"I was a huge Propagandhi fan, and then John K Sampson from Propagandhi left and made a country album and everyone thought it was a bit weird. As I started getting more into the country/folk scene, I went back and revisited them and now they are my favourite band, unquestionably. I will listen to them at any time - I think I might put them on at the end of this interview. I can pick any one of their records, but this is the one that came out when I really started engaging with this scene"

"An almost perfect album. Apart from one mistake – there's a joke song on it. I think jokes should never be on records, they just don't last. The record is such an incredibly serious record, it's one of the most grown-up records ever made in that the things she's talking about and thinking about are such serious and complicated emotional situations. It's one of the only records where I actually care about the lyrics. I really listen to the lyrics and think about what she's trying to say. I've always said that country music is grown-up and she came more out of country than out of pop. Whereas pop is always about the problems of adolescence really, hooking up with someone and whether she really likes you or not, when you get to country music it's about mortgages and divorce and things like that [laughs]. It seems to me to be about real-life, grown-up issues and so seems much more interesting to me lyrically."

"People don’t understand the nature of racism here in our country. They don’t get how insidious it is…When you start reading [Mockingbird], you start to get an idea of just how awful it is that people just discriminate on the basis of race."

"It is the most enchanting book. And it’s such a brilliant idea: children born at the same hour who metaphorically encompass all the good and evil attributes of a new society. Rushdie writes with a true patriotism—a love for his country that’s not blind."