"I want to write a book on the history of miming to music on TV. No, I don't, but I want to read it. I’m often surprised at how early the convention of miming to music on TV was subverted. From Ringo riding an exercise bike instead of drums on ‘I Feel Fine’ to the Faces playing football, it seems to be a wink to the camera that’s way ahead of anything else you would see at the time. The Thompson Twins seemed to be the first band solely designed to extend this joke. As a 12-year-old, I was fascinated by the fact I couldn't hear any of the instruments they were playing. They would stand behind guitars, congas and double basses but all you could hear were Prophet 5s and Emulators. I knew it was done as some kind of statement that I couldn’t fathom. These were artists, like the ones who Tony Hancock meets in The Rebel; proper oddball, hat-wearing pranksters. The backs of all the 12-inch singles from Into The Gap joined together to make a map of an island that was in the shape of the members' heads. The cassette version had an hour of alternative versions and mixes. They were a treasure trove for a geeky obsessed fan; they paid so much attention to detail. I now see their endless mixes and alternate versions of songs as a gateway into dub music; the idea that things could be transformed as much by subtracting things as adding them."

"I've never seen them live, but I've seen loads of footage of them performing live. 'Hotel California' is an incredible track, or at least I think so. It's like a best of American rock, or country rock or whatever you want to call it, it's the perfect example of that genre. It's got perfect harmonies, really good songs. I love watching them with their double necked guitars and shit like that, it's just really professional, really impressive, something that I could never do. It's an admiration thing. I got into The Eagles late, about 1990 or something. I started hearing them a lot on the radio, I'd known their songs but hadn't paid any attention to them in any detail. Then when I started listening to them properly, I thought, ""Yeah man, that's pretty damn cool"". Living in America it's been interesting to discover that there's a much bigger alternative scene here than I imagined there was. I live in Brooklyn and there's a big electronic scene here, lots of people doing experimental music. The whole thing started with electroclash really, I loved that [chuckles], it was so cheeky. Since I did that record [VCMG] with Martin Gore I've been listening to a lot of techno stuff, it's not one particular artist, but I'm on Beatport every day. It's quite a revelation, I was quite out of touch with electronic music, but now I'm finding loads of new stuff. I'm working on another collaboration record, with various DJs and mixers, it's quite a long project, but I thought that rather than work with an individual it'd be interesting to get different people, get different angles on the music. Hopefully when Martin comes off tour and has a bit of time we could do another record together, because I really enjoyed doing the last one."