"I picked Steve Reich because I think it changed the parameters of how I thought about music. At the time I was 17, playing in The Edmund Fitzgerald and I hadn't really ever been aware of modern classical or minimalism and it inspired me and also reinforced stuff that I intuitively liked in music, such as points of sounds and structural emphasis. The band Youthmovies introduced me to Reich - they had a quite formative effect on me in a sense that, up until then, I still listened to music in a tribal way, as in I had to identify with whatever subculture was going on, so I listened to Skinny Puppy and really plunged my identity into that, for example. I was in that teenage phase of tying up your fashion and your self identity with music. They also played me Gwen Stefani, Missy Elliott and Stars Of The Lid and they showed me that you didn't have to only identify with one tribe - they broke that way of thinking down. So that record was really important. And on a more simplistic level, it's just stunning. It's the kind of record you can listen to in any environment, unbound by context - it induces a trance-like state. It's a particularly good record to listen to when you're on the Underground, it's soothing - the perfect soundtrack to seeing thousands of people walking past you. He's one of my top five favourite musicians of all time."

"Many of the bands on this list are British. I was heavily influenced by British bands. At that particular time [Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, etc. were releasing music] there was just an overwhelming amount of great music from across the Pond, from The Beatles forward. There was so much quantity and quality. All of these bands, in one way or another, either spurted out each other or inspired each other or created a split for somebody to go a different way. That sort of environment, using my own experience, with what happened in our small town with a handful of bands, it was a healthy level of respect and competition at the same time that kind of spurred the growth of all our bands. I'd assume it would be the same for a lot of these UK bands. To all metalheads, British Steel is one of the flagship records of all times. I dunno how many times I've been hanging with Dimebag [Darrell] and Vinnie Paul [from Pantera and Damageplan] and be cranking that record. You know, Dime always had a razor blade [pendant] around his neck and that's because of this record. These are some of the first riffs I started really learning how to play. K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton are one of the all-time great dual guitars in metal, for sure, and Rob Halford is just the best. There's nobody like him."