Throughout my years in From First to Last, I was always dabbling and making electronic music on my own time. The first records I ever owned were crossover electronic rock, like Prodigy, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails.
I listen to everything from The Cure and The Clash to Prince and George Clinton.
I love Eighties rock.
I just got exposed to electronica, and I really liked it. I am also good with alternative rock. I like Lana Del Rey, Adele, Dido, Jack Johnson, and I love the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
'Movement' sounded like Joy Division, but 'Power, Corruption & Lies' is the first New Order record.
The first thing I remember hearing was just the dance music that was in the charts when I was growing up. I don't remember many of the names of specific tracks - they were just kind of early acid house things.
I grew up listening to a lot of very smart pop records by artists like Kate Bush, Talk Talk, Peter Gabriel, Prince, Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, The The.
'Are 'Friends' Electric?' was two songs: the verse part and the talking part. Two different songs I couldn't finish. One day I was playing the main verse part of 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and after a few minutes I got frustrated, as normal, then started to play the other song, and realized they went together.
'Purple Rain,' the album, is a great guitar record.
There are definite reference points to older Depeche Mode records.
The personality and songwriting of Holy Ghost! trumps the originality card any day.
I really love Grimes, Niki & the Dove, stuff like that.
I grew up in the eighties; that's probably why I like some of the earlier electronic from Kraftwerk to all throughout new wave and things like that.
I love Devo. There's nothing not to like.
Nothing gets my blood pumping like a little Animotion.
One of the most interesting things, at least for me, are the soundtracks for 'The Social Network' and 'Drive.' Basically, it's what I did in 'American Gigolo.' I could have done the music for those movies blindfolded. And one of them won an Oscar, and the other is this massive soundtrack.
Prince turned experimental music into pop music. 'When Doves Cry,' the whole 'Purple Rain' soundtrack - he was inspired by the Cocteau Twins and new wave pop and brought it into R&B when he first started, and then it became this cool, next-level, kind of hard-to-digest music. Which is what I felt 'House of Balloons' was.
I've always been interested in electronica, techno, trip-hop, that kind of music. The thing that bothered me about a lot of that music, though, was it seemed devoid of emotion. There wasn't a lot that felt personal.
So many of the bands that influenced me growing up were English, even if I didn't realise it. English pop ruled the world in the '80s!
I've always appreciated more guitar-driven and, in general, just rock music; that's what I listen to. I don't really listen to electronic music.
Los Angeles produced the Beach Boys. Dusseldorf produced Kraftwerk. New York produced Chic. Manchester produced Joy Division.
Remember the band, Flock of Seagulls? They had their van stolen. I was like, They still have a van?
Yazoo was Vince's sound ultimately. At the time Vince and I got together he had only recorded one album with Depeche and Depeche were to go on to greater things.
My uncles listened to rock and roll like Led Zeppelin. We had MTV, so I saw Adam Ant and Boy George and Def Leppard.
Abba and me, we were the 70s.
