“My mum and dad had a radiogram in the living room. My sister was five years older than me, and she came home with a record that had a tramp on the cover… with a beard. It was Aqualung by Jethro Tull. I can remember her playing that record in our living room and hearing the way the singer would distort his voice. I loved that record. When I finally came of age to go and buy my own records, the first one I ever went to buy was by Slade, called Slade Alive!. When I got to the record shop to buy it, I was looking at the back cover and I didn’t realise that songwriting credits were what they were. I thought that when Slade Alive! had Born To Be Wild with brackets (Mars Bon re) on it, I thought that was another artist on the record! And it had Darling Be Home Soon in brackets (John Sebastian), and I thought, ‘I don’t want to hear those guys, I want to hear Slade!’ [laughs].
“My favourite LP would have to be Quadrophenia by The Who. I bought it when it came out in 1973 at a record store in Prestatyn, North Wales. I’ve always held onto the original vinyl. There was the Saturday Rock Show on BBC Radio with Alan Freeman, and he used to play classical music while he talked over it, then he’d crank in the rock tracks straight after. I remember hearing Bell Boy on his show and being absolutely floored by it. I had to get the album when it came out.