"I love all the early stuff - the work rate was insane. In the time we took to do two hi hats on Hysteria they'd done an entire album. Mott was when they really got it together. I didn't think the album they did with Bowie - All The Young Dudes - was a great album. It had its moments but you could tell Bowie had put all his efforts into the one song: the rest of it was a little bit thin. Cut to a year later and they're in on their own and they're basically pushed to the deep end - sink or swim. Everybody in the media had said 'what are you going to do without Bowie?!' but Ian stepped up to the plate, he really did. He came up with truly brilliant songs. Stuff like 'Violence' was taken to a completely new place, with Graham Prescott playing violin. He'd worked with Elton John. Then it ends with the most beautifully understated song 'I Wish I Was Your Mother' - the lyric, the title even. It's a really well made record. I remember Mutt used to test speakers with 'All The Way From Memphis'. As did Roy Thomas Baker, as a matter of fact. They proved they could stand alone with this one."

"Ah that's the one, unfortunately, Lou Reed hated. He couldn't stand it... but I liked it! There's such a variety of songs on it. There's one song on there - [line cuts out; we reconnect] - I told you Lou Reed hated that album! That song 'Who Loves The Sun', how good is that?! The breakdown on it, it's like a hoedown. They called it an album, but this is just an art project! A lost memo for an album... Let's come up with 16 ideas and just whittle it down. 'I Found A Reason', that song, the melody [imitates it] that was just amazing. 'Rock & Roll', I first heard that in my father's car. He had a Monte Carlo, and I thought that was cool. It came on the radio and I was like, "What is this?!" It was so simple and it was talking about a radio station in New York - and I was in New York, that was where I heard it - and I just loved the rhythm guitar and also the soaring chorus, where it's just like three notes and it kind of soars around. And that became an influence on our song called 'Ed Is Dead' - another homage!"

"Hatful of Hollow by the Great Ones. It’s funny really, because it’s not a proper Smiths album in many ways, it’s all the sessions and everything, but I think a lot of people realise it’s the best version of ‘Reel Around The Fountain’, the best version of ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’, there’s so many variations and I think every best version is on that album. ‘William It Was Really Nothing’ is two minutes long, but it packs such a punch. ‘Still Ill’, ‘You’ve Got Everything Now’, the bleakness of the cover, the grey and blue, it sums up the time. I can remember every lyric off it. The level of artistry on that record is staggering. To think that half the time they were in a shitty studio in the BBC with an engineer who didn’t know what they’re fucking doing. Johnny Marr must have been so on it. Right from the start. I know it’s predictable to pick a Smiths album but they’re just such a massive part of my youth. That’s what I’ve realised - there’s records you always go back to. It bothers me a bit, because I should be picking different records, but there you go."

"To say anything is my favourite album is a bit of a lie because I change my mind from hour to hour, but if I had to choose a desert island album it would be this. I have such a personal sentimental attachment to it because I used to watch that film with my dad, and when he died there was a video cassette left and I watched it a lot. It got me into drawing, and the music is the first musical experience I ever had when I wanted to figure out a song. I was only 6 or 7 but I wanted to figure that music out. I think it made me always prefer minor chords and gloomier sounds. Watching that film, I remember feeling like it was almost magical and also terrifying. It's quite a violent film, and sexual, it was quite overwhelming. I was terrified and excited at the same time. It was the start of a burst of creativity for me, it started me drawing and the first drawings I did were always these alien landscapes – like most young boys. I started drawing and playing music all because of that album. It wasn't until years later that I realised that this amazing score was by this guy Alain Goraguer."