1. Syd BarrettThe Madcap Laughs

That was such a big record for me that really made me start writing songs. ‘Terrapin’, the first song, it was just so sleepy and lowkey, I was like, ‘I could write that!’ And if I could make it sound that good, then I should already just be playing shows, you know? The drumming that’s on it, I thought was so good. I found out later it was Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine. But I always thought that the band that played on the record was so free and amazing. It’s just really loose and kind of all over the place, which was very much Wyatt’s style, combining jazz with improvisation.