"Spike Lee’s third film. I had just started doing films in high school and Do the Right Thing came out, and there was just this burst of creativity in a drama, of creative energy, and also just the social commentary, and Spike being in it, and the music, and the color, the production design. Then I read the book on the making of it. I read the book that he wrote for She’s Gotta Have It. I really became, like, a Spike Lee connoisseur, you know? But again, just to kind of open my eyes, it took me from kind of like what we were talking about before, like the shiny effects, you know, that kid of shiny object interest of childhood, to movies that can really make you think, and make you talk, make you think about what is going on, and his social commentary really affected me. It really took me from kind of like a Spielberg/Lucas type of filmmaker toward a more socially conscious filmmaker. I actually did a film that was very inspired by Do the Right Thing called Gabriel’s Dream that never got distributed. But it was about these workers in a particularly hot summer in Maryland, and they were trying to get A/C in their factory, and that was basically the story. Like, workers’ rights. It kind of really took me in a direction that I never thought I would go in. And it never came out, it did some festivals, and we never got distribution for it, this was like early 1990s. But it definitely opened my eyes to the power of cinema as a social statement, as a social tool. And I wrote two or three scripts after that that were very much inspired by Do the Right Thing, kind of touching on social issues. I was really that kind of filmmaker when I was in film school. But then we came up with the idea for Blair Witch and all of a sudden, we became “horror filmmakers.” But still, I love the idea of always having a little bit of the deeper meaning in material. And some films are just for fun and made that way, but there are others where you want to dig a little deeper. If you can get one person coming out of the theater thinking about what happened in the movie, I think it’s great. And Do the Right Thing consumed me. It was such an important film in my upbringing, you know?"

"When I was about thirteen an older friend of mine made me a tape of DC hardcore. Making tapes is a lost art and I still do it, but you can get USB’s now that look like tapes. He made me a tape because I only knew Minor Threat and they were like a gateway drug for me. “This was the first song on there, it’s from the split record Void did on Dischord Records with The Faith in 1983. It’s funny, when Freddie was talking about what he liked and didn’t like, when you’re that age you’re constantly navigating through the sea of songs you actually really connect with and the ones you think you should like, because they make sense with the identity you’re trying to cultivate for yourself and I was floored by ‘Who Are You?’ “It’s everything that’s great about Punk Rock and everything that’s great about music when you’re a kid, that rage and that anger and also feeling completely misunderstood by everyone in your house, your family, your school or your hometown. I read that Kurt Cobain put this in his top 50 songs of all time and of course that makes sense, it’s a song about being misunderstood and that’s what Nirvana came to represent for another generation. “It’s Punk Rock at its best and like The Stooges song for Freddie, this really taught me that it’s not what you play it’s how you play it, as long as you’re being authentic, and Punk Rock is just authentic rock isn’t it? I was in a punk band and my first shows were in Southampton above a pub for this DIY collective called ‘STE’ - which stood for ‘Southampton, Totton and Eastleigh punk collective.’ Students got in for a quid and under 16’s got in free. It was great, there weren’t many women, but other than that it was a great way to ply your trade. “I’ll play it to you and when you hear the opening you’ll see what I mean. It’s this intro, this riff, it still excites me now, it’s just so brutal and the song’s a minute long. It’s so direct and to me it’s weirdly poppy as well, maybe I’m alone in thinking that, but it was a song that was really easy to connect with. It’s filled with rage and it’s one of those songs that you want to turn up so your parents can hear who you are and see where you are in your life."

"This was an EP. They're also from Grantham. Actually the the singer Wakey, he came to the Coventry gig on the tour last year. It was fucking incredible, and he was fucking pissed as well. Him and his wife were pissed out their heads. They live on a narrowboat and apparently that night they went home and both of them fell in the river. I want to get him on a record. I meant to but I'm quite selfish and I forget. But I thought he was a great singer. He did this EP and an album, called Attack Of The Porky Men. I bought that on CD and it cost me £30, an import from America, because it's not on CD really, I think someone just burned it. I didn't start listening to English Dogs until about 2006. I liked trawling through old punk stuff on YouTube. Discharge, GBH, Exploited: stuff I wouldn't have listened to as a kid even though I was never an English Dogs fan. And then I came across that EP and I thought it was brilliant. You can tell it's a Grantham accent. That was brilliant, mind blowing almost. And also the lyrics were just crap, ""Psychokiller rah rah rah..."" It's just rubbish. He's got this diluted Lydon-esque approach, but that's what I love about it. A lot of that new wave punk, around the 80s, it's all crap isn't it. It kind of reminds me of Roachee, it's all crap. People like them are similar in my eyes. So it was a really big honour when he came backstage. He was off his nut. He had a can of cider in his pocket and he came in and was talking to me and looking at all the beer on the side. I said he should just take it. He was like, ""You're joking, can I?"" And was putting all this beer in his pockets, him and his missus, ""Right, mate, mate, I'm going alright."" And the thing is, he knows. He knows. He said, ""When you went out there and you just looked at the crowd and went 'FUCK OFF' this is what I'm going doing, you know, don't you, you know."" Even though, on the hierarchy of punk he's like, down here, he believes in it and he can identify that kind of spirit. And I thought that was really quite touching. I've got his number, I should text him."