"I think what’s cool about Slayer is no matter how old their albums are, it’s the one band to me that their sound is immortal. It never sounds corny to me. You can go back and listen to some Pantera and Metallica albums and you’re like, ‘OK, great music.’ But Slayer you go back and they always sound fresh and hard as hell. It’s always just a punch right to the face. I think that’s cool that their albums are almost undying. I like all different types of music. I don’t like going to any specifics. I switch with the seasons. I’ll get into an electronic kick and then I’ll get into rap. Listen to too much hip-hop you start to have some flavor for some guitar and next thing you know you’re listening to metal or hardcore"

"MewithoutYou are a post-hardcore band who suddenly released this weird folk concept album. This was after I released Poetry Of The Deed in 2009 and I started to feel slightly like I had run into a brick wall as a songwriter. I was thinking maybe my road was run. I heard that record and instantly went, ‘Oh f***, there’s so much more to do' My American tour manager played me that record and I lost my mind. It is one of the most brilliantly written, composed and arranged records I’ve ever heard. It almost shamed me into not giving up. There’s that tendency that some people have that, because they’re not feeling inspired, then music is over in some way. We’ve just had Kasabian talking about it recently. I was guilty of it. I heard that record and instantly went, 'Oh fuck, there’s so much more to do."

"I'm getting the hardcore folk records out of the way first! This is another family group of five brothers and a sister from Billingham who were a big part of my childhood. I've seen them live many times. Their harmonies are properly spine-tingling, and it's so intuitive, the way they sing together. They sing lots of the songs of Graeme Miles, who lived and worked in Teeside, a man who worked in different industries to write songs informed by people's experiences. Another song of his called ‘Sea Coal', about people collecting coal washed up on the shore and then selling it cheaply, is one we do. God, they're such evocative songs. I've also sung some of his songs recently with Paul Smith from Maximo Park, who's from Billingham too – we've basically made an album together. That's to come! He's a real folk-lover. They're everywhere, you know.
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"This is a record that shaped my musical path as a musician for a long time. My hardcore trump card in life is that I saw them in 1998 in front of about 100 people. They were fucking amazing. When I went to that gig I had the record and I was a little bit confused by it. It was a very divisive record in the scene because of the electro elements. Over time I came to adore it. I did once fly to Sweden to buy a Dennis Lyxzén solo album because I couldn’t find it anywhere I can play this entire record in my sleep. Everything I did with Million Dead was informed by this album. I wasn’t really a fan of the new record, but I did once fly to Sweden to buy a Dennis Lyxzén solo album because I couldn’t find it anywhere. The guy in the record store thought I was out of my fucking mind, which arguably I was"

"We played with the line-up from this album at 2007's All Tomorrow's Parties. We were allowed to curate a day and we brought them over. That record A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die just got reissued on Superior Viaduct and they played a couple of shows in California. Danny Bland - a guy I knew from way back from the band Cat Butt, works very closely for Dave Alvin from Flesh Eaters [and The Blasters] - asked me if they came to Seattle, would we want to play with them and I was like: "Fuck yeah!" They were great man. They exceeded expectations I think and there were a lot of people at the show who were probably not familiar with the record but were familiar with the guys. They're like "we like The Blasters, we like X" but it's a totally different beast to those bands. It's got more of a Captain Beefheart, early Dr. John feel to it with the marimbas on the record, the Steve Berlin sax (another record with sax!). It was kind of an anomaly at the time. It was part of the punk scene but it wasn't a punk record. There was this thing at the time that I confused it with at first - bands like 45 Grave and Christian Death and the Dance With Me-era TSOL where everything was kind of getting satanic. I initially lumped it in with that stuff but it's so much better and further ahead of the game than that. The record for me was kind of a slow burn. I worked in a radio station and when it came in I put it on a cassette with a more normal hardcore band on the other side. I eventually found myself fast-forwarding through the hardcore side and just listening to A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die over and over again. It wasn't like initially "this is great!", it was more like "this is weird!" to a 19-year-old. Chris Desjardins' lyrics are awesome and dense and intense and pretty much like Nick Cave's. Both those guys - they don't write short, concise pop songs."