The Kooks on influences: “You won’t realize you’re doing it, and then you realize the song you’ve written is sort of a Beatles melody. That always pisses me off.”

Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene on fitness: “I try to get some exercise. I always stretch regularly twenty minutes or a half hour before the show because if I have a big stage I can be fairly acrobatic.”

Efterklang on the word ‘indie’: “In the end, you can put ‘indie’ in front of different things and it creates an edge to whatever you say afterward.”

Esperanza Spalding on her training method: “To most of my students I’ll say: I haven’t been playing longer than you. It’s approach, it’s not time.”

Project Jenny Project Jan on hype: “A lot of people don’t get to mature their sound in time to be yesterday’s news.”

TAB on copycats: “I’ve seen countless bands that just dress up like Guns ‘N’ Roses and they play like Guns ‘N’ Roses and they’re ‘dangerous.’ But the thing is you can’t do it again. You have to be yourself and make it new.”

The Presets on songwriting: “It’s like going to the toilet. It’s something we have to do every day. If you don’t get it out then you’re going to get cranky.”

We Are Scientists on their sound: “Have you ever seen that You Tube video of the boa constrictor – the dead boa constrictor – that they cut upon and a full wildebeest comes out? I don’t know if that is the visual equivalent of the sound of our band but I feel like those two are at least bound in some way.”

Young Knives on their early critics: “They said it was like a clown, a drunk clown – a drunk Santa Claus – pissing himself in a shopping center.”

Quincy Coleman on her creative process: “To me it feels like getting pregnant with songs. And I can feel it, I can feel it coming. And they will come in bunches. I’ll have like triplets or quadruplets.”

Mike Doughty on spell checking tattoos: “I know a woman who thought she was getting the word ‘chaos’ in Chinese on like a tramp stamp area but actually it says ‘livestock’, which is kind of uniquely insulting.”

Jim Boggia on the Iraq war: “Nothing goes with arrogance like incompetence.”

Frightened Rabbit on art: “I’ve never had a wank in front of a painting. Never.”

Clinic on psychedelia: “I think everyday reality is quite psychedelic. I think when you kind of dig beneath the surface with most people, normality doesn’t really exist.”

Gemma Hayes on seduction: “That doesn’t come natural to me. I can’t even wear heels. I walk like a farmer in heels.”

Everest on L.A. life: “I have a hard time staying in bed because the sun is out every day and birds are singing. You walk out and you’re in Snow White, like birds tying ribbons around your head.”

Heloise & The Savoir Faire: “We’re sort of mixing disco with ethnic regions and homelessness, in a really tactful way.”

Wild Sweet Orange on MTV: “It’s like the Food Network on cocaine but for horny 15-year-old children.”

The Wombats on the animal kingdom: “Dolphins are the only ones that have casual sex. Because they enjoy it.”

Team Robespierre on the touring hell: “The van broke down in the heart of Death Valley. That was kind of crazy because we were stuck there for three days. The only thing in the town was a giant thermometer, the world’s largest thermometer.”

Plants and Animals on wild American women: “We were hoping in Texas we were going to attract some Girls Gone Wild. I just figured that they would just be around…like if I could just yell that out somewhere somebody somewhere would say ‘I’m one of those Girls Gone Wild!’”

Black Kids on growing up evangelical: “I was such a nerd in high school…I carried my Bible and all that.”

Rose Hill Drive on playing with Pete Townshend: “He’s got these bright blue eyes and when he looks at you you’re like ‘Yeah…God…I hope he can’t see me quivering.’”

Mugison on commercialism: “You have to cash in on the cow, you know, if it’s milking.”

Mudhoney on the music biz: “If you think about the whole thing – like “music industry”, what that phrase might even represent – I don’t give a shit.”

Midnight Juggernauts on philanthropy: “It was when Michael Jackson was going through one of his bouts of controversy and we thought we’d have a benefit concert for him.”

The Heavy on the indie explosion: “It’s like a DIY ethic. It’s almost like a punk thing. But the problem is it just increases the amount of shit that’s out there.”

El Perro Del Mar on Myspace fanboys: “It’s a kind of direct contact with people and the people who listen to your music.”

Teitur on what’s ailing America: “America seems really sexually frustrated.”

The Medic Droid on themselves: “A lot of kids think we’re like ballers…we’re just some kids that live with their parents and write dance music.”

• The Teenagers on language: “We are allowed to be vulgar because of our accent. We can say ‘fuck you’ and it sounds sweet.”
• Joseph Arthur on motivation: “I never really try. I think that’s the key to most creative endeavors.”
• Langhorne Slim & The War Eagles on health care: “I could live with a goiter.”
• Jessie Baylin on Guitar Hero: “I played for like nine hours straight. I didn’t eat or drink water.”
• The Black Ghosts on collaboration: “It’s almost like Voltron. You combine your strengths.”
• Rue Melo on censorship: “I can’t fucking say ‘bitch’ on the radio when they have ‘bitch’ on Family Guy!”
• Jordan Zevon on rock culture: “Even the guys that were heroin addicts, now you see them and they’re glowing healthy with their bottle of sport water and bag of nuts.”