"I'd heard of Andy Warhol, but I'd never heard The Velvet Underground until David Bowie talked about them in interviews in the NME, and of course Transformer. I'd rather talk about Transformer than the banana album actually, because Transformer sums up the era. I do believe that Mick Ronson was very instrumental - like a classically trained musician as well as a gorgeous rock god lead guitarist. His arrangement abilities for both Ziggy Stardust and Transformer have not been fully recognised in the history of pop music. I don't think David would've broke through without that. I remember dancing to 'Vicious' in a nightclub called Masquerade in Liverpool - a really eccentric gay bar full of diesel dykes, prostitutes and older gay men with dyed black hair and toupees. It was a strange netherworld hidden up a back alley that embraced a bunch of freaks of my generation like Pete Burns and me, Jane Casey, who wore too much make-up. That was the thing about a gay club, you were safe almost in there. A strange refuge. I suppose in a way, punk kind of helped that. Absolutely. One minute you were queer on the street, the next minute you were a punk. It normalised that sort of behaviour really, you know; ""Oh, they're just punks"", and it was a diversion away from sexuality. Punk was strangely non-sexual. Even the main protagonist John Lydon had something of a 'neither here nor there' about him."

"I somehow remember hearing the first Human League album that has 'Being Boiled' on it, and just being amazed at how strange it was. Then when they started Heaven 17 it was the most odd, phenomenal pop music. At times it seemed as if they were choosing to be really poppy and commercial, and they were really good at it, and other times of their own free will and volition, they were trying to be like mutant pop stars. Then the BEF, and I feel old dating myself like this, it first came out as a cassette and it was very rare for an artist to release an album on cassette. There was one song on there, I think it's called 'The Decline Of The West' and it still stands as one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard. That particular instrumental somehow wormed itself into my DNA. There are certain songs like that, 'Heroes' by David Bowie, 'Atmosphere' by Joy Division, I remember as a young 15-year-old musician thinking to myself 'all I want to do is aspire to make music that's 50% as good as this'. It seemed utterly absurd to try and make music as good as this, because that would be impossible, but I thought it might be a realistic challenge to make music half as good. Thank you for asking me to do this. Now I'm going to go and listen to all these records."

"Again, I love absolute everything that Ronnie did, from Elf to Sabbath, but it's his voice that drew me to this record because it's so magical and so unique. He was a very accomplished all-round musician though. When you look at his body of work it's just tremendous, but this is certainly one of his best. I love singers that mean what they're singing and have power behind them, and Ronnie meant it. This album is proof that you don't always need to just scream your tits off to make a point. The title track is the standout song on this album for me. If you look at any artist who has had the grace and fortune to be successful for a long period of time there are certain songs that stand out even on greatest hits compilations, but I own a Dio compilation and every song on it is as good as the last. I was involved in a tribute record after Ronnie's death to raise money for his charity. It was a great thing to do, and there were so many talented people involved in it. It just proved that everybody loved Ronnie. Not only did he create some amazing music, but he was a fantastic human being. People were lining up to do that record and by the time I agreed there weren't that many songs left to choose from."

"It was such a turning point, this album. I remember putting it on the Dansette and 'Purple Haze' coming on, and those opening notes, and going bloody hell I want this. When you hear something that really works for you it's almost not a conscious decision. It's a chemical reaction that your ears and your soul have. I heard it and it was like being grabbed on the inside and told you're going to go with this. You like this, whether you want to or not. I've pretty much always had a copy of this album, and I don't think it does everything that Jimi Hendrix does best, but it does a lot of it. I think he was very smart because he never overdid the solos, certainly not on this album. They're all fairly short songs. And also seeing the cover, back then, it was like wow, here's this black bloke, and he's dressed as a hippy. That was quite a shocking image for then, and you knew it was going to be great, just by looking at it. But it had that terrible lettering on the cover and it said ""Smash Hits"" and you immediately went oh my god, because that was what you had every Christmas, those K-Tel Smash Hits records. You never expected a serious musician, let alone one who played like that, to have that kind of title."