"It's got to be Trans-Europe Express really. I was aware of Autobahn and that was like The Beach Boys from outer space, engineered by Conny Plank - that was what they called it in those days, it was a blur between engineering and producing. I think Trans-Europe Express consolidated that futuristic thing, and of course it had a namecheck for David Bowie and Iggy Pop in there, which was an endorsement in some way. Although they were German, they were aware of 'our world'. I think the only other German thing I'd heard of before that were Faust, and the reason I know about them was they brought an album out [The Faust Tapes] and it cost about 15p or something, so everyone bought it. 'The Hall Of Mirrors' is really dark! The album's quite song-y as well. With The Man-Machine, it had the perfect record cover, it was the whole red-ness. Futuristic art deco with a slight Hitler Youth edge to it, a sinister edge. I went down to London one time, down the King's Road - I think it was the week of release - and every single shop was playing it. However Man-Machine is everybody's album, whereas Trans-Europe Express is a more private album, which wasn't as widely known. I hadn't taken any drugs at the time, but it affected me. That line, ""Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass"", it was all just very atmospheric."

"Let’s start with The Big Lebowski. I remember seeing this film. I was studying in Germany at the time, and I remember loving Fargo so much — that was my first introduction to the Coen brothers — and I was so excited that they had a new movie out. So I went to some German cinema to go see The Big Lebowski. It was in English, but with German subtitles. I remember watching the movie and just being incredibly disappointed. I really did not like the movie. Probably about four years later, I rewatched it and I instantly said, “I’ve never been so wrong in my entire life.This is one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen.” It’s incredibly well-written, the characters are hilarious, the performances are so nuanced and so deep it’s almost mind-boggling. A lot of the times you do scenes and you just sort of come up with these happy accidents and it just seems like almost everything in there could not have been a happy accident; surely it must have been thought out. I just think it is such an original, fun film and it is quite honestly one of the most quotable films of the last fifty years in my opinion. I think there are so many quotes in there that I realized how foolish I was that first time. I think maybe I was just so excited that I was drinking a beer in a movie theater; maybe that’s why."

"Well I always have a hard time with this. As we get older or grow or whatever, it’s always changing, because you just see more movies, for one thing, so you change. One of my most favorite movies, I think a perennial favorite movie of mine is La Ronde. I don’t know how well acquainted you are with it. It’s one of my favorite movies. Anton Walbrook is one of the stars, who also the stars of another one of my favorite movies, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. He’s the guy who’s that German who has the seven-minute monologue with the moving camera that never cuts, and he breaks down during it."

"I remember listening to this when I flew to Tokyo around 2012 to promote my first solo album, Here Come The Bombs. I’d heard bits over the years – Mick Quinn was a big fan of German rock’n’roll of the mid-70s. I was on the plane listening to this, then I arrived and went for a wander around and listened to the whole thing. It really seemed to fit with the strange landscape because it’s a modern, electronic album but it’s also really organic with wobbly synthesisers and you can hear the hiss on the drum machine. I’m not sure whether they were recording quickly or it was the gear, but I like its unstable quality."