"I heard it when I was 17 or 18 and it really changed my view of what music could be in that there’s so much beauty in Jeff Buckley’s voice. Also, the guitar on that record is the biggest guitar influence that I’ve ever had. Jeff Buckley uses his voice in this very free way and it can go wherever he wants it to: that’s something that I've intentionally and subconsciously very much taken on myself as a singer. His voice can be so subtle, quiet and soft and then it becomes this roaring kind of force and, again, that’s something that completely inspired me as a singer. He’s very much about that play between his voice and his guitar but they both feel like they’re partners and the essence of who he is—I feel inspired by that as a musician myself. I always try and have a play between the guitar and the voice, to make them speak the same language and tell the story of myself. I remember writing Jeff Buckley lyrics all over my bag I took to college. I like the way you would take on lyrics and feel that they were expressing a part of you, so you'd always feel proud to have them on your schoolbag as if you wrote them yourself. That’s a really cute thing about being a teenager and looking a very particular way. Teenagers react to music because they’re always looking for a way to identify themselves."

"One of the bands that I watched in a backyard party that made me decide I wanted to be a musician had played the song '2112'. I heard that weird pedal effect at the beginning and thought, ""Are you kidding me?!"" That was the opening of a whole new world. I lost track of them after Permanent Waves when I started doing my own thing, but you can't ignore their legacy. Alex Lifeson is another with a really bizarre approach to guitar playing. It sometimes seems that his solos don't have a direction because they are like spurts of energy, almost like solar bursts. It's all so progressive to the point that when they do a comparatively straightforward song, it almost seems like they are dumbing things down – something like 'Working Man' for example, which is a simple rock track. But generally they are progressive rock at its very best and bands like Dream Theater owe a lot to them. Although Megadeth has progressive elements, I'm not a huge fan of pure prog as such. I respect the players because they are so talented, but to me it might feel like you're in a straitjacket. Incidentally, people have referred to Rust In Peace as being a progressive record, but in truth it was just where we were at the time. In fact I always saw it as a thrashy little metal record, as opposed to sounding like early Genesis or King Crimson where you dropped acid and went, ""Whoa dude…"" Not that I've ever done that, I should add…"

"I started playing flute when I was about six or seven and I transferred to saxophone when I was 14. It was mostly just playing trad jazz in the school jazz band and so I'd actually played a lot of jazz, because I was classically trained too, so I'd read a lot of jazz solos. But I hadn't really heard much modern jazz. I started listening to Miles Davis and Charlie Parker at the same time as I started listening to The Velvet Underground and Led Zeppelin. I was completely obsessed with jazz for so many years. That was all I listened to. John Coltrane and Miles Davis were like my bread and butter for so long. But obviously, where there's John Coltrane, there's Wayne Shorter, there's Archie Shepp, Joe Henderson, all these other people, and the same with Miles Davis. Miles Davis I've taken such inspiration from because he's someone that says: you've got to change, you've got to adapt to survive. You can't just stay doing what you're doing, you've got to try and engage with the zeitgeist. He was unique in the jazz world really. The people that came after him, that he brought up musically, if you like - Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Weather Report, Chick Corea - obviously they were very much engaged in the music of the time but Miles was so fearless and iconic, not just as a musician but as a figure in his society. To be young, angry and black was such a unique thing. He was absolutely amazing. I've got so much respect for him."