"This song was a whole other cool factor for me. There was something so cool about it - the sound of it, the synthesiser and what he was singing about. It made such an impression on me, and I’m in love with Benjamin Orr’s vocal performance, it’s incredible. “A lot of these songs are based on vocal performances and guys that I idolise as having a vocal quality, but I also loved the guitar solo. It was the first solo I ever learned to play and it’s a pretty bitchin’, advanced, badass solo. It’s one of the best, so I was pretty stoked about it, but don’t ask me to play it today! I also learnt a bunch of Squeeze solos, Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford are two more of my favourites and the solo on ""Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)” is unbelievable. “With “Just What I Needed” it’s the solo because I’m a guitar player, the sound of it because I’m an engineer and producer and the lyrics because I’m a songwriter. People who aren’t musicians might be surprised by these songs, but they’ve had a big effect on me. I picked these songs based on being pivotal and this was one of those songs for many reasons. I’m still trying to write that song."

"It was his first great album. All of his early albums have their own sound, and the atmosphere and some kind of other-worldly quality is what first grabbed me. Hunky Dory was where his lyrics got much better. The songs sound very simple, but in terms of the chords they are really complex. ‘Changes’ has got lots of weird things going on but it never sounds muso. It’s his first classic album. What are the standout tracks? It’s easier to say the ones that aren’t. Every day of my life I sing them. ‘Kooks’, ‘Changes’ and ‘Bewlay Brothers’ are my favourites. I like ‘Andy Warhol’ and ‘Queen Bitch’, but I think those are the two that don’t stack up as much. Charisma goes a long way – so people have told me anyway. Even now he doesn’t overdo it. I saw it in a shop in Norris Green, and I used to stare at it for ages, it wasn’t a sexual thing, but I couldn’t stop being lost in the world of his music. It was spiritual, there was nothing else I thought about. It was Bowie was who got me interested in music, then I got into the Velvets and Iggy."

"This is a very important album for me. When John Peel was alive, before he went off on the holiday that he didn’t come back from, he asked a few of us to look after his radio show for him – Siouxsie Sioux, Robert Smith – and he said that Rick and I could do anything we wanted, which was very generous of him. So Rick asked him if there was anything he wanted us to play and he handed us Tripper and said, “this has just come in and I really like it.” As somebody who grew up with John being my most important musical teacher, especially his philosophy around cross-collateralised ideas between musical genres – this was important because it was the last album he ever gave me. The last record he asked to be played on air. But I loved the sound of the album – again, they have a whole other structure for writing songs. They have this filmic quality. It’s a very panoramic sound. They were one of the first bands I ever heard using that glitchy, cut-up electronic vibe and yet incorporating it with traditional instruments. And when I go and see them live, sometimes they’re a three-piece, then a seven-piece, or they’ll have an orchestra with them – they defy definition. They just make beautiful music."