"Most of the albums I’ve chosen are from the 1970s – they are ones that moulded my style. So, Wishbone Ash invented twin harmony guitars in heavy rock [they were also a huge influence on Iron Maiden]. I used to go and see them when they played in Leeds or Sheffield or Barnsley – they were on circuit a lot in the early 70s. I was a bass player then, and they had a great bass player [Martin Turner] with a good style, with really cool vocal harmonies. Argus felt groundbreaking – it was a big explosion of rock and Wishbone Ash were a pretty loud band. It was a good grounding for me to learn their songs - this particular album is a concept album so you learned the whole thing. That’s how songs get into your psyche. In Saxon we used the twin guitar harmonies occasionally – we don’t want to copy anybody, but it is a theme, it is in there."

"This is the Keith Sweat album I like the most; you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The production of Teddy Riley… he was just the man. And Keith Sweat is a sexy name. It has a lot of character; it's like he was born to make this record. It was his birthright, just through that name alone. I was in the seventh grade I believe when it came out, and got it straight away. There's a song called 'Right and A Wrong Way' and it starts with these two chords, and then it just goes "BOOM"! Back then, we used to sit and doctor our speakers - I had these house speakers and I took the covers off and rewire them, trying to be technical. I'd lay the speaker down on its back, and I'd sprinkle powder in the woofer just for my own amusement. And then… BOOM! [mimes powder explosion]. That's why I remember that album."

"Again, a similar time in my life; I was listening to a few American psychedelic bands. There was a band called Long Ryders who did a track called ‘Looking for Lewis and Clark’ that I played, learned, used to sit and sing although I had no idea what the lyrics were. I was pretty much singing nonsense, although the song did get me into Tim Hardin! Anyway, they were one of a few bands [that were important to me], like Opal, Screaming Trees and Rain Parade, but Rain Parade was the one that changed me. This album was like an explosion in my mind. I don’t know what program it was, but I saw them perform ‘No Easy Way Down’ on TV, a filmed concert, and it was like, ‘Here is something I can fully get behind.’ It’s a slow, sludgy, drone rock anthem; the guitarist is doing the Kevin Shields tremolo thing with the guitar, but in 1985. It’s just incredible, and I have to say would have been pretty influential on the early Ride sound for sure."

"Another imperfect perfect film that came slithering into my late-adolescent consciousness at just the right time. I was a disciple by the end of the opening titles (alone worth the price of admission). This thing is a bath of Cronenberg’s cold, polite, Torontonian style, and thus makes the story’s insanity that much more insane—the form of the movie pressure-cooking the content. And what better way to dramatically illustrate this repression explosion than a scene wherein Dr. Icy Veins himself, Jeremy Irons, pounces across an operating table in a spasm of drug withdrawal, belly flopping onto his unconscious patient to rip off her mask and suck anesthetic gas. This is a film featuring twin prescription-drug-addicted gynecologists dressed like Star Wars Imperial Guards who use H. R. Giger–esque, Josef Mengele–level–scary surgical instruments to operate on the “abnormal genitalia” of women they mistake for mutants. Now, if that’s not one for the whole family, well, I don’t know what is! (See Peter Greenaway’s A Zed & Two Noughts for obvious inspiration.)"