"I’m cautious of musical dynasties. It seems to treat musical ability as some kind of spiritual magic, passed from soul to soul. I don’t get “Only Giles Martin can mix the Beatles because only he has the aura”. Nevertheless, everyone in the Haden family has such a gentle, intelligent, soulful talent that I find it hard to pull out a favourite. Father Charlie Haden is a beautiful, sensitive bass player who has played alongside Ornette Colman, Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny. He created political, instrumental, jazz with Carla Bley and Don Cherry in the Liberation Music Orchestra. His parents were also singers and performed on the radio as The Haden Family. His son Josh is a bass player and singer with the band Spain and writes the tensest, poised, songs of heartbreak. Petra, Tanya and Rachel are Josh’s sisters and Charlie’s daughters, and although they have been singing for years, it took until 2014 to record their debut album of country songs. Previously Petra and Rachel had been That Dog and Petra had made an acapella version of ‘The Who Sell Out’. They have that synchronicity and intonation that only siblings can have. The three voices move as one. It’s the most straightforward, emotional music. There is no re-inventing of the wheel. It’s just music that lifts the spirits."

"I saw the film The Graduate when I was 15 and heard the track 'The Sound Of Silence' and I immediately went out and bought the songbook and learned every song. Hearing Simon & Garfunkel was the thing that made me decide I would really like to make music for a living. I could play the songs, and suddenly music seemed much less foreign to me. Before that it was watching people on Top Of The Pops doing their thing, and it was just another world to me, it didn't seem like something that could be homegrown or that I could possibly achieve. At the time I'd just started going to the school guitar club and learning basic chords, and this music came along and I thought, ""Ah, I can learn that"". I like the simplicity of the lyrics, and there's a naivety to the songwriting, and when they write about New York and that, now I live here and have been visiting for years, I can see where their inspirations came from. You can't deliberately be naive, you write simple songs I guess, and hopefully something that you do happens in the writing process. I'm really into melody, I couldn't listen to a jazz fusion record for instance, I'm the opposite end of the scale, that's all."

"I remember hearing 'Requiem' on college radio, and it really combined all of my favourite things - it had synths on it, really heavy distorted guitars, tribal drums, this crazy jazz drummer and punk rock vocals. The first album is great, but What's This For is one of those rare albums where the second is actually better. I remember when it came out I went to the record store the week of release, though I couldn't afford to buy it, and looking at the cover and how beautiful it was. It was this collage, with these psychedelic, apocalyptic colours, and the title is one of those great titles where it meant nothing but it was captivating. What are they asking, I don't understand. Standing in the record store, holding this piece of vinyl, hoping that one day I'd be able to buy it... when I finally got it home, the sound quality was even better than the first album, and it just had this sinewy darkness to it that was really amazing. Everything about them from the basslines to the drumming to the way they approach guitar and lyrics... it was the first time I'd ever heard really heavy distorted guitar that the way they were mixed they didn't dominate the music, the fit perfectly within the framework of the song."