"I originally just dipped my toe in the water with John Coltrane. The first one I got was one of his 50s albums. My friend worked in Virgin Records in Manchester when they were a small independent mail order-type shop – it wasn't the Mega Store at that point – and they had a bit of a jazz section and occasionally they lost the covers to records, and he gave me one of his records. It was quite straight jazz, but I wasn't ready for straight jazz and so it lurked around in my record collection. Then I went for A Love Supreme, but that was too over my head at that point; it took me a while to get into that. But then I got Selflessness second-hand, and it has 'My Favourite Things' on it; it's a real out-there version of it, not the version that was the radio hit. It was recorded live and it's a record that squeezes emotion out of you and leaves you rinsed. It makes you breathe differently! It's the most engaging journey as a piece of music; it's really profound to me. It's still a record that I return to whenever I need a good head clean. It really will wash my brain out."

"It’s funny, this list, I’ve actually met a lot of the people I’ve chosen! Rufus came on tour with us in 2003, it was the first time we’d got on a tour bus and the first iPods had come out. Tim had an iPod, and I checked it out, I put it on and the album he had on there was Want One and I was completely blown away. He sounds a bit like Radiohead-does-classical, particularly on that record. I remember saying to him that he sounds a lot like Radiohead and he was a bit like, “Really?”, I don’t think he even knew their music. That album was written, I think, during the time he got clean from being really addicted to crystal meth. I mean it sent him blind and stuff, it was really serious. So the album tells that story, with just beautiful songwriting, and I don’t know if he ever got close to that album again in terms of song-writing, it’s such a phenomenal record. And I like orchestral arrangements if they’re done well, or else it can sound like Il Divo or something but he did it so well, mixing pop and classical."