"I grew up in kind of a rough neighborhood and there was kind of this whole gangster thing, too. I think that’s the opening line: “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.” And I think there was a part of me that felt the same way. I just loved Robert De Niro’s work, all those guys really. Man, the acting, and everything about that movie — almost flawless film. And I’ve loved all of Scorsese’s films. Just his working relationship with Robert De Niro, from Mean Streets on; there are so many movies that I love with the two of them. I feel like everything kind of comes together in Goodfellas in some way. Goodfellas has kind of got it all. That was probably one of my favorite films as a kid, so I carried a picture of Goodfellas in my wallet. With De Niro and Pesci and Liotta, it was like, you know, the trinity [laughing]. I mean, really, Goodfellas was kind of like my Star Wars [laughing]. Really just the pacing of that film, everything, just how realistic. And at times it’s just jarring how violent it is. And hilarious too. It’s f—ing hilarious. I mean, I know it’s not funny that you would wrap a telephone cord around a guy’s neck. That’s not funny at all! The whole situation is terrible! But I think on some level, really, you kind of care for these guys and I think that’s what Scorsese is able to do in his films, is make these guys so human that we are able to somehow relate to them and, on some level, even kind of root for them, even though some of the stuff they do is just really despicable. I mean, the stuff that Joe Pesci does is just awful and I don’t think you really necessarily root for him; he’s kind of a hot head. The thing is, obviously, I know these things are bad. I do know how life can go one way or another, and that it’s not all just black and white, and there are many different situations and twists and turns in life. I feel these things sometimes and say, “Oh wow, I knew a guy like that. And I knew a guy like that.” And so I am very into gangster movies just because I feel, in some ways, I don’t think I have the heart for it, honestly. I’d have a nervous breakdown as a gangster. I’d be a very nervous gangster. I’d be the gangster that pops a lot of Klonopin."

"Blank Frank’ is a song that manages to be super-modern and futuristic even though it’s about forty years old now. It’s from Here Come The Warm Jets, which is one of my favourite records of all time and I got into it when I was about fourteen or fifteen. It was very challenging, it was quite arty and some of it’s abrasive, but because I loved Roxy Music I was into investing some time in it and forty odd years later it’s definitely a Desert Island Disc for me. It’s partly because it’s so full of ideas, but also because it could only have come out of the UK. “I think all great art represents its environment; Jasper Johns is an obvious one because he used a flag, but if you look at the Pop Art movement it feels like Manhattan in the 60s’, the LA 60s’ art scene doesn’t look anything like the East Coast art scene. You could say exactly the same thing for Hip Hop, I think anything that’s informed by its environment is interesting and is usually pretty good. “Here Come The Warm Jets would be really quite an interesting record if it came out now, the vocals are very, very British. You know the word ‘arch’? I think arch is something that Americans don’t really do and I’m not saying that with any sense of nationalism, I think that for good and bad arch is a particularly British trait, it’s kind of intellectual, it’s remote and it’s not earnest. People often think that’s a bad thing and that music - and singing in particular - has got to be from the heart, or else it’s not authentic. “The X-Factor and talent shows have done so much damage to singing and the art of songwriting, because the basic premise is the more emotive a thing is the more quality it’s got and that’s complete nonsense. Siouxsie Sioux isn’t about that and ‘Blank Frank’ totally exemplifies it, it’s still a great rocking track but its arch and arty, it’s quite intellectual but it’s still engaging. “One of the reasons I picked a lot of these songs is because they were part of my formative years and a theme running through this is the UK in the 70s’. The idea of it being this sea of beige and brown with terrible haircuts and power cuts was a little part of it, but when you put all these records together, particularly Brian Eno and Roxy Music, it tells a completely different story."