"He's new to me, a Londoner, and relatively recent. Again I fall back on the challenge of digging through so many day-to-day musical releases in that grandiose search for something satisfying. This came as a pleasant surprise, without any backstory whatsoever. I first came as a visitor to London in the ‘70s and it was a period of discovery. London was probably the liveliest place to experience something new. Here it's probably the lyrical content and a consistency that strikes me most. Some people can even find messaging musical offerings that have no singer whatsoever: it's messaging. I think that's a good word. 

I was just wrapping up an appearance where I bumped into the great guitarist Steve Cropper from Booker T. & The M.G.'s and of course they were the backing band for so many of the great artists on the Stax label. I said, ""Gee, Steve, the Stax records had a remarkable sound. Release by release they had a consistency you could identify. How did you dream up the idea?"" And he said, ""Well… we didn't. I agree that the Stax records have a recognisable character. But the studio in Memphis was in one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods. To avoid having the gear stolen after a probable break-in, we nailed everything to the floor!""

"This is the pinnacle of the 'magic four' line up. I discovered Alice Cooper when he did School's Out: I thought it was great. It was all the bits of glam that I liked. It was theatrical in a comical way. Cooper was an American band that seemed very British - there wasn't a great deal of difference between them and, say, Wizzard to me. I heard School's Out, went down town with my mum and brought two Alice Cooper albums - Love It To Death and Killer for about five shillings each. I got School's Out the next week and loved the theatrics. I really got into Cooper - 'Halo of Flies' etc. It was horror music, way ahead. I laugh when people try to tell me Marilyn Manson is scary: I think 'you weren't around in 71, mate'. Then of course, knowing the albums inside out a year later, out comes Billion Dollar Babies - it has this fantastic opening song 'Hello Hooray' which has this amazing guitar part at the start. And then 'Raped And Freezing' and 'Elected'. There was a really dark psychedelic edge to it. They felt like a band in charge of what they were doing. It was glamorous; it was exotic; it was dangerous. That was the kind of stuff that I liked."