quite taken aback when they see the story of the band."