“There’s many reasons for this one man. I grew up in Western Sydney and predominately I was influenced by pub rock bands. My stepdad was in a band called Southband and I used to come to the gigs with him and set up his drums, so I grew up in that sort of realm. They used to cover a few Silverchair songs which made me a fan of them since I was around seven or eight, I was young.

“The Greatest View” is the second song I remember falling in love with music to a deep, existential extent. I was hooked. I loved the massive guitar soundscape, the orchestral elements, the grand recording of those drums and the big guitars, but with the classic, emotional songwriting, which is very personal to an extent. The melodic work is fucking nuts, and all I wanted to do as a kid was learn how to sing like Daniel Johns. I do not know if I’ll ever get there [laughs] but this song was the first to really make me want to romanticise music.

“Silverchair weren’t so big in the UK I don’t think. They were young guns, they were a trio, and when they put out Frogstomp I think they were like 14 or something. So growing up in a teen band, I know that the UK can’t be so kind to teen bands, you don’t want to hear a man’s story from a boy usually, so maybe that’s how it goes.

“That album wasn’t their highest charting album by any means, I think it was one of those musical masterpieces which kind of flew over people’s heads, but I fucking love it, so…” [laughs].

“You go through those marvellous phases where you’re like ‘I love Paul!’, whatever is interacting with your life, but working as a solo artist for the first time I was really drawn to George, because he had a depth which I really related to and he seemed to have a tug of war between his light and darkness. I had a little phase [laughs], and it feels good to be obsessed with music by George.

“Beware of Darkness” has a remaster where it’s all tightened up, but you can look on streaming services and hear a “Take One” of the song and it’s sang into this beautiful fucking ribbon mic and you can hear it the way George intended it to be. This is the song which really made George click for me and made him my favourite Beatle.

“I went on Amazon and I bought the fucking poster and stuff, it’s in my studio, so real silly stuff like that. “Beware of Darkness” really resonated with me in these times. I watched the Scorsese documentary at the start of the whole lockdown process, and I felt lucky that someone like him had even made a documentary of George Harrison. It felt so divine and awesome!”

“Failure is nuts!! The recording of this song blew my fucking mind. I first listened to it in Soho in London. A friend of mine, Matt Backley, goes ‘You would really like this band, they’re called Failure’.

“It was raining as always, so I listened to “Stuck on You” and it has this marvellous tension in the acoustic guitars and the way they make the distorted guitars sound sweet. It has these massive doom rock drums, but again he sang with a sweetness which I tied in with My Bloody Valentine in an extension of that thought. The way he’s using the harmonies to make that chorus stick out, I thought that was great melodic pop writing.

“This band really changed my motivation for recording - how I wanted to record, how I wanted the guitars to sound, working that out and listening to the way mainly the singles sounded, which I was trying to chase sonically. You hear my song “Have U Found What Ur Looking For” and you can definitely hear a Failure influence in that. Massive distortion sounding sweet is totally my direction.”

“I just got into guys like Lenny. Lenny Kravitz, Steve Miller; guys who were writing the songs, recording the songs and releasing the songs as kind of solo artists. The whole thing for me on this project was when someone asks you ‘What do you do?’ What do I do? Well I’m a songwriter, but I looked at myself and thought ‘When was the last time you wrote a song on your own? Well, fuck, it’s been a long time’. Because it has been!

“I’ve been on a collaborative experience for ten years, so I thought it’s time to dig my heels in and spend time on my lyricism, how I write melodies, and accept my fate [laughs]. I wanted to develop myself and stand on my two feet, so when everyone else is working on something else I can stand on my own two feet in a meaningful way.

“So I put ‘Butterfly’ on here because structurally, it’s far from anything else I’ve touched on but again, it’s a sincere recording and a sincere lyric, and it’s by no means perfect but that’s kind of what my album is [laughs]. It’s direct output from a man who is going through changes.

“I love Lenny, he’s just the coolest, I think everyone thinks that about Lenny. I love the way he’s cultivated a philosophy in his music which his fans understand about him and that’s really what I try to bring in my music, to speak about spiritual things, accepting yourself, loving yourself, and manifesting a joyous, fulfilling life.”

“Man!! I was so inspired by this shit! I was blown away. We’ll start at just the songwriting, I discovered “Charlotte Anne” first and that was a more ‘80s kind of feel. “Raving on the Moor” was, comparatively, one of the darkest, most poetic songs I’d ever heard. It’s stunning, absolutely stunning.

“His catalogue is so huge as well, he has so many wonderful albums to listen to. I didn’t even go to The Teardrop Explodes, because I just like these songs for some reason. Another thing I love about Julian Cope is his photography style, and how it shifts in coherence with his music. He’s a visual artist, and a dark artist, and an incredible lyricist.

“I put this on here because if I could develop as a poetic and lyricist and someone who uses words in an art form, I aspire to be a wordsmith like this. I find this to be really masterful songwriting, in my opinion. I understand that I’m not there [laughs] so I just admire it. “Raving on the Moor” is a really masterful poem and song.”

Superbloom is out now