"On the first Strokes tour we had a Libertines demo on the bus. I remember thinking 'Oh man there's already a British version of The Strokes? That's fast, this is only the first tour!' Not that they were, but that was the perception around them. What is so cool about The Libertines is in fact that they're in that tradition of great British bands that really draw on being British to make a very special version of rock. The Sex Pistols are in that tradition, The Clash, all these really cool English bands that make you want to be some sort of geezer and know what a "two bob cunt" is. So being label mates with The Libertines and becoming friend with them they indoctrinated me into this whole British universe: listening to Chas And Dave, that comedian Tony Hancock and all kinds of weird British shit. In a way they became this vital group that almost channeled Lord Byron or Percy Shelley. They were almost a subculture unto themselves. At a time when England is in such a flux, their music reminds everyone why people love what being British is. The way they re-appropriated Albion and Blake's vision of England, it was just really beautiful. Their version of British, for me as a New Yorker, immediately made me want to learn about London and go to all these places. Their first record was a calling for people to learn about the history of England, their music made you want to educate yourself, but it is also so fucking catchy. I covered their song 'What A Waster' while they were in New York. They were recording 'Don't Look Back Into The Sun' at a studio but they were making these endless demo tapes that eventually appeared as the 'Babyshambles Sessions'. My version of their song was recorded while they were doing those. For me they were a band that birthed a new romantic movement in England."

"I was about fifteen-years-old and I had just started playing drums and somebody played this album in its entirety on the radio. My Dad had a garden centre at the time and I used to sit in the pickup truck listening to the radio – you know, in its own bizarre way [at that age], you just want to be on your own. So I remember being in that van and the radio DJ saying something about AC/DC and they put it on – I was nailed to my seat. And I'm a drummer, I've always liked rock bands and I've got a mid-life crisis band with some friends – we're called The Luddites. We just play three-piece punk or rock. We murder some of the classics for charity – that's how we get away with it. We go from Sex Pistols to Clash to Foo Fighters to Kings of Leon and so on. Really anthemic songs! Those last two bands have got an odd place in a lot of people's music world – certainly that very guitar heavy rock sound of the Foo Fighters – you would be shocked at some of the people who are into this heavy rock sound. Certain people – a mom with three kids for example – are really into this music! But it's all melodically very strong. Where were we? Oh yes, AC/DC. I made a cassette of this album. I used to drum to this album. Phil Rudd was a monster on the drums. He doesn't do anything – he's the rock Ringo. Whatever he's done needs to be done. People take the piss out of Ringo but everything he did was where it should be. How did I change from being a drummer to a singer? I borrowed a guitar from a guy in the band and fumbled through a few chords and tried to write songs and I became the singer because of that."

"I think there is an argument to be made for Wire being one of the greatest ever bands to come out of the UK. They have become a band to namedrop over the last 20 years and rightly so. In 1977 or 1978, me and my mates were wagging school and listening to whatever new records were out at the time, and that would be invariably punk records. A couple of my friends were into The Stranglers, which never really did it for me. I was listening to The Only Ones and Generation X and things like that. When [punk compilation] The Roxy London WC2 came out you had to have it and spend your hard-earned pocket money on it, but it was a disappointing, shouty affair. It was badly recorded with a number of bands who didn't do much for me. However, it had 'Lowdown' by Wire on it and the song stood out by a million miles. There was brains and originality behind the song. When 154 came out it was so startling as it was so ahead of its time. Well, it was of the time but broke away from the norm, which was very much still rooted in an aggressive rock & roll heartland. Wire really stretched sounds and included keyboards on their records, which at the time was a very brave move. I am trying my hardest not to use the word 'arty' but in this case, they owned that word. I had left school at that time and moved away from my parents and was living on my own. That period was key for me as a person and Wire's approach to guitar was just something I couldn't ignore. It was a real pointer away from the blues-based guitar playing which dominated pop music - including punk - since rock music had started. As a young guitar player, discovering 154 showed me a world that was an alternative way of looking at the instrument. It has stuck with me all the way through my career."

"It's a unique combination of what Zack de la Rocha is doing with his voice and what Tom Morello [guitarist] is doing. If you separate the two, you find yourself thinking: "Well, how could this possibly work?" But again they were game changers. They came along at a time in Los Angeles when there was nobody else doing that style. I don't think anyone has done anything like that successfully. They were a band that were immersed in different kinds of activism and that was something that definitely caught my attention. Who else was doing that? Who was doing that and selling millions of records? And, of course, by doing that they were able to cross over into different scenes and different generations of people that could listen to that type of music. Some of the stuff on here is still just as relevant today as it was when it was released. It's just the intensity of some of those messages for me as a singer. He performs with such conviction. You have got to believe what Zack is saying and he makes you understand what he's talking about. That's the heart of what Rage is all about. They're all behind exactly what he's saying. There's been a lot made in recent years of the idea that bands don't have anything to say anymore, or that they're ambivalent now, but I think everyone is saying something. Even Priest have made a comment in 'Crossfire', where we talk about religion and gun violence. I think a lot of the time these messages just slip under the radar for some people. Priest have never pushed back from making a comment on things that we see in the world or that affect us and think need to be commented on. So I think it's definitely out there. It's just that bands are now doing it a lot more subtly than Rage did."

"I heard this around second year at school, I must have been about 13. I bought it on vinyl and just caned it. The production on it is great. The Meteors were completely obsessed with 1950s music, doo-wop, rockabilly. And they were purists, you know. They despised people like the Stray Cats and the Polecats and the more charty bands of the time. Nigel Lewis, the bass player, I was quite influenced by his voice. In early Sleafords stuff I try and mimic it a little. It still sounds great. It's almost comical, lots of horror references. The Meteors invented psychobilly, there weren't any psychobilly bands around before them. It would be interesting to talk to Nigel Lewis, I tried to contact him but he never really got back to me. He left after the first album and they went to shit after that really. Well, now it sounds alright. But they got more thuggish, it wasn't very intelligent. There was a little bit of nerdiness about it at the beginning. Once Nigel Lewis left, P Paul Fenech got really arrogant and it married itself to the scooter scene at the time, which was predominantly white lads on scooters, pilot jackets, skinheads. It wasn't a very nice scene at all. There was a streak of racism, very misogynistic as well, just not very intelligent. Scooter rallies were quite hostile environments, you know. I went to one in Donnington in about 1984 and Desmond Dekker played and there were skinheads trying to get onstage and batter him with pieces of wood. It was just terrible. There was a little mod contingent but it was mostly this new breed of second generation mods who turned out to be scooter boys and psychobillies as well, the two things merged almost, it wasn't very nice. I was interested in the scooter thing and mod thing but I wasn't too taken with this, ""Oh fuck off, get your tits out!"" thing, and there was a lot of that. It just wasn't very inspiring."