"""I think I fell in love with this record when I first heard 'Personal Jesus', which was a big single in the US. I love the sound of this record. There's no band playing live, rocking out in a room; you can tell that they're sitting in front of their keyboards or drum machine and making the record one finger at a time. Yet somehow it's got this amazing soul, with a clean technical sound and the vocals are so powerful. It's one of those records for me. I used to always put it on in the car, particularly when it was raining and I had to drive somewhere and the window wipers were going back and forth. Till this day, whenever I put that record on, that’s what I can immediately think of: driving in the rain and listening to that record over and over again. I dunno if the rest of Garbage would necessarily put Violator on but we were playing it backstage at one of the shows the other night and Shirley was singing along. I think she said, ""I always forget how much I love these guys, they're a guilty pleasure of mine"". The same could be said about Duke and Steve too but I’m probably the biggest fan."

"The first times I tried to listen to this, I couldn’t do it. I thought “This is horrible. They’re out of tune, the guys can’t play, the way that he’s singing …” I just thought, “What is this?” Then I started seeing it around more and more and then I finally met Don and there was something very peculiar and interesting about him so I thought, “I have to give this record a chance.” We deprive ourselves the opportunity of appreciating something that is artistic, by making certain claims and being dogmatic or snobbish about it. So I listened to it a bunch and really started to get it. What I really appreciate is when somebody works completely outside the box with confidence and that record is all about that. These guys didn’t care what was going on and that made me think “Why does music always have to be in tune?” and “Why does music have to be rhythmic?” It doesn’t, we’re just conditioned to think that way and you will rarely hear somebody create something that’s brutally unique. The ways these guys do wildly different things with abandon resulting in a willy–nilly brand of controlled chaos, made me think it was all very interesting. It’s like liberation."

"I found Devin when he was around seventeen years old and I needed a singer for my band. So when I heard tapes of him singing I thought there was really something there but the music he was playing was bizarre; it was really heavy and industrial and I thought, “It’s really good but I’m not supposed to like this because I like this…” But when he was working with me the poor guy was stuck under my thumb because my music is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship. I want things a certain way. Devin wasn’t writing at that time but when he went off and did his own thing and when he did… I’m going to use the ‘G’ word here… I think he’s a genius, I really do. He’s so passionate, so intense and – at times – so tormented, but there’s this redeeming quality of deep, deep beauty about everything he does. I think that in the future when people evolve, if they go back and actually listen to musicians of the past, when it comes to metal, he should be number one. There’s stuff in his catalogue that nobody else would have the balls to venture into."

"I can’t explain this movie. It’s just perfection. Sad and funny, light and heavy, full of boisterous color and nonstop singing. Probably the most romantic movie I have ever seen. Catherine Deneuve has never been so lovely. I have never been to France, but I imagine it is just like it is depicted here. Maybe I will never go so I can keep my fantasy and save myself from disappointment. Jacques Demy was a singular talent. There was never anyone like him and there never will be again. I highly recommend the entire box set of his work, but this one will always be my favorite. I remember seeing it on the big screen at the Music Box in Chicago in the early nineties and walking out on clouds while also being filled with an intense melancholy. I can’t think of a single other movie that makes me feel both of those things at the same time and has left those feelings lingering inside me twenty-plus years later. Michel Legrand’s score is, it goes without saying, iconic and magnificent. And what this movie lacks in dancing, Demy makes up for in his constant gliding camera movements. As if the dance is between the actors and his lens. Pure cinema. Perfection."

"So this is pre-teen me; I became a bit of a rocker. This is when I got into Marvel really heavy, and still playing in jazz band and other stuff. I remember my favourite movie at the time was The Crow, and when I was younger the littlest thing would snag me, like if I heard some type of melody or harmony or something that would immediately get stuck in my head and I would have to know where it came from or what it was. Stone Temple Pilots, for me, it started with The Crow. I remember hearing Scott Weiland singing the melody of 'Big Empty' and I was like, 'What? Who wrote this? Who the hell wrote this song?' I was literally like, I had to find this album. I would listen to albums with repetition a lot of the time, and this is right in the middle of like the grunge era. All kinds of stuff going on, and clearly Stone Temple Pilots, when they came up, were making waves outside of that. Ultimately, because Purple had my favourite song from my favourite movie on it, it essentially became one of my favourite albums when I was a child. To this day I still listen to it."

"My sister and her friends were obsessed with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I remember she would be singing these crazy, filthy lyrics, and I’d think ‘what is this band?!’ Again, I was playing the drums, and I enjoyed the drums. There’s covers on this album of ‘Higher Ground’ and Sly And The Family Stone’s ‘If You Want Me To Stay’, which were songs that I had heard but didn’t really know. I think they’ve become an establishment band in a weird way, but me and my friend James went through this period of watching old Red Hot Chili Peppers stuff on YouTube and it’s amazing! When they were young they were crazily charismatic. I think it’s because they’re still going that they’ve become this band that’s a bit more disappointing. But there will come a time when people realise they were pretty unusual; this is quite a good record! I heard ‘Give It Away’ or something like that in a record shop, then going to the counter to try and buy what you assume is the album that that’s from and ending up with the Greatest Hits. I could have included Incesticide as well, I bought it because I thought it was the cheapest thing I could find!"