"Repo Man was one of the most important formative films of my teenage years. Later, when I moved to LA for a summer, I couldn’t stop thinking that I was actually living it out, because the city is such an extraordinarily strange place full of people who seem like their brains are being microwaved by the sun. Repo Man is a great movie about blue-collar weirdos in a wasteland of people living off defaulted loans, forming their identities through various “codes,” and searching for a sense of community in male fraternity, punk rock, religion, work, government, conspiracy theories, and/or outer space. And as time passes, the more jetting off the planet in a radioactive Chevy Malibu seems like a good idea."

"King Kong was a musical from South Africa that had an all-black cast. It was a fusion of South African traditional music, soul and jazz. It was so powerful when I listened to it for all those nights. I fell in love with that musical, which was a very big part of my life. I think [I was drawn to] the authenticity of the voice of what people call world music or ethnic music coming from the earth, of the people, the hope and their struggle. South Africans are so strong with their emotions and I think Africa itself is an amazing, inspirational place for music, because they live and breathe it. It was for me, a connection with the soul."

"If you want to persuade people to give Frank Zappa a second go, you play them 'Trouble Every Day', it's one of the greatest songs ever, and it sounds like it could have been off one of the first two Velvet Underground albums. Again this is an album that Mark Smith played me. Just the other day I played 'Concentration Moon' in which he's having a go at the VU. He hated everyone, the Velvet Underground, the beatniks, the hippies… it was a landmark album because it was the end of hippie culture. People say it was after the stabbing at Altamont but musically this was it. It has the Beatles referenced in the pastiche on the cover. It's really fabulous, really cynical."

"This is a singular movie—it’s not something that can be reproduced or that will ever be made again. It’s particular and brave, and on paper, it almost seems like it wouldn’t work. But it does because of the way it’s edited and the span of time it covers and the way Kirsten Johnson decided to be open enough to reveal her own experiences. It’s so engaging and mysterious to me. I remember just feeling so shocked at how touching it was, and also how humane. You just feel her love for the work that she does and her love for people. It’s also a great document of the fact that there are other people who work on movies besides directors."

"I was completely unprepared when I saw Mulholland Dr. in a small art-house cinema in Stockholm, and it blew my mind. I came out of the movie and just felt like I needed to talk to people and ask questions, like, did you see what I saw? It was huge for me, and it almost felt like, you can’t mess with people like this and get away with it, somebody should do something about it. Usually when American cinema tries to be surreal or nonlinear or non-narrative, it turns either really pretentious or really Hollywood. But David Lynch, in this film but also in general, is probably the only person I know who has succeeded in making his own version of American surrealism."

"The structure of 'Let There Be More Light' is not conventional. It goes through different things - you think it's going to go one and it goes the other. But much more than this record, before Bill and I started playing together in Body/Head, I found this 1968 live footage of Pink Floyd on YouTube. They were playing and it was almost like people were dancing to abstract music. There were visuals and it was amazing. In 1968, they were doing stuff that we're just doing now. Syd Barrett was sitting down and playing prepared guitar, like Bill does when he does his solo stuff - and other people who play prepared guitars do. That was all really inspiring, originally to the band, I think"