"I first encountered Kate Bush through 'Wuthering Heights'. I remember my sister rushed out and bought that single in 1978 so I was very aware of her. The Sex Pistols and Kate Bush were my formative music, not The Smiths and David Bowie, that came later. For me Hounds Of Love is the biggest influence on [Suede's] Dog Man Star. I love the way it's a record of two halves, and the second half is a concept record about fear of drowning. It's an amazing record to listen to really late at night, unsettling and really jarring. I always wanted to make a record that was a concept album but not in an ELP sense. I wanted to make one that had a musical coherence, and wasn't just ten songs stuck together but had this sense of journey, that took the listener to a new world. And that's the impact Hounds Of Love had on Dog Man Star."

"When I first heard Ariel Pink, I was very homesick for LA and was kind of depressed and miserable in the Midwest, which I love, I should add. It had nothing to with the Midwest: it was just the circumstances. This record was one of many things that reminded me that I needed to come back home to LA. There was something about the sound, the love for moving around, both physically and within the music, the sense that you could go wherever you wanted to go in terms of melodies and harmonies. I totally related to the freedom, the crazy characters that are in the songs. I had started recording and I found myself really interested in his passion for building characters in songs. I love his music to this day because he does that so well. Again, it was important for me at a particular time and it continues to be."